Bangkok 2011

July 29, 2011 - The Final Declaration

We declare this boldly both in spirit and in truth over Bangkok, Thailand as we swiftly return to our lives:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion – to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks; foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers; but you shall be called the priests of the LORD; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations; and in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion, and they shall have everlasting joy. For I the LORD love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully five them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their offspring shall be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of all peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the LORD has blessed.” Isaiah 61:1-8

And so as we say goodbye to Bangkok and to the people that have come to live so sweetly in our hearts, minds, and prayers – we look ahead and pray for the day that all of the idols and Buddhas, temples and shrines, ancestor offerings and flowers, talismans and prayers will be laid at the cross of Jesus Christ because Bangkok will know… our friends will know… that He was and is and will always be the only King of Bangkok. The only God of this city.

Amen.

-Emmie

July 26, 2011 - Stripped Clean

As we trekked through the last week in Bangkok both with purpose and urgency, my site team and I spent a lot of time in reflection of how we saw God move in love and power in our communities and in us over the past five weeks. We realized that this experience has forced us to examine the comforts that once gave us strength and peace and joy, and we are now able to name the comforts because their presence has been so removed from our lives these past weeks. Because they are missing, we have all had to deal with the emptiness they left behind in our own individual ways. Some of us feel incredibly powerless, unconnected, and lonely – others may feel vulnerable and exposed – others simply incredibly hot and tired. This trip has revealed our weaknesses and unmasked some of our deepest fears. It has been at times a painful and troubling process both internal and external, and it has left many of us wondering why we gave up our summers just to feel uncomfortable, tired, and bare.

However, in light of this, my team saw clearly the grace and provision of God in this situation. We have all been stripped clean – and in this raw and authentic state we discovered a valuable truth – the beautiful traits and characters of God like love, joy, peace, and patience… things like goodness and kindness, and faithfulness… these grow and are refined during the times when Jesus walks with us through hardship and suffering, struggle and pain. This is good news!

It isn’t hard to conjure up feelings of joy and gentleness and love in our regular lives, as we are provided for in most of our heart’s desires. However, when placed in an environment that has stripped us clean of our families and friendships, our responsibility, our language and cultural environment, our comfort and power, and our security – we have had to wrestle and groan and beg God to grow in us these fruits. And we have realized that true joy and true peace and true love (etc.) are garments that clothe our bodies, minds, and souls both in times of abundance and plenty and also in times of suffering and pain. This is a truth we have learned from our neighbors – who while being denied all good things we are given freely in America, still live in the joy of the Lord and still love with the sacrificial outpouring of Christ.

Because God is both steadfast and unchanging, so are the fruits of His Spirit – they too remain steadfast and unchanging despite our external or internal circumstances. And our prayer is that God would clothe us with these in lasting and true ways by remembering the places that were exposed this summer – the places that were yearning for God once we stifled the voices our idols, so that we may find the power to put on love and joy and peace and patience…

...and thank goodness, the list goes on.

-Emmie

July 19, 2011 - Grace Amidst the Bittersweet

As Abi, Summy, and I enter our final week at the Ruth Center, each progressive day carries both an air of anticipation and an underlying bittersweet aftertaste.

Each of us has plenty to look forward to as this time draws to a close. There’s family to see, friends to chat with, difficult living conditions to vacate, and sticky, humid discomfort to leave behind. Yet at the same time, we each have families we’ve grown close to, relationships we’ve invested in, and people we may never see again in our lifetimes.

Personally, this trek has in many ways been a wilderness that God’s been leading me through, and I’m particularly eager to exit said wilderness, too. God’s called out plenty of broken segments in my relationship with him, and they’ve not been easy to swallow. At the same time, never have I had more time to spend with Jesus in his Word and in prayer. Never have I been forced to pray for and trust in God’s sovereignty and goodness, because I can’t see any direct results. It’s been good.

I believe God uses the trek to present each trekker with obstacles both insurmountable and unconquerable. Through our ministry sites, he unearths hurts and wounds we don’t want to deal with. Following Jesus costs us; through trials of many kinds, his Spirit reveals to us what we need to surrender, and that process can be painful. My time here has been peppered with ample anger, frustration, despair, sweat, and tears. There’s nothing cute about taking up a cross.

Yet Jesus keeps asking me to choose him.

