Bangkok

We are headed over to SE Asia in just a few short weeks. This will be my third visit to Asia (Singapore), but my first visit to Bangkok, Thailand. Our MC council had a meeting tonight and we were told that we were able to connect with people in Bangkok to help us get child prostitutes off the street.

Let me give you a little background:

* 20% of children aged 11-17 are child prostitutes, that is 1 out of 5

* there are 250,000 children who are child prostitutes

* Bangkok is the child prostitution capital of the world

* there is no hope for these children

* there is no where for them to go

* they feel as if no one loves them

I don't know exactly who we have connected with, but we have found a place that is willing to take children that we find and house them, feed them and protect them. This is a major answer to prayer. As we want to go there and help everyone we can; however, we cannot go make a presence and then have no local help to back us up. This is a great opportunity to love on these children, show them someone loves them and that God loves them, and put them in a safe place. We don't know exactly how this is going to work or how many we are going to be able to help. But God knows. We prayed tonight that there would be children that we would come in contact with that we would be able to help, and that God would begin pointing out those children and know exactly who were to go help. Yes, this seems like a huge undertaking, but with the Lord on our side how can we go wrong.

While there we will also be doing some prayer walking, simply covering the city in prayer and breaking strongholds that cover the city. We will be visiting temples such as the one on the left...this one in particular is Wat Arun: Temple of the Dawn. Honestly, it is fascinating to visit these places; however, we know that we are going in there to do battle. There are so many lost and hurting people in these temples praying to gods that do not exist. Essentially, the have given their lives over to false gods and ultimately the enemy has them right where he wants them. They worship these gods because that is what their parents did and their parents before them and so on and so forth. Then there are the tourists that are in these temples as well who have no idea of the battle that is being held in the very place they are standing. We often get the opportunity to talk with people...usually we strike up conversations about what their religion means and such, and then we steer the conversation to Jesus. Sometimes there is no response, sometimes we talk for awhile...but ALWAYS some seed is planted!

We also see many images of Buddha where ever we go. Some of the temples have Buddha imagaes that are huge...I'm talking like 20 feet tall or so. We know that these images are wrong, and we go in doing battle once again. Once in a city we pray over the five doors to a city: Religion, Government, Finance, Communication, and Education. We walk the streets of these cities and pray over every area. We go to temples, churches, government buildings, the financial district, colleges, schools, media sources and more. We know that we can't move a mountain in a day unless God is doing it, but we can make a difference by being a spiritual presence.

We leave on the 4th of February and are returning on the 21st. If you remember, please pray for us while we are gone. We are taking 30 people on this trip. We are having to apply for visas into Indonesia/Borneo (where a group is going for part of the trip) before we leave and need to have them in our possession before leaving. We are flying to Singapore than into Bangkok and Indo respectively, then flying back to Singapore where we are trading groups then back to Bangkok and Indo...and then back to Singapore for our final few days. Then home through California. It can be exhausting just travelling there as it is 24 hours or more in airports and airplanes...and then we get there and go, go, go! Every year is such a blessing though and quite amazing to see what happens.