This blog follows Melanie Stoll’s missionary trek on The World Race. She is the daughter of Wade and Rosetta Stoll, who own Stoll’s Taxidermy and The Wild Whisk in Wheatland. This is the ninth installment printed in the Record-Times. Read Stoll’s entire blog at melaniestoll.theworldrace.org.

March 30 —She never
heard the name ‘Jesus’
If you read my last update you will know that I hit a hard spot on the race. All month I have been tired mentally and physically. Many times I wonder how I’m going to complete this trip and then I feel guilty because I love this journey and I am so thankful for everyone’s help to get here. I think it’s okay to go through a season like this as long as I address it and don’t allow myself to sulk in it or set up camp.
After I wrote the last blog I asked the Lord to remind me why I’m on this trip, if I’m making a difference, and does any of this actually matter?
Meet 10 year old Strinoit and 13 year old Sinae.
These two beauties are sisters that my team and I met through the English classes we taught in the evenings. When they aren’t in school or at our English class, they help their parents out at a family restaurant we often frequented.
Like  many businessess, the business is in the front and the living quarters is directly in the back, many times with open walls so you can clearly see the living area from your table. Like many homes, an idol is set in the main area of the home, to be worshiped with the hope of getting good karma. Everytime we ate at this place, the statue was in my direct line of vision, a constant reminder they didn’t know Jesus.
One Sunday afternoon a team mate and I stopped by the restaurant to grab some food. When Sinae brought us our food, Dani my team mate said, “Come to church today,” held up two fingers to show her the time and waved in the direction of the team center. I have no idea if she understood what church was but she nodded with a big smile and an hour later showed up at the team center!
Y’all I was SO excited to see her there. She is secretly one of my favorites :). After the service I grabbed someone to translate for me so that Sinae and I could actually have a clear conversation. It was short but through it I learned that not only was it her first time to church, but THE FIRST TIME SHE HAD EVER HEARD ABOUT JESUS!!

Because of Sinae I was reminded that I’m on the race to point people to Jesus.
Because of Sinae I was reminded that one more person has heard a little about Jesus, a seed has been planted, and that will make a difference in her life.
Because of Sinae I was reminded that it all matters, because Sinae matters, Strinoit matters, and every other person I have encountered since day one of the race, MATTERS.
We are currently at debrief in Siem Reap, preparing to travel to Thailand on Monday. Saying goodbye to my English class was the hardest goodbyes I’ve had yet, and I am extra sad to leave Sinae. If only I had more time to spend with her. I can only pray that she will continue to go to church and that God will place someone in her life that can influence her and tell her more about Jesus. If Sinae finds Jesus, her whole family could find him!
I may never see Sinae again in this world, but I have a strong hope that someday we can have a conversation in heaven, without a translator. If there’s even the smallest possibility of that, I would do the race 10x over for her.
April 6 — I want
to know more about Buddhism
After a 10 hour bus ride and a 14 hour train ride, B squad has made it to Chang Mai, Thailand!
My team, Empower Rangers, have been placed in the city at the Adventures in Missions base; a hostel called Zion. A team that works for AIM, lives here long term to run the hostel. Its a great place to meet people passing through Thailand as well as giving us a chance to invest in the local women they have employed to work in the coffee shop on the main floor.
Ministry looks a little different this month. Its very relaxed but kind of difficult because we have to come up with our own things to do. This is called ATL; Ask The Lord. A lot of our time is spent in prayer, asking the Lord what He wants us to do, where we should go, what we should look for. We ask Him to place people in our path with open hearts, ready to hear the gospel. We do prayer walks around the city, always asking God where we should go, left or right, this coffee shop or that massage parlor? We ask for opportunities to open up for us, anything really, where we can spread some love and shine some light.
Yesterday we had the chance to go to a monk chat. A monk chat is a time specifically open to asking monks questions and time for them to practice speaking English. We spent about an hour talking to a 27 year old man that has been a monk since the age of 14. He told us he became a monk because Thai culture believes that if one person is a monk or a nun in the family, the whole family will go to heaven. His parents chose him. If he breaks any of the rules, he can not go back to being a monk. Now that’s a lot of pressure! There are over 200 rules they have to follow, everything from not sleeping on a bed, to the obvious ones like thievery or murder. His biggest desire is to teach people about Buddhism. It was hard to open a conversation about Christ because many questions he did not understand. It’s also intimidating being a foreigner in a country and challenging someones beliefs on probably the only thing they’ve ever known and something you have almost 0 knowledge on. And how do you bring up Jesus, when you’re not really suppose to, because it might disrespect him? To share the gospel with a monk is asking him to let his whole family down, to turn away from everything he knows as true. It would be a big risk with the chance of losing family, because it takes away their chance to get into heaven.
Before I talked to a monk, I viewed them as something holy, because that’s what they are suppose to be. I wondered if they ever laughed, if they knew about the outside world, if I was aloud to even talk to them. Turns out, monks are normal men that make jokes and have Iphones and social media and love watching TV. They are extremely educated and they work hard for what they believe in. They have familys that they love, and they sacrifice a lot to lead this lifestyle.
Buddhism is an interesting religion and I wish I knew more about it so that I could understand this culture better. But the little I do know, makes me really sad. The monks spend their lives giving their all to something that doesn’t even exist. There is so much false hope. The better they are, the better their next life will be. If you’re a normal person, giving food and money to the monks and the idols is how you earn good karma and a better second life.
It breaks my heart that there is such a better way of life but I’m not sure how to tell them; where you only have to have faith, and you will receive more love then you could imagine. A life where you don’t have to earn your way to heaven because you only need to confess with your mouth that you are a sinner and believe in your heart that God is the Lord of Lords. A life where you can have a relationship, a friendship, with the God that created and sacrificed everything for YOU.
Please pray for my team and I, that we can clearly hear the voice of the Lord this month, opportunities to share His love would be abundant, and that we would have the knowledge on how to do so!

