Jim Larson's ThoughtsJim Larson's ThoughtsThoughts of a Christian pastor-missionary who works, along with his wife, to help women out of Thailand's sex industry Articles
3:00 A.M.
2007-07-30 22:04:00 Why are women so often so oppressed? I wish I knew. An Indian friend of mine, Richard Samuel, and his family run a home for abandoned women in the southern state of Madurai. "How could someone abandon a woman?" I wondered when he first told me. In the north of India, widows are flocking to the city of Vrindavan to find refuge. Of course I've told plenty about what they do to get help in Thailand. learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; ...
How to know God
2007-07-30 20:31:00 All the books ever written on this subject could fill a lot of shelves. But in fact it's quite simple. "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD. Jeremiah 22:16
How to know God
2007-07-30 20:29:00 All the books ever written on this subject could fill a lot of shelves. But in fact it's quite simple. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD. Jeremiah 22:16
Battle won
2007-07-30 19:54:00 Last week Mae agreed to quit bar work and join The Well. She also brought a 16 year-old friend who had also been working at another location. The first battle is ours, but the war is far from over. Even though the final outcome is still not certain, it is nonetheless heartening. I prayed hard for this one, and I know others did as well. Indeed it was a team effort, as several volunteers, staff and students were part of helping Mae decide to join. As we suspected, it turns out that Mae is 13, not 15. She's just a cute, skinny little kid. I still shudder to remember some guys at that bar eyeing her. It's weird to think that Mae's future may now have completely changed. We've met other bar girls and street prostitutes who got their start the way Mae was heading. They come from the countryside to the big city, and dazzled by the pace and the prospect of money, feel on top of the world, oblivious to the ris... More About: Battle
Battling for a child
2007-07-23 00:00:00 We've been on outreach a lot these days with visitors. Sunday night a team from Adventures in Missions met a young teen working at one of the bars. "Mae" says she is 15, but looks 14. Short and thin, not over 85 pounds, she is just a child. A baby. She said she has completed 8th grade, and has only been working at that bar for a few days. Mae says her dad, 36, and mom, 40, are at home in the Buriram province, the home of many thousands of bar girls. They sent her here to work, she says, but they don't know she's working in a bar. That is possible but not necessarily true. Tonight the group went back to see her, and I joined them a while later as they were sitting with her teaching English and doing little puzzles--an activity that only made Mae's youth more incredibly obvious. I ended up spending a long time essentially begging Mae to quit. She does happen to be friends with some of our newer ... More About: Child
Remote church planting
2007-07-22 06:24:00 I called Jiap, my 16 year-old "little buddy", a few days ago to tell her we had returned from the U.S.. I mentioned her in this post . Jiap lives in Uthaithani (pronounced "oo-tie-tan-nee"), a province about 3 hours north of Bangkok where we've made a few outreach visits. The Well sponsors Jiap and her friend Mui in high school. I call Jiap "my little buddy" not because she resembles Gilligan in any way, but because she's so incredibly cute and I'm so proud that she likes to talk to me. We talk by phone amost every week, then I ask Judy about 3 or 4 times if we could adopt her. Jiap told me that Nin, the girl I wrote about in that same post who was to become a second wife, has been dismissed already and is back with her aunt in Bangkok. She has no parents. I asked Jiap to please find a phone number so we can visit her, perhaps invite her to The Well. I usually ask Jiap about her cousin N... More About: Church , Remote , Plant , Planting , Mote
Honorable prostitute
2007-07-20 20:57:00 Once in a while we meet someone working the bars that, while I could never actually condone what she does, I have to say deserves honor, even high honor, for her dedication and sacrifice, doing something she hates to do in order to help her children and family. I met one such woman tonight. I was out at Nana with short-term volunteers Beka and Nicole. I had briefly met "Ae" a couple nights ago, and promised to come back later with Judy. Judy had gone out last night, but we hadn't been able to go together. I wasn't particularly expecting anything--Ae had been friendly and talkative, said she was 34 with 3 children, and my first guess was that she was a seasoned professional who was more or less fine with her line of work. Ae spotted me first, and quickly offered seats for the 3 of us. We ordered Cokes and a drink for her. The music at this bar is not too loud, so conversation was not so difficult. Right away Ae be... More About: Prostitute , Prost , Rosti
Don't give up
2007-07-18 15:53:00 Yesterday I spoke by phone with "Bo", one of our Thai daughters who has been in a Christian addiction rehab center in Chiang Mai for over a month. I mentioned her in this post . To say that Bo has given us headaches over the last couple of years would be putting it mildly--migraines would be more like it. She came to us over 2 years ago with a history of prostitution, violence and addiction. Bo has a personality that from the beginning was very charming, but she could also be quite good at lying and covering things up. You also didn't want to make her angry. Although in her mid 20's, she could behave like a young teen. Judy and I would sometimes call her our street kid, our wild child. With all her acting out, keeping Bo around has been a challenge. Tougher cases like hers take more time. You always feel like you're short-changing the "good kids" because of the few bad ones that take so much time... More About: Give , Give up
