Life of Hattie: August 2012

note: I wrote this on August 8th, but my computer wasn't letting me upload pictures. And, I couldn't post without pictures. So, here you go finally.

I can't help but think about what I was doing a year ago today.

I was on an adventure.

I love adventures. I love seeing new places and meeting new kinds of people. I love trying to understand a new culture. I love trying new foods and smelling the new smells. It is just my favorite thing ever.

I also love coming home. I have people I would never want to leave for a long time. I love where I live. I love my life at home.... I just want an adventure every once and awhile.

A year ago I was in Thailand. I volunteered to help lead a 2 week trip there before I got engaged. Then I ended up getting engaged 5 months before the trip. I left for 2 weeks, 2 months before my wedding. Let's just say it was a little crazy. I left right when the preparations started to get really intense.

Looking back I can see that leaving for Thailand was a great thing to happen. I needed to step away from thinking about myself every minute of the day. In my opinion, planning a wedding can make a perfectly normal person into a very selfish one. I needed to step back and trust other people to handle some things. I needed to trust my life at home to Matt. I needed to spend some time thinking about some of the other 6 billion people in the world.

It wasn't easy being away for 2 weeks. I thought about Matt approximately every 30 seconds. I thought about my wedding every 2 minutes. I thought about my new apartment that Matt was moving into without me every 5 minutes. I am so grateful that God gave me an opportunity to step back and spend some time with him on an amazing adventure.

I love Thailand. The people are just so darn smiley. There are beautiful buildings. The street food is out of this world. The beaches in Pattaya are some of the most amazing beaches I have ever seen. The shopping in Pattaya was super fun. The outdoor markets are full of beautiful flowers, crazy bizarre fruit, stalls of glistening meats, scary fish and friendly Thai people selling their goods.
The other side of Thailand, and especially Pattaya is incredibly sad and dark. Pattaya Thailand is the sex tourism capitol of the world. Men come from all over the world to pay to sleep with Thai women and even children sometimes. Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand. But, since the police also benefit from the industry it is rarely enforced. The whole economy of Pattaya is based on Prostitution.

The worst area for prostitution is Walking street. This street is closed to vehicles at night (hence, walking street) and basically turns into a sexual free-for-all. (except, you have to pay) The street is lined with "bars", which are basically places to get a prostitute. Hundreds of drunken white people stumble around while hundreds of Thai women hope to make enough money that night to take care of their families.

We spent a night at Walking Street while in Pattaya. We worked with a part of YWAM Thailand, called Tamar Center. They work with prostitutes to try and get them out of the industry, give them another way of life and disciple them. They go to Walking Street on a regular basis to reach out to the women. The women in our group went with them one night. We were broke up into teams of two. Every team had at least one Thai speaker. I went with a Thai woman who works at the Tamar Center. She spoke Thai and a TINY bit of English. We went into a bar and sat down to order a coke. It just so happened that one of the women were we sat spoke English very well. I ended up having an hour long conversation with her about everything under the sun. She was absolutely beautiful in every way and loved practicing her English with me. A year later I can't tell you everything we talked about, but some things will be with me forever. She was 21 years old, from Northern Thailand. She grew up with a mom, a dad and a sister. Her family lived out in the country and had what sounded like a small farm. They also grew plants. She had come to Thailand a few months before. She told me about the friends she lived with. I told her about my upcoming wedding and where I lived. She told me she liked her coffee strong with a lot of milk, just like me. She told me she didn't really like working in the bar because she was always out so late with men and always felt tired.

My heart broke.

This was a girl just like me. She was outgoing and funny. We talked for an hour, like best of friends. We had so much in common. I would have liked to seen her the next day, and the next. It would have been fun to go the beach with her, or go to the outdoor market, or even just sit down and get some coffee. In that hour of talking and sharing she had become my friend.
My friend couldn't go to the beach or get coffee with me. She needed to sell her body, possibly multiple times that night. She would be raped and quite probably abused. She would probably turn to drugs or alcohol to get through the pain. She might get pregnant and have a half white baby to take care of. She would probably not know what it was like to plan a wedding. She would probably not go to school or have big dreams for her life. She would probably never know what love truly is.
In these ways she was very different from me.

Even know, I look back to that night with tears streaming down my face. My heart was forever changed. My spirit was softened to the cries of these women longing to experience the love of a savior.

Ever since that night my heart has been looking for a way to help. Every paper since then has somehow been tied to sex trafficking and slavery. It is everywhere. America, Asia, Europe, Milwaukee.
Lucky for me, in a year I will be a social worker. I have a secret dream. Do you want to hear it?
I want to open a home for girls who are in the sex trade and want to come out.
I have never really told that to anyone. But, I do so very much. I want to counsel them and show them true love. I want to wrap them up in my arms, let them cry and then take them out for coffee, like I never got to do with my friend in Thailand.

That is what I took away from Thailand. Isn't God cool? I love the dreams He gives me. They make me so excited!

I will leave you with some pictures from my trip. I hope they bring you joy, like they bring me.

first picture in Thailand! SUPER EXCITED!!!

I told you... AMAZING fruit.

me and Kate, about to eat some amazing baked goods

crafts with the youth group

riding in the back of the truck to church

outdoor market... LOVE THEM!

I ate one of those. :)

I love these people we were praying for. They have opened a place for children to come at night to be safe from pedophiles and other things. We cleaned and painted with them.