A reflection written by Anji Barker from the Urban Neighbours of Hope (UNOH) in Klong Toey, Bangkok.



Each night as I go to bed my feet ache, I feel as if I have walked a thousand miles, and actually in terms of life’s dramas, some days I have. Yesterday for instance, started with at 5.30am as we have started a Fresh Food Delivery Service, to employ young men. The customers order their produce through our online shop, and the guys here go and buy the fruit, veggies etc..from the local market,  and deliver it to apartments and condos for a fee. So far it is proving a real hit www.hhdelivery.com. The deliveries on their way by 7.00am and the preschool kids start arriving. I have a chat to a grandma who wants to show me her -granddaughter’s dental work that our centre had organized the day before. The 4 year old girl has 13 very rotten and infected teeth still to be pulled out but grandma is so happy that last night she was able to eat proper food.

The unoh team gather at 8.30am and we share in our daily communion. The team is now 7 people, having Ashleigh Newam and Amy Nettlebeck from Ringwood CofC  helping us this year. After communion it is off to the handicrafts room to see what orders await and what things need sending. Things among the women are tense after two of them had a screaming match the previous day. Sometimes a fun place to work,- sometimes stressful!

Budget reports completed, and my neighbor arrives to be driven to the hospital for her Tuberculosis check up. She is dying, she has aids and drug resistant TB. Three hours of waiting in the heat resulted in seeing a doctor for 20 seconds and coming away with two large bags of medication and syringes. She will require twice daily insulin injections plus thrice weekly TB ones. This will need to be done by a UNOH team and one of our teachers- not me I am scared of needles!

Back at the community centre emails await, some booking enquiries for the Helping Hands Cooking school,  and a catering Job for Helping hands Catering service. A trip to the market to help source some of the more western style requests for tomorrows delivery orders and eventually arriving back at home at 6pm. Not there for 10 minutes when a neighbor who has an autistic son (3yrs old. ) comes over asking for help to find a school that will take her son. Disability is still treated like contagious disease in Thailand and this mother weeps as she tells about her struggle to care for her son with no support or help from anyone. I take her to the Community centre to meet with my boss who is a specialist teacher. She does an assessment and sees that this boy needs all sorts of help before being ready to come to our school. A plan is put in place and I start thinking of contacts we have that can help this family.

7.30pm I walk home again this time with Ashleigh and a single mother with 4 children, who is part of the handicrafts project. She needs some samples to copy that I have at my house. Before they leave I am given an 18th month old baby to look after while his mum, and 10 year old sister go and beg for money. They pick him up again at 11pm. By then Ash has returned from Soccer and has various neighbors in and out watching the world cup-more soccer of Course!

Needless to say that as I crawl into bed with exhausted feet, and I am grateful to God that my own kids are on a holiday with their grandma. They are out of this oppressive heat and the chaos of life, for a little precious time that I also look forward to in a few weeks. Feet have significance in Scripture and in many cultures they have meaning- in Thai culture they are considered the dirtiest part of the body and showing the souls of your feet is very rude. Yet it was feet that Jesus washed, and it is our feet that take us to these places where we are called to serve, to be salt and light. If we take that seriously our feet will be very tired and sore! Yet we rest in the confidence that Christ has walked these same footsteps and others will come after us to finish the kingdom job that overwhelms us.

Anji Barker