We just returned from three
weeks in Korea and Thailand. There
we witnessed first-hand the Spirit calling people into missions, we served
alongside front-line missionaries who care for women and men in prostitution,
and participated in prayers of confession and repentance to address larger
macro-powers.
In Korea I led a retreat for about
200 members of Jubilee Church, a congregation of young mostly-Asian
English-speaking ex-pats living and working in Seoul. Jubilee’s mission statement is Isaiah 61, and the Holy
Spirit was strongly present to call people into Jesus’ ministry, visibly
filling and healing people. Many
expressed their longing to follow Jesus into the darkest places—and Thailand
definitely qualifies. (Jubilee prayer team is first picture below).
Next stop was Bangkok, where
I met with Jennie-Joy, a young, joy-filled missionary working with Nightlight
to advocate for individual women trafficked from other nations so they can get out
of the sex trade (second photo below).
Iven and Kashmira Hauptman welcomed
me into their home in the heart of one of Bangkok’s red-light districts. Iven invited me on a several-hour loop
around the National Palace and Emerald Buddha Temple, where we encountered
dozens of young men awaiting customers as free-lance prostitutes.
We talked to a number of guys
about Jesus and prayed for those who accepted our offers to bless them, as
potential customers slowly cruised by.
Iven and Kashmira are fluent in Thai, have built relationships with
their neighbors and many of these young men, with whom they envision starting a
church.
My third stop was Pattaya,
Thailand, home to the world’s largest sex-tourism scene and meeting place for two
gatherings of missionaries living and serving the poor in slum communities with
Servants and the New Friars. Gracie and our 17-year-old daughter, Anna, joined
me to minister to these missionaries.
While there we went out on
the streets three nights to pray for people in the heart of the red-light
district, and to discern what Jesus would have us notice and do in response
(third photo below). Walking the
streets was highly disturbing, and yet intercession seemed urgent and came
naturally as the despair and emptiness of the women and men selling themselves
and also the customers was in our faces.
We knew that an old US Air
Force Base “U-Tapau” was close by, from which US B-52 bombers left to bomb Cambodia,
Laos and North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Many directly link the death and terror from these bombing
campaigns to the rise to power of Khmer Rogue, and Pol Pot’s execution of
hundreds of thousands of Cambodians.
We were also aware that the
US military had used Pattaya as an R&R site, and that sex tourism got it’s
start there largely due to US troop presence. One evening after a prayer walk through the heart of the
prostitution scene, my friend Tom and I waded into Pattaya Bay and confessed
nation’s sins, re-affirming our baptisms.
We felt God’s strong presence hovering over the waters.
At the Easter Sunday we
included an act of public confession and repentance for US’s use and abuse of
Pattaya as part of our celebration of Jesus’ victory over the powers (see
below). Many Americans joined me
as I led these prayers (fourth photo) and
Cambodian participants and ministry workers living in Phnom Penh
offered declarations of forgiveness.
The following week our daughter, Anna volunteered
with Tamar Project, a ministry that reaches out to women in prostitution. Anna was deeply impacted as she worked
alongside women whom Tamar staff had befriended and offered employment through
their bakery, café and greeting card businesses (final photo).
Anna’s experience of working alongside the women was
life-changing, reminding us that Jesus’ love is deeply personal and relational,
and can overcome any barrier. It breaks
the grip of evil as people surrender to the crucified and risen Victor.
Prayers of
Confession (March 31, 2013, Pattaya, Thailand)
I confess and
renounce the sin of the United States of America of using and abusing the land
of Thailand, the city of Pattaya as a launching pad for bombing raids on Viet
Nam, Cambodia and Laos. I renounce
US Imperial designs and lament the death and ongoing destruction that have
resulted and continue to be felt.
I confess and
repent of the sin of American soldiers, military personnel and other citizens
of using Thai and Cambodian women as objects and for and any role the US played
in contributing to the rise of prostitution in SE Asia.
We declare that
there is no justification for these actions.
We repent of the
sin of misrepresenting God through these behaviors [since many people would
have viewed the US as a Christian nation].
We ask the
people of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam for forgiveness for these sins
in the name of Jesus.
Links to people and ministries
Iven and Kasmira Hauptman, http://ivenandkashmira.com
Servants,
http://servantsasia.org
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