Wedding pics
2007-07-14 07:02:00 Here are a few taken by Amy Brown: Principessa I suppose cheesy grins are allowed at weddings, especially if you're bride and groom. Luke was flawless as groomsman/bodyguard, and nobody got hurt. More About: Wedding
Back at it
2007-07-13 03:24:00 Air travel is a strange and marvelous thing. A few days ago I was on the quiet, green bike path near my in-laws' house in Illinois. Last night I was sitting in under neon signs talking to bar girls in Bangkok. Both activities are quite exhiliarating, and it's weird to be able to do both in such as short timespan. Last night our outreach team of 4 spent an hour or so with 3 women in front of a massage bar. Massage is everywhere in Bangkok, and the majority of establishments are small storefronts offering legitimate Thai massage. I've never liked the thought of someone pushing and poking around on me for an hour or two, so have never tried it. Judy on the other hand loves it and goes as often as she can. On the other side of things are huge brothels each the size of a Neiman Marcus, that use the term "massage" as a thinly veiled euphemism. Some of the small storefronts also offer "extra service", of... More About: Back
anniversary
2007-06-27 14:56:00 Today I celebrate 26 years of marriage to an awesome woman, who not only puts up with my attention deficit disorder and other quirks, like the urge to move halfway across the world, but actually laughs at my jokes. Thanks, Judy. You are the absolute bomb diggity. More About: Anniversary
why i can't imagine retiring
2007-06-27 14:27:00 I'm still a decade and a half from retirement age, but with stuff like this happening, the idea of someday quitting what we're doing is unthinkable. Instead my thoughts go to staying in good health in order to keep going as long as God allows. Here is the sort of thing that drives my thinking: Over half the world's population will live in cities by next year, says a report from the UN Population Fund. In Asia and Africa, urban populations will double, from 1.7 to 3.4 billion individuals. With such growth, of course the population of urban poor will mushroom, and with it the need for folks to serve them. Slum dwellers of the new millennium are no longer a few thousand in a few cities of a rapidly industrializing continent. They include one out of every three city dwellers, a billion people, a sixth of the world’s population. Over 90 per cent of slum dwellers today are in the developing world. South Asia has the largest share, followed by E... More About: Imagine
the face of evil
2007-06-24 06:40:00 A few who have posted links to this blog have noted that it's a bit graphic. I do apologize if some find it a bit much. I don't know how else to communicate this reality. it is an ugly world out there. I've been in the U.S. for two weeks. I stopped writing for a while because it was just too depressing. Two of our women that we love very dearly, as daughters, were really going through difficult times. One, who was one of the rape victims mentioned earlier, had just about given up hope, and was seeing herself as ugly, dirty and evil, and was essentially acting out those feelings. She's now in a rehab program in Chiang Mai, and so far is doing well. The other is the one whose mom pimped her. She fell into major drug use and is now away from The Well. The next few months for her are going to be really rough. So I'm hating evil a whole lot right now. But we have to face it. We can't build walls to ... More About: Evil , Face
bride for free
2007-06-23 18:40:00 I gave my daughter away last Saturday. I walked Anna up the aisle to theme music from the movie, Peter Pan. Didn't trip. When we reached the front, Anna handed me a tissue with 2 peanut M&M's and said, "Dad, I love you a billion peanut M&M's. It's a little thing between us. Then when Jason Hartong asked, "Who gives this woman to be married to this man?" I answered, "Her mother and I," hugged her and handed her over to Ben. In most Thai cultural groups, families don't just "give" their daughters away. The groom is expected to pay, mostly out of respect for the bride's family, but in the case of the poor, they're also naturally happy for the money. But mainly it's a thing of pride for the family, one, that their daughter is worth something, and two, that she found a decent provider. It's quite common for the groom and the bride's family to secretly agree on a price, then at the cer... More About: Free , Bride
first mission trip
2007-06-23 18:40:00 I'll say it again: Prang rocks. Last month she went on her first mission trip to Cambodia. Kevin Kane, an old friend and college roommate, was leading a team of Americans there, and gladly accepted my request to have Prang join. The team covered all her expenses as well. With the team she was able to visit churches and orphanages in several provinces, including Cambodia's poorest. She shared her story several times, and came back ready to go again. Next month, Michaela Weeks will be on the plane with us on our return to Bangkok, and will be heading up to help Prang in Buriram for a couple of months. She'll then go back to the U.S. for a wedding in September, then Lord willing will be able to get a visa for a longer-term stay. More About: Trip , Mission , Missi
