Greetings dear family and friends!
As some of you may recall I wrote a letter back in November talking about my upcoming missions trip to the Philippines and Thailand with Youth With A Mission. Well here we are months later and I’m back in one piece. I’m sorry that I took so long to write a follow-up letter, but as promised, I wanted to write y’all to share about my time abroad. But before I get ahead of myself I should start of by saying a massive THANK YOU. My journey with YWAM was spontaneous and unplanned on my part, but I believe it was God’s plan all along. It took a lot to get me through those six months and I could not have done it without you guys. Thank you so much for your thoughts, your prayers, and your generous giving. It made a difference. I am truly blessed to have you all as friends.
Our trip began with two and a half weeks in the Philippines. We
were working just outside of Manila
in Taytay, Rizal. After a couple days of working with local churches we headed
out to a remote village for a tree planting project to help benefit a small
orphanage by the name of Destiny’s Promise. Before leaving the States we had
someone donate our team enough money to purchase 1,100 lemon trees. There was
hot weather and a steep mountain hike, but in our three days there we were able
to plant about 600 trees.
After that we went back to Taytay to spend the remainder of our time working at the orphanage. Our nine days there were one of the top highlights of the trip for me. Growing up as the youngest in my family, I never had much experience or interest with younger kids, but it was impossible to not have a heart for kids after my time there. It was so awesome to spend time with them every day and pour into them. God really gave me a glimpse of what His Father Heart is like. Though many of the children there have faced so much abuse and neglect from their earthly families, it’s such a comfort to know that they have a heavenly Father who cares for them so deeply. Our heavenly Father can provide all we need, heal all our wounds, and He dreams incredible dreams over us. It was hard to say goodbye. A couple of children in particular really gained a place in my heart, but my thoughts and prayers remain with them, and maybe one day I will be able to go back.
On January 3rd we said all our goodbyes and flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and it was there that we spent our first month of Thai ministry. We stayed at Wongen Café and partnered with the owner in her local ministries. Wongen constantly hosts a variety of missionary teams and has long term workers from abroad that help tutor English to local students. The café is located directly across the street from Chiang Mai University, so it has a very strategic position to reach out to students. Aside from the university, the owners other two ministries focus on human trafficking. One sends missionaries into Chiang Mai’s red light district to reach out directly to workers in the sex industry. The other sends groups into rural villages to help build up and support their local communities. Many families send their children to the city to work in the sex industry so that they can send money back home. Often times families send away their children under false pretenses that they will be working in a legitimate industry.
After that we went back to Taytay to spend the remainder of our time working at the orphanage. Our nine days there were one of the top highlights of the trip for me. Growing up as the youngest in my family, I never had much experience or interest with younger kids, but it was impossible to not have a heart for kids after my time there. It was so awesome to spend time with them every day and pour into them. God really gave me a glimpse of what His Father Heart is like. Though many of the children there have faced so much abuse and neglect from their earthly families, it’s such a comfort to know that they have a heavenly Father who cares for them so deeply. Our heavenly Father can provide all we need, heal all our wounds, and He dreams incredible dreams over us. It was hard to say goodbye. A couple of children in particular really gained a place in my heart, but my thoughts and prayers remain with them, and maybe one day I will be able to go back.
On January 3rd we said all our goodbyes and flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and it was there that we spent our first month of Thai ministry. We stayed at Wongen Café and partnered with the owner in her local ministries. Wongen constantly hosts a variety of missionary teams and has long term workers from abroad that help tutor English to local students. The café is located directly across the street from Chiang Mai University, so it has a very strategic position to reach out to students. Aside from the university, the owners other two ministries focus on human trafficking. One sends missionaries into Chiang Mai’s red light district to reach out directly to workers in the sex industry. The other sends groups into rural villages to help build up and support their local communities. Many families send their children to the city to work in the sex industry so that they can send money back home. Often times families send away their children under false pretenses that they will be working in a legitimate industry.
Twice a week our team would go to the red light district to reach out to workers and patrons alike. It was a huge challenge to me personally. The spiritual atmosphere was incredibly heavy and I certainly felt out of place. As a white male, when you enter the bars there’s a clear assumption that you are there for sex. But as we returned and developed relationships week after week it became clear that we were there for other reasons. I know that many seeds were planted through our presence there and the love that we were able to share with the workers. And we were able to see a clear impact before moving on to the next city. One of the bars in the heart of the red light district was a “lady boy” bar. We started to put a lot of emphasis on the workers there in our final few visits. One of the workers there had grown up in a Christian family and actually went through a YWAM program a couple of years ago. One of the guys on our team, Dalton, was able to have an amazing conversation with him on our last visit. He said that the simple act of seeing us there week after week had made him want to change. My friend was able to love on him, encourage him in God’s love and pray with him. By the end of the night he said he didn’t want to work there anymore! Dalton went back to the red light district one last time with a different YWAM team and reported that that worker was no longer there! Praise God!
