jim larson's thoughts

Goodbye Larry

I just found out that Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman passed away last Saturday, February 24 at age 60.  Welcome home, Larry.  Thanks so much for taking back the good music. 

I am a servant, I am listening for my name
I sit here waiting I've been looking at the game
That I've been playing and I've been staying much the same
When you are lonely you're the only one to blame
 
I am a servant, I am waiting for Your call
I've been unfaithful so I sit here in the hall
How can You use me when I've never given all
How can You choose me when You know I quickly fall
 
So You feed my soul and you make me whole
And you let me know You love me
And I'm worthless now but I've made a vow
I will humbly bow before You
Oh please use me, I am lonely
 
I am a servant, getting ready for my part
There's been a change, a rearrangement in my heart
At last I'm learning there's no returning once I start
To live's a privilege, to love is such an art
But I need Your help to start
Oh please purify my heart
I am Your servant

©Larry Norman
Words and Music by Larry Norman
 

Woman at the well

Dan Hennenfent from Cup of Cold Water sent me a link to this video made by Student Life, posted on Godtube.

Servant working

Even though The Well is the main ministry of Servantworks, we began it with a bigger purpose--to tell the story of regular people doing irregular things, following the example of Jesus.  Our good friends Matt and Heather Hook have been leaders by example from the beginning--not just in Matt's role as past president, but as people living out the priorities of Jesus in a neighborhood most would choose to stay away from.  Here's a nice article about them in their local suburban newspaper.  One correction: Prang has a 12th grade education, not 6th.

Home at last

We were eating French toast this morning when a short figure with tousled black hair and pink pajamas appeared at the kitchen door.  Pear said nothing, only smiled warmly and lifted her hands and a wai, the traditional Thai greeting.  She joked, or rather teased with us for a couple minutes, then left to get dressed.

I've written about Pear in several posts since we met her about 6 months ago.  She was adorable from day one with her button nose, disobedient wavy hair and impish gregariousness. "I want her!" exclaimed Judy.  At the same time she was wild, acting out the chaos of her unmanaged and unloved life.  She will soon be 14, but has already had far too many experiences a child should never have.  At first she stayed at one of our women's centers but did not thrive.  She talked often of wanting to run away and sometimes did take off with permission.  One of those nights she ended up being raped by an older teen.  Craving attention, she would make up stories about herself that we quickly exposed as false, which only made others at The Well completely annoyed.  Finally Pear ran away and didn't come back, right before she was scheduled to start school after a year and a half absence.

She ended up working and living at a night-time restaurant not far away as waitress.  We went to eat there several times, finding Pear dressed in new sexy clothes that she said the manager bought for her.  We noticed that the main customers seemed to be single men.  One would come, sit and eat with a woman then leave with her.  Although Pear has since told us that she only waited tables and was not asked to sell her body, at the time we were very frightened.  She would sit and talk with us only briefly, guarded and reserved.  We asked the manager, a woman approximately 40, to please release her back to us but she refused, saying that Pear's mother had entrusted Pear to her.  We called Pear's mother, who said hadn't done that but at the same time she would do nothing to help. 

We were looking into getting the police involved when finally Pear left and called us from her mother's small slum home.  I talked to her a bit, then put her on the phone with Marquita, our 15 year-old.  Marquita then gave the phone to Judy, planted her arms firmly on my shoulders and ordered, "Dad, go get her now!"  I've told Marquita that someday God would take her passion for justice, now used primarily to defend herself in sibling rivalry, in a big way in His Kingdom.  This was a taste.  Within an hour Pear was in our home.  That was late November.

Over the 3 months since then we've enjoyed seeing Pear discover the joy of being a loved one.  At first when I would say, "I love you, Pear," she would look turn away with a short "Yeah."  Now she replies with a warm, "I love you, Dad."  There were a couple of tests.  When her father got out of prison just before Christmas, he immediately put Pear in the middle of his conflict with her mother, trying to manipulate her into choosing his side and sending her into emotional turmoil.  One day last month Pear ran off from The Well and I had to spend 3 hours with a volunteer tracking her down.  I knew that if we waited for her to return she would dig a hole for herself, and that she needed to know that she was so loved that we were willing to take any means necessary to hang onto her.  Since then Pear has settled down. There is no more making up stories, no more talk of running away.  She seems to have emotionally distanced herself from her father's unhealthiness.  

[!YoutubeVideo?file=LsZae1DwG7o!]

Help

We have had a sudden growth spurt and now have more than 50 students between 4 centers.  Means more funding pressures, worker pressure.  If my numbers are right we now have 15 girls age 17 or under.  Not all came from bars, but all are at risk.  Tuesday we accepted a 40 year-old with a 2 month-old baby.  Yesterday a wayward 18 year-old came back.

