As fires continue to rage across Victoria it is hard not to feel very patriotic and deeply saddened for my fellow Aussies. I watched the memorial service with tears in my eyes knowing that fires still rage across the state. I was filled with hope as I saw the way Australians have pulled together to help each other and to fight on.

These same feelings of hope and deep despair are experienced by me weekly, living and working here in the slum. Some days I am filled with hope and amazement as I see the way my very poor neighbors pull together to help each other. Other days I am filled with despair as I experience the overwhelming needs and hopelessness. The Klong Toey Handicrafts has been such a journey. It started 3 years ago as way to create fair and meaningful employment for men and women here as an alternative to selling drugs and prostitution. In the last 7 months we turned over about $100,000 Australian dollars. Thanks to the hard work of our many Australian volunteers. At least half of that was wages and has gone directly into the local economy. The women and men working vary in numbers between 35 and 60 per week.   

Two years ago “Lek”, was released from prison after a 10 year sentence for drug trafficking. She and, her husband, also just out of jail moved into our soi to live with his mother. After a while young women being released from prison with no family and nowhere to go started ending up at Leks. Thai jails have large shared cells and “Lek” had become a mother figure during her time in there. When “Lek” first came to us for work  my sister in-law was able to teach her to sew. “Lek” was able to earn good money and loved the sewing until her aging eyes could not cope any more.

It was then that she introduced us to these young women and we offered them sewing work. We set up a room for them with a sewing machine etc. and most of the time there were at least  1 or 2 of these women living in the room as well as sewing bags for the handicrafts.

(Once a year the King Of Thailand pardons long term prisoners and we would get some new girls join the group.) Some stayed and continue on, others made good money and then moved on. I was really sensing God’s grace as were part of helping newly released prisoners earn a good wage and have an alternative to returning to their life of crime. Over time I noticed “Lek”, who by now was making wrist bands, working less and less as I would see her around the place. I heard from other neighbours she had started loaning money to others at really high interest. Eventually I happened to ask someone else the right question and found out that “Lek” had been taking a 40% cut in the wages we had been paying the women. Apparently this is normal, like a “spotters fee”. Again I felt despair.

Here we were thinking that we were creating fair employment and lives were changing, yet those we were helping were then in turn ripping others off. Not the best missionary story to have, but a very important and valuable one. In Thailand this happens everywhere and we must constantly fight against it. It is also a lesson that while we may feel hope at the changes we are seeing in the lives of the women, they may not feel that same hope. Despair can be a hard thing to shake.

 The longer I live here the more I understand that I don’t understand! I live in the slum, yet I can choose to leave. I feel I have rights and feel empowered to fight for better while my neighbors drown in problems from all angles. Christ and His hope are the only true hope. Money is not the answer to poverty people are! Sharing Christ’s transforming hope is needed here more than ever.

While I celebrate the Handicrafts project and the lives it has changed, I must always remember that there are many layers to the despair that these men and women face while giving them an income is vital, it is just the beginning of a very long road to wholeness. These are just our bumps on the road.

By Anji Barker