The city

God, I cry out to you on behalf of the city of Bangkok

I ask you for its redemption

Would you change this city, from top to bottom, from inside out

Bring about a new creation, a new beauty, the vision of the new Jerusalem

I believe this city is not forsaken, but is a city sought out Read the rest of this entry »

I realize now that we (or at least I) cannot pray with perseverance for specific niches of the Kingdom of God in a place without also praying for the larger picture and maintaining connection with it.  As I’ll describe in a future post, I believe that’s because, as Paul teaches, the church is founded on the ministry of the apostles and the prophets, not simply the evangelists and the teachers, as we can often think.

Through the encouragement of a dear friend, I’ve been reminded recently of this vision from five years ago of praying for the entire city of Bangkok to be comprehensively transformed.  I’m back again to crying out to God for the salvation and redemption of every inch of Bangkok, even as it drains me of all energy in the process.  I invite you to join with me in praying for this city.  Its like climbing a mountain, taking everything out of you.  But yet so rewarding also as when you come to beautiful vistas and understand God’s heart for a place and are infected with the knowledge of his character and faith in what he’s going to bring about.

Again, I invite you to join with me in praying for this city.  Let’s pray for the knowledge of God’s goodness to spread to every corner and nook and cranny of this city….

So how did all of those prayers end up? What fruit do we now see in Bangkok? Well, I can praise God that instead of just one ministry in the red-light districts, I now know of at least 5 very active ministries. I can praise God that in addition to the two lines of the skytrain that existed back in ‘02, Bangkok now has a subway line and vigorous construction on one new skytrain line and an extension of one of the existing lines. Before the coup last year, there were plans to build 4 or 5 new subway lines that would serve a large part of the city, quite similar to my original prayers. Now, those plans seem to be on hold until a new government is elected at year’s end, but the city government has placed posters all over the city promising that the skytrain and subway is coming, just be patient. In our network, we have 4 house churches in slums that did not exist before. By next January, there could be 8 Servant Partners staff pioneering in slums here, compared to zero back in ‘02. There is also several staff from Australia’s Urban Neighbors of Hope ministering in the Klong Toey slum, Bangkok’s largest slum. The Bangkok Vineyard partnered with some missionaries from Hong Kong to begin ministry in that slum as well.  There’s a couple YWAMmers focusing on slums. A small established Thai-led ministry focusing on slum outreach is still continuing as it was 5 years ago. One of the senior pastors of one of Bangkok’s largest churches repented three years ago of listening to the missionaries who told him to focus on church growth and ignore serving the poor. He committed his church to learning about ministry in the slums and has since started a number of cell groups in slums.  The two Christian microenterprise development programs that were just starting back in 2002 (including ours), are still going and have helped hundreds of people from tens of slum communities start small businesses and avoid the usurious loan sharks.

The city is not yet transformed, but God is at work.  There is change.  His people are waking up.  Things are happening.

I’ve recently been refreshed in my vigor and boldness to pray for and pursue the comprehensive transformation of the city of Bangkok. This was the audacious desire that God placed on my heart back in the summer of 2002, my second summer participating in Intervarsity’s Global Urban Trek. As I look back on that summer, God did some amazing things in reworking our worldviews and giving several of us desires that are insane by human reckoning. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a new park in downtown Bangkok. It is called Chuwit Park, named after the man who had the park created. Beautiful park, not too large, but a needed greenspace in the midst of concrete. Here are two pictures, one of the front entrance and the other looking into the park. Interesting thing is, he dedicated the park to Jesus Christ, including engraving a message saying so on one of the pillars of stone at the front entrance to the park. Even more interesting is that this dedication message has since been covered up.

Here are two more pictures, one showing the pillar where the dedication message is engraved, covered up by a royal banner. The second pic is trying to peer under the banner to see the engraving. Can’t quite hold it back far enough for a good picture, but you get the idea. You can pull it back far enough to still read it though. Now the important questions are, “Why did Chuwit dedicate the park to Jesus in the first place?” and, “Who covered up the dedication and why?”

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I was just overwhelmed with the enormity of the city of Bangkok. Wealth, poverty, and how it all coexists together. I had occasion this noon to go downtown to meet up with Mike, a mentor of mine, and Mark, another misso visiting down here from northeast Thailand. After lunch, I took the skytrain over a few stops to see Central World, this new mall that just opened up. Its supposed to be the largest mall in SE Asia. And its next door to Paragon, what for the last few months was the largest mall in SE Asia. And this is in the midst of 10 large shopping malls that are essentially adjacent to each other, across a couple intersections. I was walking back to the canal boat dock to go back towards my part of the city (this canal happens to be one of the main sewer corridors of the city) and I stopped on a footbridge over one of the busy streets, just taking it all in. All around me I saw glitzy, enormous shopping malls, skyscrapers, the skytrain, traffic that included BMWs and Mercedes, richly dressed people walking in and out of the malls…I also saw construction sites for new buildings where just a few months ago large slums had been. I saw the vendors on the street selling food for 1/5 the cost of the cheapest meals in the malls. I saw beggars and amputees lying on the ground. I saw traffic that included hundreds of motorcycles and also many rickety old busses (circa 1950s) puffing out black smoke. I saw perhaps as many as 40 people packing into each one of these busses, each of which aren’t much longer than one of those BMWs next to it with just 1 or 2 people. I wondered at how much profit a few businessmen must be making from these glitzy malls and skyscrapers. I thought about who built them, probably workers from Isaan (NE Thailand) breaking their backs for $5/day and living in worse than slum conditions while the construction is going on.

Here I am in the megacity of Bangkok, home to 12 million people. But the countryside of Thailand is so different from Bangkok. I bet if some old grandma from Isaan came to Bangkok and it was her first time to the city that she’d probably faint from what she saw. Its like an alien planet compared to the countryside. Read the rest of this entry »