Global Engagement teams keep service at the center of their trips, but service can look different in various places and situations. Summer Wiles ’26, a criminal justice and honors humanities double major, experienced firsthand how prayer can be a powerful expression of having a servant's heart during her time in Thailand.
Wiles’ journey to Thailand began a year ago when she wanted to go on a Global Engagement trip but wasn’t sure where God was leading her. When the trip descriptions were released, Wiles spent time praying for clarity about where to go. What stuck out in her prayers was the idea of being a light in the darkness. Thailand’s population is less than once percent Christian, so Wiles decided that was the trip she wanted to serve on. However, she didn’t have her passport, so Wiles decided to wait a year. When it came time to officially sign up for the trip, she was spiritually and emotionally ready. “I had such peace about it because there was no doubt Thailand was where the Lord was calling me to,” she said. “I had never felt so called to something like this, and I was looking forward to seeing how the Lord would work during the trip.”
The Thailand trip focused on prayer oriented ministry in the red light district. The team’s host ministry, Mesa Global, had spent time building relationships with some of the girls working in the district and preaching in the area. Together, the host ministry and the team went on prayer walks around the district and local temples, led worship, and participated in relational ministry by talking to the women.
Wiles had been preparing her heart for the trip for a year, but she still found it
emotionally challenging to see the conditions people were living in, particularly
in the red light district. Her immediate reaction was that she wanted to share the
Gospel with them, but that was not what the host ministry had in mind. “I had an expectation
of what ministry should look like, and I wanted to share Jesus with the people we
encountered, but with this ministry, we were only praying for people on our walks,”
she said.
As the team grew closer on the trip, they explored the area and visited the beaches, but they found the most joy and fulfillment in continuing their ministry on their own. Wiles and the team started doing prayer walks as they explored in their free time. Despite the heavy nature of spending time in the red light district, Wiles was surprised to find joy in the experiences the team created. “We had a lot of laughs together as a team,” she said. “We were able to be a light in the dark place whether that was through a devotional, leading worship, or singing together, and that overfilled me with the joy of the Lord.”
Wiles continually encountered her initial theme of being a light in the darkness during her time in Thailand while finding joy and hope in prayer. “We can forget how significant prayer is, but it’s so vital to the Kingdom," she said. “We shouldn’t treat prayer as a last resort when it should be our first response.” With a newfound respect for the power of prayer, Wiles hopes to share her servant’s heart with others by starting groups dedicated to doing prayer walks in her hometown and sharing Jesus with others. “Towards the end of the trip, I thought about how I would miss doing this work, but I realized that I can do this in my own community,” she said. “There are people here who need to experience our light, and it may seem scary, but we are the light in the darkness, so trust the Lord and he will give you peace going into those dark spaces.”