Imagine

Imagine you are 10 years old.  You are small for your age, have beautiful long black hair, an energetic, attention-getting personality, and your name is Lia.  Instead of going to school, you work seven days a week from two in the afternoon until two in the morning selling gum on the sidewalk to passerbys, mostly tourists out for the latenight scene.  If you get enough money and are hungry, you go to a 7-11 store nearby and buy an ice cream cone.

One night, some of the passerbys don't just smile and pass by, but they stop and begin talking to you.  Are you supposed to trust them?  From your experience growing up in the city, you don't.  But when they pull out coloring pages and sharp, new colored pencils, the kid inside of you can't be held back.  You place the box of gum down next to you and begin coloring.  The friendly strangers talk with you as you color, asking about your school, family, and favorite things to do.  After a while, they must go, but they say they will return another night.  Will they really return? You wonder.

While you are working a few nights later, some friendly and familiar smiles greet you.  They did return!  The strangers introduce themselves again and pull out more coloring sheets and a dry erase board with markers.  You sit with them on the sidewalk against a closed storefront to play and listen to a story they brought, one about a man named Jesus.

Soon, you come to expect and look forward to seeing the friendly faces a few times a week.  You enjoy the chance to be a kid and do kid-things instead of working and hope not to get in trouble for failing to make a profit during these times.  So far, it hasn't been a problem.

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The friendly faces who reach out to kids like Lia are a part of a ministry called Word Made Flesh here in Bangkok.  I went with them one night this past week to visit some of the kids they have begun relationships with and learn more about their ministry.  This specific population is a fairly new area of ministry for them, but they hope to eventually start up an afternoon program for the kids to provide a safe house, a little basic schooling, and a place to learn about Jesus.   Although this is not the area I feel God leading me for long term ministry, I am grateful he has placed this burden on other people's hearts so that these kids can learn about Christ.