When Mom is a pimp
2007-06-02 19:49:00 The last few weeks have had some pretty rough spots, so much that I thought about writing a follow-up to "Better than the NBA" to point out that this work has losing streaks too, which can be less than fun. A couple of women that Judy and I have invested a lot in went through some serious struggles, to the point that we feared losing both. One, that I'll call "Jen", went to be with her mom. Her middle-aged mom quit her security guard job because she wasn't getting along with another employee, and decided she didn't need to work any more. She never asked Jen for money, but complained and manipulated her daughter, who has kids of her own to take care of, to support her mother. We've known the history of this manipulation, and feared the worst, and sadly enough, our fears came true. We were able to convince Jen to come back to The Well, but not before she sold herself for 2500 baht (about $75) to an old man referred to her... More About: Pimp
The face of evil
2007-05-08 19:32:00 A few who have posted links to this blog have noted that it's a bit graphic. I do apologize if some find it a bit much. I don't know how else to communicate this reality. it is an ugly world out there. I've been in the U.S. for two weeks. I stopped writing for a while because it was just too depressing. Two of our women that we love very dearly, as daughters, were really going through difficult times. One, who was one of the rape victims mentioned earlier, had just about given up hope, and was seeing herself as ugly, dirty and evil, and was essentially acting out those feelings. She's now in a rehab program in Chiang Mai, and so far is doing well. The other is the one whose mom pimped her. She fell into major drug use and is now away from The Well. The next few months for her are going to be really rough. So I'm hating evil a whole lot right now. But we have to face it. We can't build walls to ... More About: Evil , Face
Women Do Too
2007-05-01 18:53:00 I still intend to do some more writing about men's treatment of women. But of course women mistreat each other as well. A while back, Judy and I were doing outreach on Sukhumvit Road, and I noticed a particularly young-looking freelancer, who looked no more than 16. We went over to talk to her. "Bpuu" was very light-skinned, and was missing a front tooth. She said she was 20, which was doubtful, and introduced us to another young woman, a bit older and darker in complexion, standing next to her. The second one's name had a Muslim name--we'll call her Hasna. We assumed the pair were friends sort of freelancing together, something we see often for obvious reasons. We asked Hasna if she was working too, and she said, "Oh no, my parents have jobs." Weird. Bpuu said she had no family, but that Hasna's family was helping her. She mentioned that she had lost her ID and was going to get a new ... More About: Women
Serving Pics
2007-05-01 17:21:00 Pouring Cement in Kon Khen. Front to back: Pastor Kong, one of our staff; Dan Stine; me; Bill Graver. Foreground: "Ae" and "Bom", sisters and members at The Well, who went along to help. Background: staff member Mani, wearing a mask to fend off dust, and Oo's lovely daughter. More About: Ving
Serving Works
2007-04-30 19:19:00 Dan Stine just gave me a copy of The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church, by Gregory Bode. In the introductory chapters of the book, Bode compares the "power over" thinking of the world with the "power under" strategy of Jesus, an idea Bode credits to Barbara Rossing and John Yoder. Bode describes it like this: "The kingdom of God advances by people lovingly placing themselves under others, in service to others, at cost to themselves. This 'coming under' doesn't mean that followers of Jesus conform to other people's wishes, but it does mean that we always interact with others with their best interests in mind." Perhaps no passage in Jesus' life sums it up better than these words: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great amon... More About: Works , Ving
One More Evil
2007-04-22 20:43:00 I'm reeling. The older girl who took Noi to her village was acting not right all week. We thought it was because she felt responsible for what happened to Noi, but it became obvious there was something else. Finally we pulled it out of her--she too was also raped that same night, but by only one guy. Only one. Guys, let me tell you something in case you didn't know: when a man takes advantage of a woman, she feels like scum. No, she doesn't secretly like it. I'll be out a few days on another village trip. When I come back, I might just go on a blogging rampage about this issue. God help us all. More About: Evil , More
Men For Women
2007-04-21 09:37:00 In my last post I challenged men to get involved with caring for the needs of women who are poor and depressed. Indeed there are a number who are already doing a lot. Carl Ralston is the founder of Remember Nhu, named after a young girl named Nhu who was sold into a brothel at age 12. Carl first learned of Nhu's story visiting Thailand in 2003, and decided not to stand on the sidelines. "I made a commitment to God that I would use every talent and gift that God has given me to eliminate the use of children in the sex trade industry around the world." "Every talent and gift." Give me a hundred men with that intense level of commitment, and the world will be changed. More About: Women , For Women
Why, Men?