The truth is that choosing Jesus hasn’t become easier, but his grace is more than sufficient in his own timing. I promise you, I’ve made mistakes – over the last weeks, I’ve gotten plenty angry and Jesus for not responding with peace or comfort or joy when I demand for his Spirit to do so.

I returned from the mid-point retreat, preparing deep in my heart to engage with more wilderness. Despite the intimidation I felt, I knew that despair and anger had no place in my walk with Jesus. He was calling me to something greater, to celebrate his unwavering nature even in desolation, to trust in his abundance instead of living like his power and blessing are scarce. I didn’t deserve the beautiful things he’s given me this week. Yet, he’s poured them out to the overflowing.

In the last week, our team met a Korean acupuncturist named Steve Pae who travels two months of every year to serve the poor in Thailand and other countries. Steve asked us for our details because he said his heart was touched seeing the three of us living with our families in the communities. He considered us inspiration for his church youth group – despite how deeply unworthy I feel being anyone’s inspiration.

We got to meet Yaay Pensri’s granddaughter Nan, who’s brought a huge number of hugs, giggles, laughter, and fun into our lives. I got a brief glimpse of what it’s like to delight in a daughter. We took our grandparents to Suan Luang, a park dedicated to the King of Thailand. Grandpa grinned goofily like a little kid, and it made me realize just how much I like making him smile – and how much I will miss making him smile.

So I’ve learned a little more how to wait – not for the trek to be over, or for the day to end, or for the next time I will see my team mates (though such things do cross my mind to varying degrees). We wait upon the Lord. Sometimes the waiting’s hard, and sometimes the loving is hard. Yet we wait, because in each moment, the Spirit moves.

As we prepare to say goodbye to these grandmas and grandpas, let us wait upon the Lord. Let us leave a piece of our hearts. Let us hurt as we say our farewells. This bittersweet wilderness has been good, because our good God walks with us through it. We take the next step forward, trust, and sacrifice a little bit more to let his supernatural love shine through.

God’s goodness remains true in times of sorrow and in season of joy; and when his grace pours out in the wilderness, it’s the sweetest thing you’ll ever see.

-Ansell

July 15, 2011 - A New Thing

“Behold, I am doing a new thing!” –Isaiah 43:19

This proclamation becomes clearer to me every day. It is evident even in the most mundane and normal events of life – like the sprouting of flowers out of the broken concrete or the fresh rains brought upon the dry soil. Jesus is doing a new work here in Bangkok, and it is everywhere, one just needs to know where to look.

And for us, my site team and I, we need not look further than the end of our street. Our little street, lined with shanty and dilapidating homes and all manner of obscure objects, holds something precious and treasured: children. Certainly nothing brings more life and joy than a child, and we are lucky to live next to ten beautiful children, all of which have taught us valuable lessons about the Kingdom of God…. a Kingdom that belongs to them.

It can be easy for us as experienced and older Christians with educations and financial stability to come into these situations with preconceived ideas of how to bring the Kingdom into Bangkok. But the more we tried to desperately cling to our ministry plans and goals for our neighborhood, the more God revealed to us that He is doing an entirely new thing here in Bangkok – like the children on our neighborhood, He is flooding the streets with joy and life. He is washing the city clean and declaring over it: “You are mine.”

So I ask, please pray for this new generation in Thailand – for God is doing a new thing in them. Pray that He would raise them up to know Him as the only God, and that they would cast the idols of their ancestors at His feet in worship. Pray that He would raise them up as a loving and good Father, and teach them His ways. Pray that they would take their place in here Thailand and walk in righteousness, selflessness, and faith all the days of their lives.

-Emmie

July 12, 2011 - No Longer an Annoyance

As I walk around in my community, I often catch the faint tinkle of piano keys here and there. I get really excited because somewhere, a child’s actually practicing piano and doing a good job about it. Then, I let out a crestfallen sigh when I realize the budding music major’s just the sound coming from a television.

Until I got here, piano and violin rehearsing was but a vague occasional annoyance in the neighborhood. Now, I’ve realized how these “common” things represent something are cultural indicators in middle- and upper-class wealth and society. Yet, more significantly, they’ve become representative to me of the hope I have for the children and the overall neighborhood’s future – a hope that I have to fight for to cling to.

