Why did I come to Bangkok?

I know this blog is public domain, which automatically makes it off limits for religious talk... but I don't want to make a liar of myself... God asked me to come. So, I came. He gave me direction and purpose too, which makes the whole process a good bit easier! I believe I am being built up to work with people like these women - specificity scares me, but I will try throwing out the specifics like people who have experienced sexual abuse or been a part of the sex trade.

So, what will I do? The short story is, I would like to have a rehab/retreat center that will take in these people and work through a long process of healing to hopefully and eventually help them to become functional, employable people. This visit to The Well is one of many steps toward making this idea a reality. This step is hopefully getting me closer to understanding the complexities of working in this capacity. For example, what are the initial and long term needs? How do you reach this group of people and find the ones that want/need to be freed from the bondage of their reality? How do you start and run an organization? Etc.

So, I didn't really come to help these girls or even The Well, though I do hope that I am able to do as much of that as I can while I'm here! I am so grateful that the people at The Well have allowed me to get so involved even though I am only here for a short amount of time! In order to preserve these experiences for future use, I have started taking notes on what I would want to emulate or change about The Well's model and way of doing things if I were to start a similar organization. In addition to visiting other organizations and picking the brains of everyone around me, this week I was able to join in on The Well's staff development meeting. What a wonderful surprise that this sort of thing is happening while I'm here with them!

There are four main people who run The Well. Jim and Judy are the original founders and Richard and Bee came along a few years ago. The four of them plus Cori who facilitated the meeting and I, sitting as quietly as I could at the edge of the table, met all day yesterday and talked about The Well: its vision and mission, its strengths and weaknesses, the absolute necessities for success. We will all meet again on wednesday. I am so glad to be able to join them for these amazingly pertinent discussions and am really excited to be learning SO MUCH about exactly what I came here to learn!