Surreal Slum Stroll

Thursday we visited The Concordia Children's Day Care & Babies Home in the slums of Bangkok. This place was established so the people in the neighborhood would have a safe haven for their children to stay, while they go to work. Most cannot afford regular day care, only making a few dollars a day, and the alternative is to leave their children locked alone in the home (some as young as 1-1/2 old) for fear they would be taken by child sex traffickers. Here we spent a few hours with about 40 children ages 1-5, playing games, singing songs and doing activities. 

After being with the children, center director, Deng Thaweesin took us on a walk, through the slum area by the day care center, where the children live. The streets were nothing more than a bunch of adjoining narrow back alleys, lined with small dilapidated corrugated steel shacks built on raised frames. Garbage lie all around and a malodorous stench filled the hot & humid air from the lack of indoor plumbing. Mangy stray cats & dogs run wild, and the whole area is surrounded with barbed wire fencing.

Deng's  Mission extends to this area, as she routinely takes food to some of the residents. We stopped to visit a woman who had lost her legs and brought her food. We then visited & prayed over a paralyzed man while we brought him food. As we continued down this maze of alleys, we were able to visit and pray over a young woman who was sick and did not have use of her legs.

Seeing all this first hand was a little overwhelming for me, and it brought me to tears. I could just feel the desperation, and thought about my life and family back in America, and how abundantly blessed I am. I certainly do not deserve any of what I have, and wondered why I am in the position that I am. I didn't have to think long, knowing that God's plan puts people in places for His purpose. So why did God bring me and my team half way around the world to see this? To spread awareness? To help financially? To pray for these people? To learn contentment? To share The Gospel with them? All of the above? Though unknown now, God will reveal the reason to us in His time.

   

I was saddened as we were walked through their streets, and I saw the faces looking at us. I wondered what they were thinking as they saw us "outsiders" being guided through their neighborhood, almost like tourists on a wildlife park tour. It just doesn't make sense to me why some "have" and some "have not". I am no better than these people, or any other of the 6+billion people living on this earth. I believe this whole experience is a call to action to help these people both spiritually, and temporally. Spiritually by bringing them The  Good News of The Gospel, and temporally by rendering the aid they need.

Please pray for the people we came in contact with, and anybody else who is equally destitute, as we live in our comfortable little bubble of a world. May God continue to bless our team as we spend yet the next week in Thailand, so we have the courage to boldly proclaim His Word, and show compassion upon all people.

                               -Brian

                    

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:40 NIV)