The weeks thus far have been filled with plenty of ups and downs. Personally, I continue to wrestle deeply with a community, and environment, and a slew of challenges that God has presented to me: leaning upon him instead of any other; laying down the idols of friendship and self-worth; learning how to walk deeply in a wilderness with only God’s promises to rely on.

Our team of four was reduced to a team of two over the last ten days. Daniel and Summy contracted a virus drastically lowering their blood platelet count. They were hospitalized for three days. Such illnesses or bodily injury commonly occur with teams working in the Ruth Center. Spiritual battles continue to take place over these people’s lives (Please pray for our team as we continue our ministry of presence here and God advances his kingdom).

The Lord continues to show me beautiful things about how his hand and his Spirit moves in the communities. A Korean DTS (YWAM) team came to share with the Ruth Center bible study on Thursday, and they spent time in the communities praying for many households. Living here, I see their hopes and dreams, their sacrifices and despair, and I have the privilege of giving my heart away as I live and pray with the elderly, who Jesus wants to have a relationship with just as badly as he wants to with me.

Though the percentage of Christians is small, it seems each church or organization I’ve encountered has a deep, driving love for Jesus and for the Thai people fueling their mission, their purposes, their worship, their thanksgiving, and their oneness as the body of Christ. Their passion and genuineness is infectious. Whether it’s the college ministry we’ve visited on Tuesdays, the various incarnational ministries who encourage and support each other, or the YWAM leadership meeting Pii Noi invited me to attend, the heart of the body of Christ here is deeply moving.

The YWAM prayer meeting focused on orphans in the region, and the prayer leader invited us to think deeply what love – or lack of love – really means to an orphan. He shared his time spent at an orphanage in Malaysia.

I cried. As I sat and listened to him describe what orphans go through, searching for someone who truly gives them affection, testing newcomers to see if they will receive attention. It’s beyond tragic for a child to grow up never knowing how to be loved by a father or mother – and I imagined how greatly this angers our God, how deeply the Holy Spirit grieves for such as these.

I wept bitterly at how the church has failed orphans, even though loving orphans is written throughout Scripture. Directly. We, who are supposed to know the love of the one perfect Father – and keep it to ourselves. I wept for the millions of children searching, yearning for a love that’s been unjustly denied to them. My heart broke. Deeply. Sorrowfully. Furiously.

And I realized what a difference it’s made. To live with the widow, with the oppressed, the orphan, the fatherless, in my neighborhood. To know a vague shadow of the sorrow Jesus must feel for the downtrodden, and for every time the body of Christ misses it.

As I continue to walk, I’ve slowly realized that though this journey calls out painful and difficult change in me, it’s also proved that this temple of the Holy Spirit shouldn’t be able to do anything other than give everything I’ve got to see God’s shalom restored, to see justice and mercy and love come to the least of these.

So I pray I walk forward, though it’s hard. I listen to the sound of the pianos and violins. And I pray for a future where the children, their fathers and mothers, grandmas and grandpas might catch that deeper, everlasting fountain of hope that Jesus provides.

-Ansell

July 12, 2011 - Sunshine in a Dark and Weary Land

The other day, I witnessed the most profound and moving act of worship I have ever seen. There were no words – no songs or musical instruments – no flashing lights and loud proclamations of the goodness of God – it was simply this: a deaf man raising his gnarled hands toward the sky and signing, “I love You, Jesus” slowly and passionately. As I sat on my favorite bench in the park watching this intimate and powerful moment between God the Creator and His precious creation – I realized that truly, most certainly, absolutely -- God uses the weak and foolish and low to shame the wise and strong and powerful.

“Pig” is one of my closest friends here. He is a 52 year old deaf Thai man with the heart and smile of a child – partly because he is both moderately physically and mentally handicapped. From the moment I met “Pig” (his sign name – also a common Thai nickname) I realized I had encountered a person clothed and dripping wet in the goodness and sweetness of God; “Pig” is a living and breathing example of God’s tender affection for the marginalized and the weak. He is filled with joy… he is filled with love for Jesus… a love for Jesus I could only hope to have one day… a love that surpasses his physical conditions of poverty and struggle and pain. My friend loves Jesus because of all the gods and idols surrounding him here in Bangkok, Jesus was the only God that knew Him by name… the only God that could understand and speak to him in sign language.

