I did not have a chance to blog our last few days in Thailand. We are home now :) I'll throw out what went down the last few days there:
Thursday: We had a meeting in our Girl Headquarters (our living room in the suite where our more private meetings were held) We packed gift bags for the girls for Thursday night's banquet. We went to a jewelry emporium & had a chance to see the process that sapphires & rubies go through from rock form to finish & "shop". I felt like Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama when she has all of Tiffany's to herself. There was this huge gorgeous jewelry store with people working behind each counter waiting to help us. It was a fun little retreat.
Then we went back to the hotel and got ready for the banquet. The theme of the banquet was "You Are The Bride Of Christ" so we decorated like a wedding reception. There were gorgeous flowers, a HUGE wedding cake, ice sculptures, decorations everywhere! And of course our professional photographer (she came on the trip to document it & took pics of the banquet & all the girls) There were about 130 safe house girls. They were so excited. We gave them gift bags full of makeup, perfume, dolls, lotions, bath wash, stationary, etc..... they were so excited!!! It was fun to serve them! We had 2 of our girls @ each table with 8 Thai girls. I was amazed at how well we could communicate. Almost all the girls @ my table spoke a little English-enough that we could carry a conversation.
Dinner started with a cold cuts platter that had all sorts of weird colored & textured things-all I understood was jellyfish & ginger. Then we had shark fin soup followed by a whole pig. The pig's skin was crispy & cut in strips, I thought it looked like bacon. It did NOT taste like bacon. I guess we were suppose to eat the skin then the servers take the pig away to finish cooking it. A girl ripped the ears off for me & the other girls @ my table to eat. I choked them down dreaming of the pizza party we were going to have later that night. I don't know what came out after that...fish & prawns & such....I was busy helping with games on stage. We kind of did a giant bridal shower. We had pinatas, pin the accessories on the bride, and make a wedding dress out of rolls of toilet paper & then we had a fashion show. The girls loved it!! Some of them never had a childhood so playing games was something new for them. We were laughing so hard we were crying! We then got to eat the YUMMY cake and Becky gave a short message. I looked around the room & all the wait staff from the hotel was sitting listening to her message. When we all got up and held hands singing praises the hotel staff joined hands & singing with us. It was so moving and maybe one of them will receive the message given. After tearful goodbyes, we headed up to girl headquarters for a pizza party-yummy food!!
Friday: We heard presentations from Bimala & Ruth on their ministries in Nepal & Cambodia working with trafficked girls and girls at risk of being trafficked. We then did a prayer walk to the Buddhist center. This was on some corner of the street where people from all over the world come to pray to the mix of a Buddha/Hindu god. There were traditional Thai dancers, music, incense, holy water, kneeling benches, etc....there. People were even buying little cages of birds and would pray over the birds then release them so they'd carry the prayers tot he spirits. It was so sad to see them praying so hard to an idol. One of the girls just prayed, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do-so true!! There was a girl who kneeled the whole time we were there on the pavement in her skirt praying.
Some girls from the safehouses came to the hotel friday & we got more of a chance to visit with them. Anyone who went to the Gala heard Thom & Kay speak. They are so sweet & incredible and I was so blessed to be able to spend some time talking with them. Then it was tearful goodbyes again. This time it really was goodbye. We wouldn't be seeing them again this trip.
We spent Friday night Covering Bimala & Ruth in prayer before they go out to their ministries. This was a powerful emotional time. It was so wonderful to spend time with my sisters in such intimate prayer time.
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