Lighthouse In Action Foundation
The Lighthouse in Action Foundation is our ministry partner in Thailand. This foundation is a governmental designation that allows for ministry expansion, extended and working visas, and additional benefits by clearing the way to work with governmental agencies within Thailand. Through this designation, we will be able to continue to expand meeting ministry opportunities including additional children’s homes, retreat center(s), counseling center(s), safe houses, missionaries, and micro-financed business development for those rescued from sex work.
How Can I Help?
Love Acts
Loving through our Actions
Chiang Mai, known as Thailand’s rose of the north, and a prominent sex tourism destination, is home to at least 5,000 male, female and child prostitutes. During tourist ‘high season’ every November to March, the numbers can swell to nearly 25,000 prostitutes as visitors crowd Chiang Mai’s bars, nightclubs, massage parlors, or karaoke bars. If you talk statistics, it can seem hopeless.
Though the red-light district may be dark, there is no darkness that can overcome the Light, and so that is what we bring on a weekly basis. We venture out daily into the red-light district to bring the Light, and Love of Jesus Christ. We build relationships with the girls, ladyboys, and children who work there, both in the bar, and by making dates outside the bar environment. We love them, listen to them, and share our lives with them. We know that there is a Hope for them.
We teach English in bars, and massage parlors, three times a week. This is another way we build relationships.
There are several young children who work in the red-light district selling roses. We build a trusting relationship with them as well, and they view us as “safe places” while they are working throughout the night.
Many of these children live in nearby “slums”. Four times a week we visit the slums, to teach English, play games, love them, and show them Jesus through our actions and lives. We pray they will come to know the Creator who has plans to prosper them, to give them a hope and a future.
In Love Acts, we don’t just SAY ” I love you”, we DO “I love you”. We walk alongside the outcasts, let them see the transformation Christ has done in us, and let them know it can be done in them as well.
X-Life
The Adventure of a Lifetime
Experience the Thai way of life. X-change your life for theirs; an X-treme life X-perience.
Believers in Christ have the exciting opportunity to participate in the ultimate travel experience with Lighthouse in Action. Promising more than merely an experience, it offers the rewarding privilege to combine travel and ministry.
Experience a part of the country and culture most visitors only read about. Through X-Life, you will experience living, and working with the local Thai people in their real homes, real fields, real situations in real Thai villages, while making a real difference for all eternity.
The villages are often visited by sex-brokers who are looking to purchase the children living there. The parents are not aware of the evils that are awaiting their children, and if they are, they view it as a means of sustainable income for the family.
If this mindset can be changed, then the root of the issue of commercial sexual exploitation begins to get cut off. The only way that their minds can be renewed is through the Word of God that you carry in your lives, and stories.
As you learn about their lives, they will learn about yours. As you prayerfully share your lives with one another, sharing Christ will come naturally, and effectively! There is also a great opportunity for teams to do a special program for the villagers, as a goodbye event.
Why X-Life?
- Combat the issue of human trafficking at the root
- Share Christ in remote areas that few reach
- Outside a hotel room, beyond a tour bus
- Travel that impacts lives
- Making memories and making a difference
- Develop relationships that last a lifetime.
- Utilizing prayer, team unity, and lifestyle evangelism
- Come prepared to change a life, and have your life changed forever
Zion Cafe & Hostel
Zion Cafe Features:
- Hours: Monday – Saturday from 8am – 8pm (closed Sundays)
- Upbeat, casual, relaxed atmosphere
- Indoor dining area
- Outdoor patio seating
- Free Wifi
Zion Menu
Zion Cafe offers a variety of Western and local Thai dishes, coffee, and smoothies.
Practice English at Zion
Aside from serving great food, one of the goals of Zion Cafe is to provide a friendly learning environment where anyone is welcome to come and practice English. Lighthouse in Action (and by association, Zion Cafe) regularly hosts English-speaking volunteers who are available to chat with our local Thai customers.