Since I have lived in this neighborhood, the only Christians I have had a chance to meet are deaf. They are strong, tightly knit community relying entirely upon the provision of God as some of the most looked down upon people in Bangkok. They have spent hours teaching me sign language and worship songs – teaching me from the Bible – and telling me their stories. One story in particular has so beautifully portrayed the redeeming love of Christ.

Her name is “Sunshine,” though it wasn’t always. Growing up deaf and without opportunity, this woman found herself providing for her family with her body. The pain and brokenness that comes with this line of work, as well as the anger and worry caused by poverty and the physical struggle of living in hunger and thirst led her to self mutilation. She believed it was the only way to release what she was feeling – and for her whole life, the deaf community knew her as “Cuts Herself.” When she met Jesus, she was told that Jesus knew her by another name – a sign name that means “Sunshine” and also… grace. The scars on her arms remind her everyday of the pain and sorrow she endured… but it is her name… the new name that God gave her that speaks even more clearly…God saw into that pain, and despite her life of immorality and brokenness, He saw light… He saw beauty… He saw her, and He said, “She is mine. She is my Sunshine.”

God is at work here. Not in the wise or the strong or the powerful – He is at work in the lowly, the impoverished, the broken, and the hungry… the prostitute, the deaf, the Tuktuk driver, the street vendor. And every day He is teaching me more about His love for these people… a love that shines light into darkness… Sunshine in a rainy and weary land.

-Emmie

July 5, 2011 - The Cycling Salesman and Other Types of Oppression

The team and I have run in to a number of South Asian men who regularly appear around our communities. Early on, Summy noticed Yaay (Grandma) Pen Sri making payments to a young Indian man. I’ve had a similar experience, though in my neighborhood Yaay Nook got pretty irritated at our Indian man and told him to get lost. (These are observations of the men I have encountered in our communities, not an affront to the South Asian people.)

Apparently they’re making a living by capitalizing on people (including grandmas with no income) who want to purchase items on a payment scheme – albeit with a ridiculous interest rate attached. From what we’ve gathered so far, Yaay Pen Sri bought a sleeping mat for Summy at 220 Baht but ended up having to fork out 360 Baht.

To say our team is infuriated would be a significant understatement. Daniel has noticed that these men operate out of a store located close to the Ruth Center, going out each day to ply their wares. They pick impoverished communities clean by taking advantage of the Thai people’s easygoing attitude and simple way of life. If the conditions and cycles of poverty our grandmas and their neighbors are caught in aren’t enough, there’s the backup scheming capitalist to beat the poor down some more.

Yet, our Trek director’s friendly reminder prompted me to consider how I’m observing the people I’m encountering each day. For example, the gambling or smoking problem I observe always has a messy background I’m not aware of.

Just as we cannot say exactly why a number of the people we meet have issues handling money wisely, or as we cannot pin down the manifold factors driving a girl to choose a lifetime of work in the sex industry, so I also cannot deem to judge what elements of exploitation, globalized forces, or which personal relationships have taught these South Asian men to leave their home countries, where poverty and exploitation already run rampant – or what drives them to export that oppression elsewhere.

The way Jesus has shown us isn’t to throw more money or more services or more fix-its or more threats or more judgments from a distance, as our churches often do. They need Jesus followers who truly answer his call and follow his example. The oppressed need people to live alongside them, fight oppression with them, give them dignity. The oppressors need loving neighbors who see not just perpetuated evil, but also men and women in need of a God of love and justice, peace and mercy, kindness and faithfulness, joy and thanksgiving.

If relationships are the underlying current which towed a person into their present broken condition, then relationships are the same current that Jesus wants to use to restore the lost, the hurting, the dark places – just as he demonstrated for us.

The church is it. We are it. We are the bearers of God’s kingdom and heralds of his good news. If all Christians were to respond and live out Micah 6:8 in the same way I’ve been up to this point, the body of Christ would be deathly ill.

Daniel asked us all what we suppose the grandmas think when they read passages about the poor. Yaay Pen Sri simply lives it out, I think. She’s been taken advantage of by our cycling salesmen friends, she doesn’t have much, she scrounges in national park garbage cans for plastic bottles and cardboard boxes.

She also has a jubilance about her that shows how Jesus has changed her life. She gives what little she has to buy her adopted American grand-daughter a sleeping pad and sleeps on the hard floor. She lavishes food on our little team and worries about our food when we get sick (she’s only got a small bowl of ant-filled rice on her floor). Philippians 2. She is who I think of when I read about “the poor”, but she walks and lives by the Spirit, with a giving hand that must really hurt to keep open. And yet she loves, and loves some more.

