He got his first tattoo at age 12.

The inking continued. Priam Sanchat* is 43 now and his body is a tapestry. The tattoos are infected, festering and give a chronic case of itching. He hasn’t showered in ages. His skin is blackened. Flies feed on his open wounds.

Sanchat squats in the dirt — hungry and thirsting for something more than just the water Chris Kirkendoll hands him. The Southern Cross volunteer from First Baptist Church, Thomasville, Ga., recognizes the man’s real need, peace, and prays with him. The rough looking character tells Kirkendoll that he hasn’t lived a good life; that he’s done a lot of bad things.

“Ask Jesus for forgiveness and he will love you and help you in all that you do,” Kirkendoll tells the man. “God is your father; He is my father.”

Kirkendoll came with his church to Southeast Asia to pass out Bibles by night to Chinese tourists on vacation for Chinese New Year. By day, the Georgia team works with a local pastor in his slum ministry, sharing the love of Christ with men like Sanchat.

The inhabitants of this slum filled with rotting trash and homes made out of tarps slung over tree branches. Many of the men and women who live here are from out-of-town. They come to the city thinking there’ll be opportunities for work. They get caught in a cycle of poverty they can’t escape. Many feel they have no hope. The volunteers share about the hope that can be found in Jesus Christ and how He loves them.

Volunteer Skip Nobles shares with the people gathered under a tree offering sparse shade. He acknowledges that life isn’t always easy, but God is still a God of love. It’s hard for them to see that love, though, when they have nothing.

“Here I am — dressed, healthy, clean — and then you try to tell them Jesus loves you just like He loves me,” Nobles says. “You wonder if they are thinking, ‘Oh? He Does? It doesn’t look like it to me.’”

One of the volunteers relates to a woman suffering from joint aches and headaches who asks for prayer. Robbie Floyd is praying through her own pain. She had surgery last year on her back and she didn’t think she’d be able to make this trip. The team needed a fifth person, so she packed her bags and came along with her husband. The veteran Southern Cross volunteer knew God would help her get through the pain, but never in her wildest dreams did she know He would use that to help her pray on a deeper level for one woman’s healing.

“Father, we thank You that we can come here and love on these people, we just pray You would watch over each one of them. Especially watch over this lady and take the pain away,” she says, touching the woman’s back. “I know You can do that, I pray she will trust You.”