The entrance of Bangla Road, Patong’s Red Light District.
The first few weeks in Patong, I started to wonder if all I was going to be doing was praying.
We walk the streets of Patong several times a week. We stop at massage parlors (hubs for prostitution) and small shops asking friends and strangers if they need prayer. We listen to their requests, gather around and lay hands on them, lifting them up to God.
We stand at the beginning of Bangla Road, Soy Empson, and other streets hosting prostitution and darkness. We gather in a circle and ask God to guide our steps, soften hearts and break language barriers.
We all pile onto a wobbly moped sidecar to meet a man at his house to pray for his broken leg.
We pray over morning bible study, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and evening bible studies.
We pray for church members currently facing persecution and trial for their Christian faith in the middle east.
We pray in the church, bars, on the beach and in the streets.
We pray in English, Thai, Burmese, Nepalese and Persian.
We pray and pray and pray. We just pray.
I was growing disappointed. I had expectations, as most people do who sign up for mission trips, of doing more and being more to the community. It was starting to negatively affect how I treated each day and each opportunity. I disliked how this made me see my time here. I took my confusion to The Lord, asking for help to embrace the uncertainty of each day, and every time He gave me the story of Jericho. When I picked up Joshua chapter six, this is what I found.
I found a ridiculous, absurd, absolutely impossible request.
“3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”
I saw faithfulness, despite the confusion, uncertainty and an outlandish demand.
“12 Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. 13 The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding. 14 So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.”
I read of deliverance. I read God keeping his promises and standing firm on his word.
“20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed…”
But what stood out to me the most, was how there was nothing written about what the army, priests and trumpet players thought about this. I started to think about what might be going through their minds:
“So you just want me to march?”
“The Ark is heavy. Can we just leave it at the gates or do I really have to carry it around the city?”
“You’re telling me… that if I scream at the top of my lungs, those walls will crumble?”
“Well, I’ll let everyone else walk today. I’m too tired to walk after the first five days.”
Don’t you think they felt it was silly? Maybe they felt they should do more than march around the city. Maybe half should march, and the other half should try and scale the wall. I’m sure they felt as though opting out of blowing the trumpets wouldn’t matter too much, because it was such a little part of the whole picture. I mean it was just marching, right? The more I wondered what they thought and how they most likely felt, I realized why God kept showing me this story. God was trying to teach me a lesson: there are no “justs” in the Bible.
My team and I aren’t just walking around this city, our own Jericho, praying. We aren’t just asking if people need prayer. We are attending the divine appointment orchestrated by the very One who has come before us and prepared our entire lives. He has done this so that we can rest assured our work, as simple as it feels, is exactly what is needed for our Jericho to crumble. We are not just praying. We are interceding for the lost. We are intimately praying boldly on behalf of God’s children. I’ll most likely never see the fruit of my prayer here; the city of Patong cannot be healed overnight. There is pain and sin that runs culturally deep, problems that might take generations to fix. But, if I show up for my appointment, stand in my position in the army and march, fearlessly in the name of the Lord…. Well then I’m doing exactly what needs to be done to see the Kingdom come alive here on earth. And what if I didn’t? What if I choose not to? What if the soldiers decided to take a personal day? The walls would have never broken and there would be no story of how trusting God leads you into wild adventures of impossible feats.
I was reading my devotions a few mornings ago and came across Proverbs 3:27-28 and an encouragement from Beth Moore.
Proverbs 3:27-28:
27Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to act.
28 Do not say to your neighbor,
“Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you”—
when you already have it with you.
She was writing on random acts of kindness and doing good for others. She wrote about how we sometimes look for the big opportunity. The one that will make the headlines or get people talking. But God’s not calling us to the juicy stuff. He’s calling us to tend to our neighbor when we have the means, even when it is small and may go unnoticed. When you choose the opposite, saying “it’s not enough” or asking “what good is this doing?” you’re choosing to shut the door on the very opportunity God provided for you. So if that means walking around the city praying, then that’s what you do. If it means painting a mural on the church wall, then you find it in you to be a Picasso. If it means taking care of the church members children every morning, then you wrap those children up in your arms and love the snot of out them.
Beth Moore wrote this:
“Just because we can’t do something great, doesn’t mean we can’t do something good.”
The good stuff isn’t always the fancy and glamorous stuff. It doesn’t make for enticing stories of courageously breaking down prostitution rings in one of the world’s largest red light districts. It looks more like bringing chocolate to your friends at the bars and asking them how their day is. It isn’t always great, but it is good and it sure is beautiful in the eyes of the Lord.
I write this as an encouragement to myself, but I hope you find it encouraging in your life too. Do the good stuff and march in your army. Your participation is valuable and necessary for the walls of whatever Jericho you’re facing to ultimately come crashing to the ground.
Lots of love,
Emily
More on my time in Thailand on my personal blog [HERE]
My team and I getting caught in a rainstorm (once again!) and getting a ride in a moped’s sidecar!