Do we?

-Ansell

June 30, 2011 - Method of Trust

Living in Bangkok, Thailand has come to be one of the most challenging experiences of my life. On top of the unfamiliar culture and language, extreme and consistent heat, spicy and yet delicious food – other challenges present themselves in ways that are far more internally focused. Amidst the daily struggle to find joy despite having all of my material and social comforts removed, it seems that Jesus has chosen to speak to my heart and mind in tender and loving ways. As I engage with Jesus as He was recorded in the Gospels, it is clear to me that Jesus shows passionate love for His followers – but He also pushes them to explore their limits with the promise of His strength to uphold them. And this is the story of my time living in Bangkok, Thailand.

One of the most profound ways Jesus has challenged me is by asking me to trust… Trust is a little unnatural and in a strange place such as Bangkok, it can seem a bit unwise. However, despite my reluctance, it is clear that by trusting others, I can experience the heart of Jesus in beautiful and lasting ways.

Trusting others can simply mean letting go of my obsessive need to have control. I am learning to trust the ways of the Thai people – I know now that I don’t know everything… actually, hardly anything at all. The Thai people know the proper ways to cook their food, efficient ways to wash their clothes, safe and quick ways to drive through the city, and nearly perfect ways to predict weather. And while all of these activities are completely foreign and at times scary to me, I have come to realize that my understanding of how to do these things in my cultural context has no place here – which scares the daylights out of me, and I am sure to the joy of God, has forced me to trust. But as I grow closer to my Thai neighbors, and as I have relinquished my control in the faith that my neighbors know more than I do, it is apparent to me that the result of trust in one another is incredibly beautiful and echoes the Kingdom of God.

I think one of the greatest acts of love I can do while I am in Thailand is to simply, faithfully, and willingly trust my Thai neighbors and my Thai friends. This doesn’t mean that I will cast out all caution and safety, but rather that I will allow myself to be fully present while among them without retreating to my own solace of familiar society, to be ready and eager to learn and engage in their beautiful ways without resorting to my own methods, and above all to believe they have immeasurable worth and value to God…the same value with which God appointed my own life and my own people.

Here’s to seeing His Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.

-Emmie

June 29, 2011 - Choosing a Verb

Abi, Daniel, Summy and I reside in a quiet little fringe area of Bangkok named Prawet. They are each living with a grandma.

I am spending my days with an elderly man named Khun Dtaa Mam (Khun Dtaa means “grandpa” in Thai). Khun Dtaa, from what I’ve gathered over the last few days, has been paralyzed for a few years now. His right arm and leg are immobile, and his paralysis seems to have affected his back, too.

In these early days with a new environment, new family, new challenges and new shocks, flexibility seems to be the name of the game. The day we got there, Pii Noi dropped us all off at our households but mentioned she’d be out of town for a few days hosting a retreat. And with that, one by one, we settled into our separate homes.

I sat in the silence. Unpacked a little. Scratched at some mosquito bites. Smiled awkwardly at Khun Dtaa. And wondered, “What am I doing here?” To be honest, I’ve been angry and overwhelmed trying to answer that question. I’ve been wrestling a lot too with being with Jesus, rather than people – the culture shock has seemed much stronger in some ways because our team’s living in separate communities, and we don’t get to see each other that often.

Yet, though trite and perhaps overused, this summer nevertheless has taken on a tone of “being rather than doing”. Gosh – it’s so much harder than it sounds, though.

Between extremely broken Thai sentences and pregnant pauses in conversation, I’ve been frantically grasping at something to DO to find Jesus or hear from Jesus or serve my hosts or love Khun Dtaa or…something. Yet God’s been showing me that I want to have something to DO so badly, I’ve been quietly trying to twist situations and people to fit my understanding of what my purpose of serving God here is. That’s not helpful, because it’s my purpose – not his. He wants me to witness beautiful things.

Yesterday was Abi’s twentieth birthday. Summy mentioned it to Daniel in passing, and the grandmas and Daniel’s neighbor Pon caught wind of it. An excited bustle of activity exploded late at night (9pm) as grandmas and Pon triumphantly marched through language barriers to plan a surprise party for Abi – with a backup plan, no less. The next day, they cooked, bought us Pepsi (quite the luxury drink), and even found a way to pick up Abi’s grandma and a cake to boot. At church today, Summy’s grandma shared with everyone how happy she was to be a part of it, but I think my team and I were the ones who got a glimpse of a love placing neighbors before self.

