Outreach!

Week 6 of this Backpacker's Discipleship Training School, halfway through the lecture phase, and the time has finally come to reveal outreach teams! We have all been waiting with eager anticipation and spending time in prayer and fasting to seek out God's heart (His passion, love and longing) for the people that He sends us to. We are forming outreach teams a little bit differently than we did last year. We are focusing on sending out larger amounts of small teams rather than a smaller amount of large teams. The outreach team that I will be leading is exactly half the size of the one that I was a student on last year. My team consists of myself, Malori (24, Oregon), Luca (18, Switzerland) and Becky (18, BC). We will be spending eight weeks in Thailand. Out of 66 million people in Thailand 94.6% are Buddhist, 4.6% are Muslim and only 0.5% are Christian. Thailand is notorious for being a haven for human trafficking and sex slavery. Check out StopTheTraffik for more info on that. I urge you to get involved. Drugs come cheap and easy in Thailand despite the fact that even possession of a small amount will get you life in prison. Approximately 14 million foreigners visit Thailand every year. Our main focus will be reaching out to the backpackers that are traveling to Thailand in droves. They are seeking enlightenment by experimenting with Buddhist meditation and teaching. They are looking for adventure, excitement and any sort of pleasure that they can use to anesthetize the pain in their hearts. Their lives are defined by short term relationships and a world without consequences or responsibility. They are in bondage. They are in darkness. They are desperately crying out for something more, something real.
The vision of our team is to proclaim freedom, peace, love and hope. True freedom is found only in Jesus Christ. We go to worship, to intercede and to show God's love.
Our tickets haven't been booked yet but we will be leaving in mid-December. Start praying now. Thank you for partnering with me so faithfully. Your prayers are powerful and effective. There is a lot of preparation that needs to be done over the next few weeks and I am still waiting for full support to come in. Praise God that He has provided enough each step of the way.
Stay tuned to hear the answers to your prayers over the next few months.