Week 3 - Routine

For the first time since I arrived, I experienced a week that can only be described as routine. Our team continued to have morning devotions and study Thai for three--nominally--hours a day. Teaching English at the University club and the Klong Toey center went off largely as they did the week before.

At the end of this month, we will be discussing Companion to the Poor by Viv Grigg. A missionary from New Zealand, Viv moved himself into a Manilla slum after he came to the conviction that he was not called to work among the middle class, but among the poor. To some extent, Grigg calls us all to work among the poor. Though we may not all move into the slums--Grigg himself doesn't believe that is required--he believes we are all called by the testimony of Scripture to witness to the poor in word and deed. There's a lot to unpack there and I do not have the time or mental capacity right now to do it justice. But I have been wrestling with that call. I have been wrestling with the awareness that my impulse is to first serve myself and my own needs, to elevate my own comforts to a point of luxury. It is the sort of deeply-rooted selfishness that can be up-ended with the power of Christ's resurrection.

I have, I believe, found a church to attend while here. It is called New City Fellowship, a Presbyterian church located just East of where I am staying. The service is in Thai, but they have an English service in the evening once a month. I plan to use those days to visit other churches in the morning in order to get a fuller view of the visible Church in Bangkok.

Prayer Requests are largely the same as before. As September 14th draws nearer, we are preparing ourselves more and more for taking God's message in word and deed to the streets.