2007-04-19 15:11:00 Sometimes people ask me how I deal with seeing men taking advantage of women so much. To be honest, violence has crossed my mind. It certainly has today. It's been a few weeks since Noi, our 13 year-old foster daughter, ran away and came back. She's been doing ok since, and growing on us. More and more she appears to be a sweet-hearted kid who just got off to the wrong start. Noi spent last night at The Well, and was still asleep at 9am. Judy woke her up. She didn't give an excuse. She came down for class at 10:30. At 11:15 we had a break so I took her aside. When confronting someone, I always start with the positive. "Noi, I love you very much." "I love you too, Dad." "Are you ok?" "I'm fine." She sat staring down at her hands resting on the table. I told her she looked stressed. It took her a while to get to it. I didn't force anything. It wa...
surrogate mother
2007-04-16 18:14:00 The other day I talked on the phone with my little buddy Jiap. Jiap is 16, and just finished 9th grade in her home province of Uthaithani. She's somewhat of an orphan--her mom died when she was little, and her alcoholic dad works construction away from home and hardly ever shows up, like less than once a year. More About: Gate , Other , Mother
Songkran
2007-04-13 17:26:00 It's Song kran, the biggest Thai holdiday of the year; a 4-day water festival, or water fight. Folks have gone home, so the streets of Bangkok are relatively empty.
Better than the NBA
2007-04-09 09:27:00 One of the most common responses I get when telling other Christians about what we do, including missionaries and pastors, is, "That's a difficult ministry." I met a missionary yesterday who said it. I'm tired of hearing that. I wonder if anyone ever said to Michael Jordan, "Playing in the NBA is difficult work." I sort of doubt it. They may have said, "What's it like playing against Barclay, Ewing or Shaq?" But I suspect most people would focus on the fun and the challenge, not on the difficulty. Getting paid to play, we figure, must be about the best thing there is. This is better than playing in the NBA. Sure, if you want to focus on difficulty, we see it. But we have way more fun than hardship, way more reward than cost, even though we get paid maybe .1% of what Michael Jordan got at his peak. In fact, you wouldn't have to pay us to do this, other than the fact that our kids need to ... More About: The N , Better , Bett
More Buriram images
2007-04-09 09:02:00 About 35-40 kids come to Prang's house every day during school break. Pictured with them are a few of our students who went along to help out, and Michaela Weeks, a volunteer visiting from the U.S. The woman on left is a new Christian. Michaela is a rockin' English teacher More About: Images , Buriram , Image , More , Ages
Good Friday
2007-04-06 16:54:00 Thank the Lord, so far Behn's plan to go to Japan did not work out. She came by to visit today. We pointed out in a lighthearted way that so far 2 doors have been closed and perhaps God was moving her towards The Well. She's definitely too trapped for now by dysfunctional parents who demand money from her, at least if she's telling the truth. That's hard to know at this point. Meanwhile Behn is freelancing around Sukhumvit Road. I talked with one of our women about a drinking binge she had Monday night. She was expecting to get the book thrown at her, but instead I just said ok. We'll give her some loving 'consequences', like some extra reading, but mostly we find that just our knowing about a problem such as this is consequence enough. In my past in working with people with addictions I used to focus a lot more on addictive behavior. Here in Thailand we realized long ago that we needed to de-emphasize it beca... More About: Friday , Good , Frida
Prang's mission
2007-04-04 18:28:00 Last Wednesday I went with Prang to visit some folks, including Jay. 10 days prior she had been struck by lightning. The storm came on a Sunday. It rained very hard, and there were some huge thunder crashes. Prang said her mom heard the news first that Jay had been hit. Her mom was hysterical-"She's dead for sure!" "No she isn't," Prang answered calmly. "She didn't die." Prang doesn't know how she knew, but she felt right away that it was God's plan. Jay, a pretty young Khmer-looking woman with a husband and son, suffered some burns to her face, chest and abdomen. For Prang it was an opportunity to share that there is a God who is in charge. She prayed with Jay, asking God to heal her quickly and introduce Himself to her. Later, I talked some more with Prang about her goals. She loves reaching others, and would like to do that wherever she can, even if it one day means mov... More About: Miss , Sion , Mission , Missi
New Video
More articles from this author:2007-04-04 03:38:00 Our good friend Scott Hodge has just posted the first of 3 videos he and Dan Anderson put together on his trip to Thailand/The Well in January. It's very nicely done. Watch it if for no other reason than to hear Scott did call me "one of a kind, unique, different". Yikes--all 3! Watch it here. More About: Video 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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