Operation Extreme Love, Pattaya, Thailand - Day 4, Friday

Craig and me with Ken, Shari and Joseph

This morning we had opportunity to share experiences and then we had an excellent teaching by Ken on praying for healing. He spoke of how healing often begins first in the soul; that the person knowing they are accepted and loved is what makes the difference. He reminded us of how Jesus would go after the least acceptable and the least loved people, and reminded us that we are not here to judge, but to show the unconditional love and mercy of God. 

Pu and Rose, our wonderful interpreters

After lunch, half our team went to the hospital to pray for the sick, and the other half made posters advertising ‘Free prayer’ and then went down to the beach where we had a great afternoon.


 I prayed with Joseph for a fellow who had cut his toe rather badly on broken glass, and then I went off to the pharmacy and bought some dressings and Betadine to clean it, and we cleaned it up and bandaged it for him. I know about sore toes! Ideally he needs not to walk on the foot for a while, but he is a street person, and I understand that it is going to be hard for him to follow this advice...

Releasing the birds

Meanwhile, Ken and Shari had got talking to some youngsters who were selling small brown birds, much like sparrows. They catch the birds in traps, and then sell them to people on the street, and people release them for ‘good luck’. Well, Joseph, Shari and I - all animal lovers - wanted to set the birds free, so we asked what it would cost to buy some. They were 100 Baht a pair. We spoke to the rest of our team and people contributed and soon  we were able to buy 10 of the little birds. But before we did so, we chatted with the boys and Rose from Cambodia shared the story of how she came to know Jesus, and they both ended up asking us to pray with them and they requested Bibles and wanted to know where they could go to church to learn more. And a young girl who was sitting nearby overheard all this and she suddenly started crying, and so we spoke with her, and she shared that she was from Cambodia and that she had had a fight with her boyfriend and so team members prayed with her too. 


And then Shari and Joseph and I selected our birds and we asked two Thai girls we had spoke to earlier to come and help us release them. And we decided to release them as a prophetic and symbolic act (1) of the presence of the Holy Spirit in Pattaya, (2) a reminder that God cares about every living thing, small and big, and if His eye is on the sparrow, then it is certainly on all the people we have spoken with this week, and (3) of our hope that those who are in captivity here – mental or physical – will be free one day... I thought very much of the children in the sex trade at this point. It was a special thing to do...

Sharing love with an Englishman

Christin had been playing the guitar in the background all this time, and a man from Liverpool had come over to chat with her. He looked as if he had lived a hard life. They talked for a long time and then Helen joined them and he ended up praying to receive Jesus. And Tassannee, one of the interpreters (what a formidable personality!), came and encouraged him to come to her church, because it is an international church and the service is in English. He said he would think about doing so. 


We went back to our hotel for a while. Later, we divided into our teams for the evening. Craig's  team went to Walking street, where the bar scene is pretty blatant, and as you walk past the bars you are offered menus by scantily dressed girls - menus not for food, but with a list of sexual acts and the price. Rough stuff! 

Some of the staff of HON

Our team went first to visit HON. HON is an organisation that offers health advice and counselling for HIV positive ladyboys (transgender people). We were welcomed with so much honour. It was a very humbling experience. They freely and graciously answered all our questions, many of which were very personal. Their hearts were completely to try to help us understand. In many cases, their stories were heartrendingly sad. Kim ended up asking if we could bless them as a group, and she shared about standing in the place of another person, and asked if we could stand in the place of those who had rejected and wounded them and ask for forgiveness. This they were very willing to do and we prayed for them and it was very emotional all round. Visiting Hon was a very worthwhile experience. 


Later we went to visit a transgender bar, and this was a real challenge for the mind. We were surrounded by exceptionally beautiful women... but not one of them WAS a woman. They look like women and act like women, but they are actually male. Often called ladyboys in Thailand, but our interpreter said we should be careful about doing this, as it could be an insult... many of them prefer just to be known as transgender people. We had conversations with a few of them. They were very open and happy to share about their lives. In some cases it was the parents who had, from an early age, treated them as if they were little girls rather than boys. As teenagers they had taken female hormones. And later they had had surgical breast implants. 

Craig and I, comparing notes later, agreed that – for different reasons - it had been probably our most difficult evening in Pattaya. We went out for a very late supper to a small German restaurant. Our waitress was lovely. Her name was ‘On’ and she said how happy she was to work for her boss, because he was a very kind man, and very good to his staff. But she said she was concerned because the restaurant did not seem to be very busy. So we asked if we could pray with her for the business to be blessed, and she said yes please, and we did. We asked her never to consider working in the bars... and she said she did not want to. I said I would come and look for her at the restaurant when I come to Thailand again. She laughed! And so the difficult evening ended well, with us catching a glimpse of a different side of life here...