I lay awake nights wondering what to do next. 

Yet another

The sad stories just keep coming. 

Saturday night I met a widow with 6 young children.  Her husband had died the day before.  She looked blank, forlorn, with puffy eyes from weeping.  Around her lay 3 of her beautiful children, trying to sleep. Once in a while one girl would scratch her lice-infested head.

About 100 people were gathered at the wake at the Buddhist temple in the Uthai Thani province.  It is a very poor community; this family has a small one-room house on a tiny plot. The visitors were quite busy drinking and playing cards.  I was told there would be no collection to help this poor woman, neither now or in the future.

Thinking about our already overspent budget both with The Well and personally, I kept remembering Isaiah 58:10 --"if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry...." 

There was no question.  I gave her about $90 through Ouey, a student of ours who is her relative.  Ouey explained it was because of Jesus.  She cried some more and thanked me.  We will continue to help her.

The road to dignity, part 2

The other day I walked into The Well Center 1 for morning worship to see Ohn sitting next to her 8 year-old son that she had not seen since he was 2.  Even though he lives in Bangkok with Ohn's father and sister, her father had deliberately kept them apart. 

Ohn joined us 2 1/2 years ago after 16 years of bar and street life.  She was a brand new Christian, but like most who come from that lifestyle, she was very immature and self-centered.  While she had made plenty of money in her old life, she used it to support an expensive lifestyle and did not financially support her son.  And even though Ohn had extra funds for her first year at The Well because of a sponsor, she still did not sent the support that her father expected.  So to spite her, he refused to allow her to see her own son.

Over time we began to see Ohn's self-centeredness change to God/other-centeredness.  She was an avid student of the Bible from the beginning--reading on her own, noting important passages.  Her hot temper cooled, her sharp tongue softened.  She began to reach out to old friends as well as to younger women in our program, of whom many see her as an important mentor.  Ethnically Lao, Ohn now has her own vision to start a ministry in the city of Nongkhai, just across the Lao border, reaching Lao women who come over for prostitution.  

And of course Ohn didn't forget about her son.  She began talking constantly about him, trying to save money to send to him.  But even when she did, her father told her it wasn't enough.  Finally she took some last week and he relented, allowing her son a few days' visit.  It may have also helped that we made some visits and got him involved in helping Ohn get get legal documentation--she was born in Laos but has no papers.  

During the visit, Ohn and her son were next to inseparable--literally, as though trying to cram 6 years of lost affection into a few days' time.  They held hands, hugged, played.  When it was time for him to go back, yesterday he cried and didn't want to leave.  Ohn says he will get to be with her during his entire school break coming up soon.

What would you do?

When Larry Behrens was here 2 weeks ago he left behind a book he'd bought at the airport, Alive , the story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose charter flight crashed in the Andes in 1972, and ultimately 16 survived for 10 weeks.  The book is very detailed in its nearly day-to-day account, including the unhappy gore of the survivors' resort to cannibalizing those who had already died.  I remember seeing the book in high school but couldn't imagine reading it then.  

The book gave ample attention to the difficult decision the survivors had to make: to eat dead people, even bodies of their own friends, or die.  It was not an easy decision, and did not come without much argument.  It began slowly, as survivors kept praying and hoping for a rescue, and with almost no food at their disposal, began to suggest the unthinkable.  Even many days after the reluctant decision was made, some survivors would do the best they could to avoid partaking, and a few had to be at times coerced by others. 

Reading this, I couldn't help but compare the decision of these survivors to that of a Thai woman who, sees her children lacking in basic needs, or a parent with a serious disease that the local public hospital won't treat.  Assessing her potential income-producing the assets, realizes the unthinkable: her body by far has the most potential. 

There is an ethical difference here: no ethicists that I know of would say the Andes survivors did anything wrong morally, whereas you would find disagreement concerning prostitution, even in a desperate situation.  But even with that there is a major difference: the Andes survivors made a difficult moral decision to eat dead bodies to save their own lives, whereas some women I have talked to have made a difficult decision to sacrifice their own living bodies to save the lives of others.  These have stated, sincerely I believe, that they hated what they did, but that it was a necessary sacrifice.  And I have to say I respected them for it.

What would I do?  What would you do?  What does God think?

Of course, that's why we're here, so that fewer women such as one of our newer students who lost her husband 5 months ago leaving her with nothing but 2 kids to support, will have to make such a decision.  

