A Journey to the Slums of Bangkok
Testimony of David Von Strohby Jessica Wong
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what God’s saying, and sometimes it’s easy to hear what he’s saying but hard to see what he’s doing. David Von Stroh heard the voice of God to begin praying for Bangkok while in high school, but it wasn’t until years later, that he began to understand why.
Throughout David’s time in college, both through his church and his Intervarsity Fellowship, he began to value loving the poor and serving the inner city. A friend thus suggested participating on InterVarsity’s Global Urban Trek to Bangkok to learn more about God’s heart for the city and to gain a better sense of God’s leading in his life. There he was first introduced to members of Servant Partners, an international holistic church planting organization that serves urban slum areas all over the world. Another trek and two years later, and David applied to join the staff team with Servant Partners and entered the field in Bangkok, Thailand in the fall of 2003.
David now leads a team in Bangkok where his main “work” is loving his neighbors, who are among the poorest in Bangkok. “The heart of things is just the relationships with neighbors,” says Dave. He lives with people in the community and is simply open to the Holy Spirit’s leading into unexpected conversations and opportunities to share about Jesus.
Dave shared the story of one non-believer in the community who witnessed a miracle of healing of one of the church members. As he watched the healing prayer being prayed, and later heard of her complete healing, he was led to turn from his drunken ways and learn more about this God who could even physically heal. And Dave, in his humility, would be the last to claim any credit for this man’s transformation, but his obedience to Jesus’ call has put him in a place to introduce his Thai neighbor to Christ.
This life that Jesus has called Dave to has not always been easy, but he has gained abundant riches and joys through his life of sacrifice: “Just being in that place where there’s so much need and so much gap from the fullness of the Kingdom and just being in a place of having to persevere not just through a six-week short term project, but through years of pursuing the shalom through the transformation of a people and a community. But that’s also one of the greatest joys—the richness of that process; if it was easier, I would have learned a lot less from God and his character. [I’ve learned to] fight for the value of God’s image in the poor and believe at all times that God can do all things and can bring about transformation in ways that most of the world would never believe possible.”
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