I have seen a bit more of the city now, and I am beginning to understand that Bangkok is a city of sharp contrasts. There are hotels and shopping areas that rival anything 5th avenue and Beverly Hills has to offer. Then, just around the corner you might find a dilapidated slum comunity. There is tremendous wealth here and also tremendous poverty.
I have been able to visit a few different slum communities now. They are smelly, cramped, and generally unpleasant. Drug use and prostituion are major problems. There are small children who have been abandoned by their parents and left in the care of infirm relatives. One old woman said that she had to take in her grandaughter because her parents "threw her away."
Although they are mired in physical and spiritual darkness, God has not forgotten these people. There are small rays of hope and truth piercing into these areas. We met a blind man named Char-lee that is living in one of the slums. It has about 10,000 people, and he is the only Christian. He lost his sight in a fight as a teenager. Since then, he came to Christ, and the people of his slum say the change in him has been incredible. He teaches about Jesus to the orphaned children and any who will listen.
When he needs to go somewhere, the children gather around him and serve as his eyes. He loves the Lord, and he desires for all of his people to know Jesus like he does.
I hope you will be as blessed as I was by seeing this man's smiling face. My prayer for myself and all of us is that we might know a fraction of the joy that Char-lee has in in his relationship with God.