April 13 — Awakened by an atheist
This past week we had a 3 day conference called The Awakening. B Squad plus 3 other World Race squads from around the region came together to learn, teach, worship, and love the Lord. Staff from the base here in Thailand joined us as well as straight out of Spain, Andrew Sherman, the main speaker.On the second day we had an active break out were we broke into groups and went into the city to evangelize or talk to anyone that would listen. If there is one thing in missionary work that I dislike the most, this is it. This is probably one of the scariest things you could ask me to do, but I was partnered with 3 other people I didn’t know, and this was not the time to be a chicken. So I put on fake confidence and hid my nerves. After walking around a local park for a bit, my group split into two’s to initiate conversations. 
My partner and I walked up to an older couple sitting in the grass. They were happy(ish) to talk to us but it quickly became clear they believed earth and everything on it was an accident. It also became clear they were down for a good debate on multiple things, including race discrimination in the States, to comparing Jesus to terrorists. I’ve never knowingly talked to an atheist about Jesus before, and my brain instantly started going blank. lol. So we told them what we believed, they hated it, but then I asked them to tell me what they believed. It broke my heart that two beautiful souls lived with the idea that there is no point to life, that Jesus existed and died, but many people die for what they believe in. 
After praying for them, moving on, and hoping to meet a non atheist, we sat down with a pretty, blond haired girl from England. She was so sweet and open to talking about religion. She grew up Protestant, but going to church was more of a charity for her family, so one day she just quit believing in God and decided we were an accident. Another atheist. She had many questions, and she respectfully let us tell her everything from the beginning of creation, to Jesus dying on the cross, to being risen. It was obvious she was searching and didn’t really know what she believed. At one point she said Hell was probably more fun then Heaven, and its where the artistic, free spirited, people go. Again, with this belief, another piece of my heart broke. 

I ended the day feeling really, really discouraged. I was like “ God, for the first time I go out and evangelize with a happy heart, and you send me to not one, but THREE atheists?! Like what in the heck, don’t you want me to grow in confidence? This actually makes me never want to evangelize again, because what I believe just got shot to the ground.” 
Yall, I complain about never hearing from the Lord, but He’s actually constantly talking to me through brilliant thoughts He puts in my head. This time He told me:
“Yo, look on the bright side. You faced one of your biggest fears and boldly told someone that you believe in me. Today, you told three people how loved they are by me. It’s not your job to make them believe that. Its your job to share my story. You caused 3 people to think about me and what they believe in, and that is enough.”
If you want to know what else went down at The Awakening, my team mate J. Wolf wrote a really cool blog. If you struggle with feeling loved, please go read her words that were only thoughts in my head:
http://jessicawolf.theworldrace.org/post/awaken-beloved
In other news, I think Asia is pretty neat and has really good coffee and muffins.