So, “what am I doing here?”

I’m seeing bits and pieces of the different things God’s showing me each day. I’m noticing how our communities’ houses stand on top of pooled water – excrement, trash, mud, dirty dish water, and who knows what else. The pooled water breeds mosquitoes, disease, and an inhibiting, viscous stench – but sometimes it’s hard to notice. Don’t many of us live our spiritual lives this way? We build our houses atop muddy things (sometimes not by choice) and continue to ignore problem though we sometimes smell the stench, even though Christ wants something better for us.

I’m seeing and hearing the televisions blaring all evening and night while people escape a little from their situation. God uses it to prompt me to think how often we fill our lives with incessant noise pollution, when God wants to us to find him in the quietness. Yet there are still many who don’t know him, so it’s no wonder they need to fill the silence.

I’m seeing how the things of my hands and of my mind are simply inadequate to love Khun Dtaa well, but the simple act of following him and his daughter to the hospital matters to him – even if I did nothing there but sit, eat, and journal.

And I’m seeing a splinter of what it meant for Jesus to give up everything he had as the Son of God to live with us dirty, broken humans for thirty-odd years. I’m seeing how hard it is for me to want to wash Khun Dtaa’s dirty poop-underwear when I can just wash my hands afterwards, and yet Jesus was willing to wash his disciples’ feet.

So sure, it’s hard to love Khun Dtaa sometimes. He’s bedridden, can’t say more than one or two mangled words at a time, and glues himself to the TV all day. But Jesus sacrificed so much more to love me overwhelmingly, and he’s set me on this journey to discover a bigger picture of his love.

-Ansell

June 27, 2011 - Stray Dogs

As we managed to cram our hot, sticky bodies into the meeting room, and as our voices were raised in thankful praise to a God who dwelled among us, we truly felt the presence of the Lord. God is here! Surely the very presence of Jesus was among us, filling us up with His strength and power as we anticipated the works of God over the next six weeks. The questions that lingered on our minds and hearts, however, was the presence of God… out there? Could Jesus be anywhere on the streets of Bangkok, where hunger and thirst run rampant like the stray dogs? Could Jesus possibly be amidst the blinking neon signs of the Nana Plaza red light district? Certainly Jesus isn’t in Khlong Toey, a slum community, or PraPhaDaeng Leprosy Community, where the most outcast of people are hidden away from view. Jesus just can’t be in Bangkok.

We have all been wrestling with this tension these last few days. Immediately our understanding of the world – a world that was once filled with comforts, education, and excess – has been torn apart by the absolute darkness that fills the city of Bangkok. For many of us, our first inclination was to assume that Jesus just wasn’t here. Many of us felt discouraged and saddened and overwhelmed by what we saw. We felt like there was no hope.

It is with joy that I say we couldn’t have been more wrong! Jesus has not forgotten Bangkok! Jesus is the King of Bangkok! And we have been invited to join in with Him and His servants that are already at work shedding light in the darkest corners of this city. Under the tender encouragement of our staff and directors, we have been challenged to open our hearts and minds so that we may see the Kingdom of God in this city… and it has truly transformed our understanding and love of the people of Bangkok. Praise God!

As we walk the streets now, we see Jesus in the bright smiles that are always returned to us as we walk past. We see Jesus in the spicy broth of noodle soup, or the sweet nectar of fresh lychee, or the delicious fragrance of Thai iced tea. We have witnessed Jesus in the hands and feet of the women who serve us delectable Thai food day and night. Or in the hospitality of a street vendor, who offered all of ice cold water free of charge.

Jesus isn’t just in the actions and works of the ministries here, Jesus is with the Thai people, and He loves them and longs for them with the same passion that He loves and longs for us. We pray that as we fully commit ourselves to pursuing the Kingdom of God for the next six weeks here in Bangkok that we would continue to see the dawn piercing into the darkness – bringing the goodness of God and His grace to all who thirst and hunger and mourn.

We rejoice to walk through the hot streets of Bangkok singing loudly and boldly because we truly believe: “The presence of the Lord is here! The presence of the Lord is here!”

-Emmie