The road to dignity

June woke up yesterday at 4:15am, excited about her first day on her new job at Western Digital, the hard disk manufacturer.  June is nearly 27, but this is the first "real job" that she has ever had.  Our staff are skeptical--June is not known for dependability.  Even while much improved recently after a few months in addiction rehab, her work habits at The Well were anything but stellar.  She would often complain of head and stomach aches and want to take time off.  How in the world would she be able to stand up to a real factory job?  June insisted she could do it, and rented a room near the factory, about an hour north of Bangkok.

June came to us nearly 3 years ago out of jail, at age 24.  Her story is one of the most difficult we have seen.  Beaten and neglected as a child, on her own from age 13, June grew into fighting, prostitution and drugs.  Her life, she says, had no value, no meaning, no dignity.  Her first child, a daughter, was born when June was 15.  She also has a son, now 5.  

June came to us full of addictions and immaturity, and continued to act those out.  We had a lot of ups and downs with June, and nearly lost her back to her old life more than once.  At the same time we saw in her a sincere desire to get rid of those things and be, as she called it, "a normal person".  She also showed incredible natural gifting in many areas, with a magnetic personality.  Someday I believe June is going to be a leader that will impact many.  

Her first day on the job went well.  She liked the clean, dust-free environment, which should be good for her given her history of sinus trouble.  Her first payday is the 22nd.  This indeed will be a challenge for June, but a good one for her, a step in feeling like a responsible parent and contributing member of society.  She told me that she would like to do this for a year, until she finishes her high school equivalency, and that if the door is open for her to work with us at The Well, she would like to come back.  I don't see her as high-level staff for a few years, but even as an assistant counselor and mentor to teens she could have a lot to offer.  We'll be looking forward to it.

Eastern European women

We're always overwhelmed, always seeing something that we wish we could do more about.  One of our volunteers last year through Adventures in Missions, Elizabeth Scaife, wrote this post about encountering some of the Eastern European women who are trafficked into Thailand to work at night. The Nightlight ministry has done some outreach to them, but I know they feel overwhelmed the same as we do.

I put this image in for effect, but it's actually borrowed from http://blog.kievukraine.info/2007_07_01_archive.html.

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sallipod
Posts: 18

n
Reply #18 on : Fri January 29, 2010, 01:48:08

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<a href=http://www.google.com> http://www.google.com </a>

John
Posts: 18

Bangkok Prostition on the Rise
Reply #17 on : Tue January 20, 2009, 20:39:34

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As a foreign teacher in Thailand I came here to help children to improve their education in a developing nation but of late I have become increasingly concerned at the massive increase in prostitution especially in the tourist areas of Bangkok. It has clearly been here a long time but recently I have been totally stunned to see the massive increase in the number of girls stretching themselves in desperation to get money by any means possible. I have witnessed thousands upon thousands of women in these areas, especially Nana and the Sukhumvit around the Arab quarter, desperate to survive.
Forget the nonsense about stereotypical crack whore - oh no, these are Tesco girls, salon workers, beauticians, florists, fat girls, older women, short women, tattooed girls, ladyboys; every walk of life, desperate for money for a multitude of reasons. But nearly always the same basic reason - desperate for money and usually not themselves but their family. The price that many young girls pay, especially from Isan, is extremely high; attempting to live out the dream of coming to Bangkok to earn money for a desperate family is just all too familiar. The credit crisis really hits home here at the bottom of the pile-so many poor suffer for gross negligence of governments and big business. The human suffering at the other end has to be seen to be believed.
I find it incredible just to see bars filled to overflowing with women of all ages and less farangs than ever, as many tourists have cancelled flights (although the numbers of Arabs and other non-Anglo Saxon groups seems to be stable). Definitely less money from tourism, even if sex-industry based, increases the need for money for others as many poor lose whatever income they had and inflation continues. The money flow slows and causes a knock on effect for so many others. The result is a deep psychological impact on women.
I reject their claims of "oh it's just a job, or just don't think about it too much". Especially in highly conservative Thai society, these girls must suffer greatly. Yes it MUST be shameful to them when others find out, whilst they attempt to keep everything a secret to everyone else. If you push these girls to speak truthfully, then all the emotion comes out -none of them really want to do this work, they just hope they will get enough to overcome whatever problem they have. But the real problem appears for the long term effects especially in standards of their mental health and social status. Once they get used to the cash for “big” money (big by their standards, real cheap by farang standards) they get locked into a cycle.
Now the answer; well there is no quick fix! A police crack down is definitely not the answer and is open to all forms of corruption in any developing nation. No it has to be a combination of cultural change and governmental initiatives. The reality is until the Thai government manages to stabilize its long term political instability, improves rights and standards for low class workers, increases their leadership to look for visionaries not just bureaucrats, and then looks at improved fiscal policies with long term job improvement schemes; the poor, most of all will suffer. Combined with no real welfare system, it’s fairly obvious where especially desperate women will end up. I therefore applaud the actions of outreach workers who at least aim to assist in the interim and I can only wish them the best as my heart is heavy when I see Thailand going backwards in this area and hope the suffering of these women will truly one day be less.

