Finally I am sitting down to process the past 33 days I have spent in Asia. The majority of my time was spent traveling all over Thailand.

After surprising John In Bangladesh I came over to Bangkok to connect with some amazing people who were part of a Xealot “Vision Trip”.

Dave Gibbons gathered a unique group of individuals for this particular vision trip in Thailand.

Sam Oh – Fresh & Easy
Benny Yu – The Well Mexico City
Michael “Stew” Stewart - Verge Network
Francis, Lisa Chan & family - Update on Journey
Pete McGowan - Plain Joe Studios
Dave Park – Real Estate Investor LA
Darryl & Linda Brumfield - Newsong Irvine

Spending time with this group of individuals felt like a family reunion.

Although we are all from various backgrounds and life experiences a lot of us are on the same journey within the Kingdom right now.

Some young leaders that spent the day with us were amazed that we had just met each other and they commented that they thought we had been friends for years. I love that about the Kingdom and being around Kingdom people.

Stew and I had a conversation that stuck with me over the past month about creating community. There is a lot of talk about community and creating community among Christ followers.

One of comments that Stew made was “You cant create community by sitting around having coffee and reading books together but rather community is a by product of being on mission together”

As he made this statement we were literally in a four wheel drive vehicle on the border of Laos and Thailand visiting a community development project. I thought back to all the short term trips I have taken over the years and how tight I felt with the people that were on those journeys with me.

Follow Stew on Twitter - Also he is adopting a child from Haiti (send him some $$$ as it is not cheap)

A VISUAL OF MY JOURNEY IN THAILAND

5, 214 KM Total - (Most of this was ground transportation on a bus, taxi, or riding with Jim G who drives just like me!) Jim Gustafson is one of the pioneers of holistic ministry in Asia and one of the most brilliant and passionate men I have ever met. He grew up in Laos and has spent the majority of his life in Thailand.

As we began our journey Jim prayed a prayer that I have since adopted as my own “Lord protect us from our own stupidity and from the stupidity of others, Amen.”

We spent time visiting community developments projects that are created and staffed by indigenous Thai leaders. This is a rarity in a lot of work that is currently happening globally.

From what I have seen western non-profits, NGO’s, and missionaries tend to have a messiah complex that leads them to think that they have all the answers and this leads to them showing up in communities thinking they are there to save the day.

What I noticed about Jim and the way he positions himself is that he is there to serve the locals and empower them to do what they are fully capable of doing. He is not the director of the organization. The director is a woman and most of the staff are women who are very passionate about what they do.

THAI LEADERS. THAI ORGANIZATION. THAI BELIEVERS. THAI CONTEXT.

The SDRF (Sustainable Development Research Foundation) has branches all over Thailand and projects involving agriculture, fish farming (fresh and salt water), pig farming and loaning, education, HIV/AIDS communities, and a for profit business center that equips students for the SAT College Prep.

What I respect most about the SDRF and the team that runs the organization is the commitment to contextualize the gospel and genuinely love communities with no strings attached. I have read and heard a lot about contextualization but have seen very few practitioners until this trip.

It was beautiful to see Thai’s experiencing and worshiping God through their own cultural context and not just adapting to a western form of expression.

The local people chose to leave their work harvesting rice for the day in order to worship God by bringing him the first fruits of the harvest.

Certain families brought either rice or pumpkins and offered back to God what He had given them. This rice and pumpkin was cooked and after being offered to God we all sat down and had a communion service and meal together.

It was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever been apart of.

Indigenous Thai leaders leading Thai believers in a Thai context. The way it should be.

I loved being able to learn from this environment where asking questions and learning from each other are core values as opposed to the CEO or militaristic models that currently drive most organizations.

Click here for a great video on contextualization – Tim Keller “God’s Global Urban Mission”

ROSS BOYS

Halfway through my time in Bangkok my little brother Dakota came to travel with me.

He had been in Vietnam since the beginning of the year and was on his way to Malaysia to spend time with his team. We have rare moments when we are actually able to see each other and travel together so I am glad it worked out.

While up north with Peter training youth leaders from Laos we even had a chance to go fishing!

Dakota and I had the privilege of staying with Peter and Pat Dewitt who have been in Thailand for almost twenty years. It was great to be able to do life with this couple for a few weeks. Peter is a very passionate guy and Pat is very prophetic and an amazing writer. Check out her blog here. It was great to sit around the table and have home cooked meals for a change.

BROTHELS TO BEAUTY

Dakota and I had a few days free and heard about a organization called Life Impact on the border of Myanmar that was rescuing children who were victims of human trafficking.

We jumped on a bus and headed north.

Lana is the director of Life Impact and I have met very few young ladies that are as passionate and committed as her. She is confronting one of the darkest aspects of society and raising up a generation of leaders from kids that were unwanted and thrown away.

While we were visiting one day we were able to help the Chan family with a project they were working on. They had spent the week creating a play ground out of old tires, pipes, and an old water tank for the kids to play on at the new property Life Impact had acquired.

They created beauty out of materials that were unwanted. I thought it was fitting as that is exactly what Lana and her team have done by rescuing the unwanted and giving them a future and a hope.

This girl from the orphanage there stole my heart. I was wondering how I could ever have my own kids knowing that thousands of orphans out there have no parents.

Some friends of ours from Newsong Bangkok were also headed to the same area to help some refugees that had not received any assistance from the UN or any other non-profits. They were going to be delivering blankets as the cold season is approaching. They invited us to join them so we headed north once again. A huge thanks to those of you who supported this project financially as well!

When we arrived the lady we were working with informed us that a few days before we arrived that someone was just killed on the road just outside the refugee camp where we were going.

When you look at the faces of these Burmese refugee children how could you not face any danger that you might experience.

Here is the video from Help Live in case you missed it in the last post.

HelpLive from brett clark on Vimeo.

WHAT ARE THE LONG TERM SOLUTIONS?

This is the question that I have been wrestling with my entire time in Thailand. Sure there are many legitimate needs in the world and people respond by giving their finances as some of you did when you watched the above video.

BUT WHAT ARE THE LONG TERM SOLUTIONS?

Since this post is already enough information to create a coffee table book I will be dealing with this question in another post within a few days.

I do want to leave you with one last picture and a couple links pertaining to this picture. I did visit a trash dump where Burmese refugees live and literally are waiting until the trash trucks roll up so they can dig through the garbage in order to sort through it to survive.

As I was watching these people run towards the trash truck I was confronted with the reality that they are working extremely hard to survive. Then I was confronted with the reality of my laziness. I wondered “Am I working this hard with the opportunities that have been given to me so that others may live?”

“When a garbage truck rolls into the waste dump at Mae Sot, a city of 120,000 residents on Thailand’s border with Burma, 12-year-old Ma Nge knows it’s time to get moving. The dump truck barely has enough time to unload its stinky freight before an army of at least 20 children and their parents descend upon the trash in the hope of fishing out anything that could be of use. It goes without saying that whoever arrives first gets the best stuff.” …continue reading

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