Creating a “Won” Generation
We are located directly beside Pantip Plaza, just behind the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Our location is also very close to two of Chiang Mai’s vocational colleges. The students of these colleges are known around here as “trouble makers” and the “bad kids.”
We have a heart to go into these colleges and build relationships with these students. Many of them will go to the streets near their colleges to try to get jobs. And what is located just outside of their colleges? The Red Light district. By establishing a place to experience life, culture, fun, and faith, we will see young people’s lives changed through personal relationships with their Creator.
In short, Zion is all about being creative and living life with Jesus.
Lighthouse Guesthouse
The Lighthouse Guesthouse is a peaceful, safe living space for you and your team to be refreshed and live as a community. It is a place to worship and offer intercession during your mission trip. A place where you can feel at home in the middle of Chiang Mai.
Rooms and Facilities
We have 8 comfortable rooms that are ready for guests:
- 4 rooms with fans: 300 baht/room/night
- 4 rooms with A/C: 500 baht/room/night
- Extra bed is 150 baht/mattress (on the floor)
Each room comes with:
- a private bathroom with western toilet
- hot shower
- private balcony
- two single beds
- option to add a mattress for a third person
Transfer
We can arrange pick up and drop off to the guesthouse whether you are traveling by plane, bus, or train. The price for pick up/drop off ranges from 150 – 250 baht. If you prefer to take a taxi, we are located only 10 minutes from Chiangmai International Airport, 15 minutes from the train station, and 20 minutes from the bus station.
We can assist you with everything you need for your stay, and time serving, in Chiangmai.
Meals
You are welcome to prepare your own breakfast. The Lighthouse Guesthouse has a kitchen stocked with utilities ready for you to use.
Lunch and Dinner can be arranged through local restaurants around the area. You can also order online and have the food delivered to you.
Internet
Wireless internet is available and can be accessed from every bedroom in the building, and in the main living room. It is 50 baht/day if you bring your own notebook/laptop. We have two desktop computers available to use at 15 baht/hour.
Laundry
We have a laundry machine at the guesthouse which is 50 baht/load. All clothing can be hung dry. This is self-service. If there is a need to iron, you can inform our staff.
Tour Services
We can also provide sight seeing daily tours for our guests, and can help you with car rental, motorbike rental, flight or hotel booking, and any information you need.
Children’s Homes
Beginning in Thailand, and extending to other areas of the world, WonGeneration has been involved in the ‘bricks and mortar’ part of building homes to house displaced children. The situation for these children is as varied as the children are.
In some cases, such as a Northern Thai village named Maelota, the local church had been running a large home for many years to allow the surrounding areas, which were incredibly remote, to send there children to live in the village and attend a local school. Without that offer, there was no possible way that hundreds (yes, you read that right) of students could make the round trip walk from their homes to the Thai built school. Currently the church supports an upwards of 150 students, grades K-8.
But what about high school?
With the school that was mentioned in the previous paragraph, the challenge that was pointed out was that when the students complete their 8th grade, the nearest high school was a three hour walk. That is in addition to however long it takes to get to this village. We were able to locate someone willing to donate land and in 2012 another group home was built in a village called Ban Wat Chan. This home is called “House of the Risen Son”. Because the home is not supported by a village or a church, WonGeneration is also offering child sponsorships with the goal of both supporting this home as well as allowing the youth to prepare to go on to a university/college or tech school.
While this story is being repeated in other places, sometimes homes are created because there is such incredible abuse in some remote villages that someone has to do something to rescue these children. This is how the Fountain of Hope home was brought into existence; through a couple who felt called to rescue children from a particular remote village. The atrocities that have been committed on some of these children is too much to list here but we are determined to give these children a loving home environment. This means that our home size remains rather small to come as close to a ‘family’ feeling as possible. We aim to create sustainable properties so contributions can go toward education rather than daily living expenses.