I try to see everything through the eyes of empathy. My heart is heavy now in regards to the mission I have been chosen to minister in. While there are many things that I have read and heard about the countries that we are going to, I am not sure I ever really let it sink in. Today it is starting to sink,, and my dear brothers and sisters my heart is so heavy. As you read in my last post I wanted to do more research on the countries that I will be visiting next year. I like to research, read, and study. I always have. I have done a lot of reading on the countries of South East Asia: Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Now to be clear, I am not known for my interest in politics. In fact, I normally choose to turn my ear in the opposite direction and I hear what I want to hear. After much reading and asking questions I am finding myself very thankful. While I am sure there is so much I don’t know about American politics, this much I do know; we are more prone to complaining than we are standing in appreciation for the things that we do have. Our children are protected and our freedom of religion is protected. I spent the last day reading on internal political corruption, coups, and more military action that I could stand to read about in a lifetime. When it came to human trafficking there are no limits. There are loose laws but nothing that is serious about keeping our kids safe. Yes, I consider children all around this globe to be my children. My little brothers and sisters are being sold into prostitution and labor slavery. Those being targeted are of corse the migrant workers and ethnic minorities. I couldn’t decide on which country to talk about first so I decided to research all at once. I quickly discovered that a lot of the same facts about trafficking and child labor were very present in each country. Then I started looking at religious statistics and it all made sense. Vietnam is a communist country so their statistics are very low. The highest practiced religion is Buddhism at 9.3%…..coming in second is Catholic Christianity at 6.7%…..and Protestant Christianity at less that 1%. Thailand has a very high Buddhist practice at 94.6%, then Muslim at 4.6%, and Christianity at 0.7%. It is interesting that the country that is seen to be one of the worst countries for slavery and political unrest has a Christianity percentage of 0.7%. Coincidence? I think not.
Join with me in prayer this week over the governments and powers of all the countries of SE Asia. Covering the ministries already in place with our prayers against spiritual attacks and prayer for the many children that are held in slavery.
