Listen to Broken People

Spending time in the gay bars of the red light district gave me many new thoughts on how to interact with people. The most profound thing that I learned was that broken people are willing to talk if we (Christians) are willing to listen. 

We have been taught all of our lives that God gave us two ears and one mouth, therefore we are supposed to listen twice as much as we talk. At childhood ages this seems so silly, but when you finally put it into practice, then you see the glory of God.

Broken people want help and want to talk about their struggles, so that they can be freed from them. The problem is that many times we want to fix the problem and tell the person why they are broken. Broken people know they're broken. They do not want another person pointing out their brokenness, what they want is a friend who is willing to listen to them as they sift through their emotions and feelings.

-Aaron 

Bangkok, Thailand

Joyful Truths in Scripture

It's amazing when God chooses to teach you things you thought you already knew. For the last month, our eyes have been opened to the difficult, but joyful truths found through the Holy Spirit in Scripture.

The Father has truly been molding the way we see sin and the love we have for the Thai people we encounter. As a team, we are experiencing trials of many kinds in order to be conformed to the image of Christ, but it looks different for each of us. For some, our emotions are being changed from confusion and fear going into the Red Light Districts to acceptance of the people and excitement to build relationships in such an unfamiliar place. For others, simply seeing a smile on the faces of the people we have come to care deeply for has become a sight that makes the most painful struggles seem irrelevant.

When people encounter problems and hurt that is unfamiliar, we have a tendency to assume we understand. We encounter brokenness with a mindset ready to mend their lives back together. But what we have found in this city of 6 million is that if we are willing to listen, they are willing to talk. If we come with a sincere heart, then they begin to have trust in us. Too often, we want to fix the problem. We want to pick them up off the dusty road and bring them to a place of peace. The problem with that is we are not the victors and we don't restore the souls of those who are lost and thirsty for the water of life. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Ephesians 2:4-5). We have been called to come and listen. We have been called to love sacrificially. When we do this, Christ makes us vessels for His grace and mercy. When we are obedient, Jesus has the victory.

In understanding how short-term two months really is, we are realizing the importance of being intentional with our time. "Thailand" used to sound foreign and unbelievable to our ears, but now it sounds a little more like home to some of us. We have about 3 weeks left and our prayer and desire for the rest of our time here is that we may trade every whisper of our name for a shout of His. Because in a place weighed down with so much darkness, there is still light to be found. We have been called to love people on the road to seeing that eternal light for the first time.

Pray for boldness in opportunities to love like Jesus does.
Pray for the sex workers we encounter to desire a hope and love that is greater than they have ever experienced before.
Pray that God may overwhelm these people with His goodness and grace so that they will believe in Him forever.
Pray for the generations of the chains of Buddhism to fall off the Thai people so their hearts will be accepting of the Gospel.

Thank you for your prayers. They have truly been powerful and effective for our time here.

-Urban Rescuers

Experiencing James 1:2-4

I don't think we, as a team, expected our summer in Bangkok to be so difficult. Difficult to explain, difficult to process the things we see, difficult to sort through our many emotions. But it has been. 

I would like to talk about all the great things about this city, but that isn't really what we're experiencing in our time here. One of the overarching challenges seems to be trying to hear God's voice in a place where He seems absent.

Between the 5 of us we teach English, work in a cafe, teach guitar, help with exercise classes, work on marketing ideas, and spend time in a salon doing hair, make-up, and nails for women and ladyboys each week. We do these things hoping to love these Thai people the way Jesus does. We haven't gotten to share the Gospel with anyone. We haven't seen anyone walk away from their life of sin and turn to the Lord. But God is opening our eyes to see the beauty in the small things.

We came, not to start something new, but to continue the work that has already been started. We are spending time with people and with each other. We are being loved by Christ, so we can pour that love out to anyone and everyone we encounter.

It's easy to look at the city we walk through every day and see the overwhelming darkness of sin. It's hard to find the light that is Christ. It's even harder to realize that He has chosen us to be that light. In the 4 weeks we've been here, God has humbled, broken, overjoyed, and reshaped us. We're finding that it's only the beginning of the way God desires to move in us and through us to impact this city.

Please pray:

- for us to encounter persons of peace

- the chance to share the Gospel

- a revival in the city of Bangkok so Thai people can reach Thai people

- ears to hear God's voice and eyes to see the work He is doing

Spiritiual truths taught

Sa wat dee kha from the team in Bangkok, Thailand!

We have been here for 3 weeks now and our time has been nothing short of struggles, encouragement, hot weather, and, of course, lots of Thai food. It has been so fulfilling to see God open our eyes more to His sovereignty and the way He is choosing to make us vessels for His righteousness.

Since we’ve gotten here, there have been many ways the enemy has threatened to rob us of our joy. One of these is the similarity we’ve found between Thai culture and our own in the U.S. It’s easy to be broken over injustice you hear about, but it’s harder when you realize it’s sin and it isn’t specific to certain cultures. It attacks and breaks and destroys people in every nation.

“As I looked down from the high floor of this fancy hotel, I saw a Buddhist temple to the left and some run down shacks that constituted as people’s home’s to the right. I saw before me almost every form of idolatry possible and I asked God why. How could he stand to look down and see all of this? So I asked to see it the way He does and I became incredibly sad. Imagine our Dad looking down and seeing his kids following a religion that ultimately tells them their goal is nothingness, void of emotion and personality, which totally goes against how we’re created. Imagine how sad God must be to watch his kids chase after all the shiny things in the world only to see the glimmer leave once the lights go out. Then, imagine his feelings towards his kids living in squalor and poverty. Lastly, as his kids prostitute themselves and His other children buy their bodies. Is not His depth of despair just as deep in each case? I look around and see people who are blind both to their own, our own, level of depravity and to the level of joy and life that is offered in the Gospel.”

In these hard times, God has been speaking so much spiritual truth to us and allowing us the blessing to grow in our Heavenly Father.

Pray for us to have opportunities to be a friend to the workers we meet in the bars. 
Pray for God to move in a mighty way.  
Pray for Jesus to shine in us and through us so that they may know the true, eternal hope and the reason for living. 
Pray that their eyes would be open to the living and constant source of water.

-Natalie