We also developed several good relationships through our time at Chiang Mai University. There was a group of three friends there that were of particular importance to me. We would go have lunch with them at the university almost every day and hung out with them many other times outside of school. They became very close friends with our group. We were able to share about Jesus a lot with them. The next city we went to was actually the hometown of Moss, one of our friends from this group. He came and visited us while we were there and told us that shortly after we had left he accepted Christ! It is interesting that our trip began with tree planting, because seed planting turned out to be the theme of our ministry. Serving people and sharing about Christ when we had opportunity. But it was so awesome that we got to see the direct impact of our work through two people’s lives in Chiang Mai.
The final leg of my trip was spent in Mae Sot, Thailand which is a border town with Burma. We were working with a local pastor in a variety of ministries. Several years ago he started a school for Burmese refugees. We visited there several times, working on construction projects and teaching the kids. We also did “open air” ministry in several places around the city, which consisted of sharing skits, music, testimonies and bible stories in public. We took donations during our open air ministry to help raise funds for the school. But my personal highlight of Mae Sot was the two trips that I was able to take to a Burmese clinic. They had a pregnancy ward, a sick ward, a sick children’s ward, and what was called the “Lost and Lonely Room”, which was home to several sick/gravely injured people who lived at the clinic. One of the men there had been severely burned by acid at a work accident and could no longer walk. He was a musician and I was able to play guitar and sing for him which he really seemed to enjoy. And there was an elderly woman with dementia that we spent time with and gave gifts. But most amazing of all was our time praying for people in the sick ward. Growing up in church my whole life, I’ve always been accustomed to people praying for healing. Jesus did heal in the Bible after all. But I never had much faith behind it. I had never seen it for myself. But that changed. There was a language barrier so we weren’t able to ask people how they felt after praying for them, but on one occasion there was physical proof. I was praying for one man, and when I placed my hand on his arm I felt that he was burning up with fever, hotter than I had ever encountered before. After a few minutes of my friend and I praying, we noticed that his fever was completely gone! And who knows what else God was healing in his body. I was so blessed to be able to witness that. God truly can heal and He still does!
Beyond all of our ministry, there was one testimony there is very near to my heart. While I was in the Philippines I received my own healing. I developed type-1 bi-polar disorder when I was 17. Even with medication, every single month I would have manic episodes where I was unable to sleep for days and I would also fall into deep depressions. My depression was at it’s worst point before I came to YWAM. Not only because of my bi-polar disorder but because of years of separation from God and not having a relationship with Him. During lecture phase in LA, for the first time in my life I began to seriously consider the possibility of God healing me. And before leaving for the Philippines I got a strange feeling that it was going to happen on outreach. I was manic the few days leading up to our departure and got a nasty cold as a result. During our first week of outreach many of us had colds and my team prayed for me. During prayer one of the leaders of my team said that he got a vision of chains being broken off of me. He said he didn’t know what that meant but that I might. Immediately I thought I should ask for prayer for my bi-polar disorder, but I didn’t. Nonetheless I prayed on my own a few days later, and for the first time in years, I haven’t had a sleepless night in months. I’m so humbled and overwhelmed at God’s love that He would choose to heal me. Its true what the Bible says, His grace truly is sufficient.
Here we are a few months later. I’m now back living in Santa Rosa, but I hope to go back to LA as soon as possible to take a leadership training course so that I can become a staff member at YWAM LA. I would be blessed if you could join me in prayer for God’s guidance and provision for this season of my life.
If you’d like to see more about my time in YWAM you can read
online at trevorywam.blogspot.com. I have posts from throughout my trip and a
video of the testimony I was able to give at our graduation ceremony.
Once again, I have to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I can’t tell you how impacting those six months in YWAM were on my life, and you were a part of that through your thoughts, prayers and support. I hope that God richly blesses you for the blessing you have been in my life. I hope you’re all in good health and good spirits and that your families are doing well. Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to hear more about the trip, share your thoughts, or if you have a prayer need that I can join you in.
trevorywam@gmail.com
God bless!