Jeremy
Posts: 18

Project Rescue
Reply #16 on : Mon May 26, 2008, 08:33:14

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Ever heard of Project Rescue? I just heard about it from a friend who went to college with the founders' daughter. Seems very similar to what servantworks is doing!

http://www.projectrescue.com/frontpage.php

Earn
Posts: 18

the latest postcard
Reply #15 on : Tue April 01, 2008, 13:12:41

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I'm Thai and support The well a ministry of servant works through my pray, money. I am really appreciated what you are doing for those who have no opportunity in their live and live in the darkness. I am still support your ministries. But one of my concern and it is bothering me a lot is the latest postcard which I just received couple weeks ago. I truely understand what happen in Thailand about women and teenager. Of course they are disrespect to their body, mind, soul and God by exchange it through sex for money. Can you use another word instead of Thailand's sex workers. It's sound harsh and it is hurtful. I understand that you want to wake people up through this postcard but I think there is some way else to do it.
One more thing, in the picture I see young innocent teen. I don't know who they are. They can be one of them who exchange their body with money or may not. But if it is, they already have a poor live and why you make it worse by put their picture openly!! What going to happen when they grow up? We are adult suppose to protect them, aren't we?

Jan
Posts: 18

Concerns
Reply #14 on : Sun March 30, 2008, 13:18:43

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Hi

My name is Jan. I'd like to thank God and you all( The Well ministry) for a wonderful work for Thai woman and children who are from dysfunctional families. I've been supporting The Well for the past 2 years, and also had a chance to visit The Well in Bangkok twice.

However, I have a concern. I have received 2 postcards of the Well Ministry. I came to my mails couple weeks ago. The first time I saw the card, I did not feel anything much. But the second time I received the same post card, there is the thought that came to my mind. I saw the picture of a mother with her two beautiful daughters. They are beautiful children. Then I read the card...Thailand sex workers! I know the intention of this postcard is good. However, I think the language is too strong. Although, it is the truth for most cases. I am concerned about these children in the picture. Unfortunately, the children have to suffer from parents' poor choices and decisions. They've already been damaged and wounded. We should try to protect them. I don't think the language is appropriate, especially when there is a picture of children on it. If they can read and understand English, I can't imagine how much damage it can do to them emotinally and psychologically.

Blessings,
Jan

alan
Posts: 18

God of this city...
Reply #13 on : Wed March 12, 2008, 11:32:09

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hey buddy,
have you heard the new song, "God of this city"?

see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d61LamkXfwk&feature=related

for u-tube version of tomlin singing it...the band Bluetree from Ireland was actually in Pattaya not too long ago, and they somehow were invited to perform in a brothel...while they were doing a 2 hr. worship set, they said God gave them this song. it is POWERful!

miss ya dude,
alan

edwin
Posts: 18

awsome comiing
Reply #12 on : Tue March 04, 2008, 20:26:18

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im with ya Jessica!
i really wanna be involved! i hate being lazy!!!

jessica
Posts: 18

hopefully coming
Reply #11 on : Tue March 04, 2008, 00:46:56

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My name is Jessica Wood my sister and I are in contact with servantworks about coming to bangkok this summer. Thanks for all your hard work and the genuine way you approach people... I lay awake at night thinking about this stuff....i really think God wakes me up so I will pay attention to his prompting for me to do something or say something for those trapped in the sex trade...i want to help and not just so that I can sleep easy..but because there is no other option..and becuase i deeply loves Christ and believe he sets people free....anyways just wanted to show encouragement and introduce myself

Edwin
Posts: 18

Re: jim larson's thoughts
Reply #10 on : Sun January 13, 2008, 13:54:02

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for "Win"

you are more than right..... those that follow Christ's really lay themselves low for other people... that is LOVE!

*hugs*

win
Posts: 18

=
Reply #9 on : Tue January 01, 2008, 03:40:30

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i'm da random...n i'm a thai gurl,,n i saw ur friends or sumone who knows u post bout wt u did in thailand..it's gd mannn...


i donno wt to say bt i never heard bout whites do stuff for helping ppl who isn't white b4


most of them jt drop sum shit here destroy enviorment...


anyway keep it