Chapter 1: Phuket

After a few days in Bangkok, getting oriented to living in Thailand, we got onto a bus, and rode off to Phuket. It was exciting, riding through the night, finally about to get started with ministry. There we got connected to Pastor Joe and his church. We got the opportunity to serve the church through a number of different ways. One of the big ministry opportunities was to minister to a Burmese labor camp. Many people from Burma come to Thailand, being promised good pay, labor conditions, and other benefits. Often times, however, the pay is not as good as they were promised, and the conditions are terrible, in some cases the workers are not even allowed to leave the camp other than for work.

So, our team partnered with the church to worship, perform a skit about the
gospel, and hand out gifts.  One of the most powerful moments of that night was when we offered prayer to our audience of about 100 workers. After a brief pause a few women stood up, and then everybody stood up and walked forward. Slightly overwhelmed, we asked the translator to make sure that the people understood that we were offering prayer. The translator talked, and every person started to nod their head, understanding that we were offering prayer to the Christian God of the Bible. We surrounded the group and started praying. I'll never forget seeing one of my students slip into the middle of the group and starting to grab people to pray for them. The looks on the faces of those grabbed can only be described as thankful, and encouraged.

Another big ministry opportunity we had was to go to the red-light district about a ten minute walk away from where we were staying. The name of the district is Bangla road. Here, there's a lot of parties, strippers, clubs, prostitutes, and so on. A couple of the students were incredibly faithful to go to Bangla road and pray for people. Just walking down that road I would get incredibly angry. It was a temple to the arrogance of men, a monument to the prideful, male ego. How can people who abuse women and children call themselves men? That's not what I was taught what a man was, even (supposedly) separated from the Christian context.

A man has integrity. A man protects. A man provides. A man is strong. A man supports.

A man does not preach commitment, but commit adultery. A man does not abuse women. A man does not steal the dignity of women. A man is not too weak to resist temptation. A man does not tear down others.

Anyways, we were looking to do a skit about the gospel at a beach near Bangla road. However, our speaker was not loud enough, and there were not a lot of people nearby. After a bit of contemplation, and prayer, one of us approached a dance group to see if they could help us out. They perform on Bangla road, and have a huge speaker. To our pleasant surprise, they said yes, and even offered to put out their tip boxes for us. We took them up on the speaker, but not the tip box. As we performed, the crowd in the street began to part, and started to watch. At least a hundred of the tourists looking to get wasted, or buy sex watched as we performed the story of God creating humanity, then humanity rejecting God, and God redeeming humanity. Looking around, you could see some people looking at the bottles in their hands, thinking about what kind of life they were living. It was an amazing opportunity provided by God, and we stepped into what he had for us.

We also got to sing Christmas carols to the massage parlors in the area, teach some English, and prepare some Bible studies. We aimed to serve the church, and encourage them to step out more. We are not angels, nor super-humans of any sort, just ordinary humans seeking Jesus. Praying for people on the street isn't "missionary work", it's the work of people who are filled with the love of Christ looking to spread that love to others.

After two weeks in Phuket, it was time for us to leave, and head to our next location.