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The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions and Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok

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This is a story that was destined to be told. Thankfully, it chose an author who could handle serious and often grim content with aplomb, resulting in a book that is very readable. Greg Barrett has clearly taken the cause of Father Joe Maier to heart, and through the Gospel of Father Joe, wants the reader to do the same. The slums of Bangkok are indicative of the unspeakable behaviors humans allow to happen to one another, and force upon one another. Sadly, Bangkok is not the only place we treat each other in reprehensible and shameful ways. So very fortunate are the women and children in this humanities-war torn area to have an angel in the form of a gruff and grumpy man named Father Joseph Maier, and his creation, The Mercy Center. Reader alert: Knowledge like this can never be conveniently unknown.

Straight arrow writing. Compelling subject. Our real heros are not the warrors or the great men or the mogols, but those who give themselves and get their hands dirty and give the rest of us a sturdy definition of compassion. Thanks to Mr. Barrett for spotlighting Father Joe.The Gospel of Father Joe: Revolutions and Revelations in the Slums of Bangkok

As a Retired Fire Captain, I can be quite skeptical. I spent my life working among men and women who many people would consider "heroes," but I never met anyone who deserves the title of hero more than Father Joe. Four years ago, my wife and I were accepted as volunteers at the Mercy Centre in Bangkok, Thailand. Each year since, we have returned and stayed for months at a time. During those months, we have come to know Father Joe, his staff, and the children at Mercy. The Gospel of Father Joe is an accurate portrayal of the man and the organization. Father Joe is a man who started with nothing and built The Mercy Centre, which now has 30+ preschools, an AIDS hospice, as well as homes for 150+ children. In addition, he and his staff somehow manage to feed and educate thousands of more children in the outlying slums each day. My wife and I are honored to serve there. I highly recommend both the book by Greg Barrett, which tells the story so vividly, and the Mercy Centre~that is hope to so many. Michael

If you think the world is a troubled place, then look here for the answer. What Father Joe has accomplished is truly fantastic. If they made a movie about his life before this book, no one would believe it. The author brings it to you without sugar-coating the horrors of the sex trade industry, and yet, it never feels heavy. Greg Barrett's tone throughout the book is that of hope and not despair using dry humor with deft touch and an insight we otherwise would not have seen. It is an entertaining, inspirational and easy to read effort by the author. I have just finished it and will probably read it again. Thanks to the author and Father Joe!

People everywhere are in despair or at least in the maw of ennui .

The genius of Greg Barrett's "The Gospel of Fr. Joe" is that Barrett shows us, the privileged, a way to move from despair to joy by plunging into the counterintuitive. Like Barrett's protagonist, Fr. Joe, the secret is to embrace misery and do something, anything, to mitigate the misery of at least one victim.

The author achieves, a genuine miracle in his "Gospel of Father Joe". He shows us how to replace a deep feeling of impotence with hope and action. That hope and actions serve as the antidote for hopelessness and depression. This antidote helps readers ranging from religious believers to believers in atheism, like me.

How does Barrett pull off this miracle?

1) He focuses on a single question: how can a a hard-nosed, rebel priest, Fr. Joe, infuse tens of thousands of slum children in Thailand, even those dying of AIDS, with energy and joy?

2) Fr. Joe's example makes us Americans who profit from the neo-slave labor of Thais aptly ashamed of this injustice. But that's only 1% of the story. Fr. Joe's example makes us ashamed of what is our own petty suffering -- petty in comparison with the victims of Thailand.

3) Barrett provides what we scientists call an existence proof of the ability to work not only effectively, but with joy, amid the most bleak circumstances, including the horrors of Thailand's sex tourism industry. This "industry" is especially painful since credible evidence indicates that Thailand's sex tourism, staffed partly by children, is at collateral damage from the Vietnam war in which the Pentagon turned Thailand into a huge brothel (R & R) for our troops as well as a platform for the launching the massive bombing of the men, women, and children of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. (Note: the last sentence is my own evidence-based interpretation, not Barrett's. So if it offends anyone, blame me and the scholarly literature, not Greg Barrett.

4) Barrett, a master storyteller, shows us how an unblinking realist like Fr. Joe can seize the moment and inspire people of all ages and religions to seize the moment. Perhaps most powerfully, the courage of Fr. Joe's charges -- including those know they have only days to live use their remaining time to read books rather then cursing their fate.

5) Most of all, I recommend the "Gospel of Father Joe" for people in despair, because Fr. Joe provides a most meaningful way out of hopelessness. His lesson is to find someone bearing an infinitely heavier burden than yours and to help that person. I'm impressed enough to fly to Texas next week to try Fr. Joe's prescription.

6) I'll end with a request for Greg Barrett. Please write another compelling book which shows how to defeat despair by helping defeat something more abstract than the despair of individual children. Greg, please use your formidable talent to paint verbal pictures of the work of the Fr. Joes who battle further up the rivers generating human destruction.

Show us the people who are engaged in what public health calls primary prevention - preventing the child abuse and emotional and physical starvation that produces the billions of children doomed to lives so bleak that the noun "crucifixion" is more accurate than hyperbolic.

As urgent as the work of Fr. Joe is, even a million Father Joe's cannot eradicate the horrors befalling children unless the labor is supplemented by primary prevention.

This said, Greg Barrett's "The Gospel of Father Joe" in itself shows us the path to ending the "normal" atrocities of structural violence which kill or demolish children world wide and which, if left unchecked, will doom us all.

In conclusion, help your friends and even your enemies. Give copies of "The Gospel of Father Joe" to everyone in psychic pain -- believer, unbeliever or agnostic. All will thank you.

Oh, yeah. "The Gospel of Father Joe" will elicit tears unless your are a brick statue. The tears are well worth it.

"The Gospel of Father Joe" was recommended to me by someone who personally knows the subject. After reading the book, I'm amazed at what Father Joe has accomplished in spite of all the institutional and societal opposition he faced.

Father Joe Maier doesn't suffer fools. Neither does he hesitate to offer them-and any others in need- compassion and mercy. This is an incredible story of a bright, passionate man who was driven to help others in dire need. But Father Joe's story isn't a Hollywood riches-to-rags-to riches tale. How this prickly, somewhat eccentric priest has dedicated his life to the people of Bangkok's Klong Toey slum is the heart of the story, of course; but while telling this story the author and Father Joe develop a prescription for ending the cycles of poverty and abuse that have made havens such as Maier's Mercy Centre so desperately needed.

Although these days the liberation theology movement- along with many of its followers- seems to have become mired in politics and bickering, Father Joe provides evidence that the Christian mission to help others in need endures. While he can be moved to tears of anger, Father Joe's response to heartwrenching poverty and neglect is to offer hope rather than admonishments. Through the Mercy Centre he offers those he lives and works with an opportunity each day to move out of poverty, a chance to leave the slums and return with answers. Even those who would seem to have no reason to hope- the abandoned children who populate the Mercy Centre's AIDS hospice- are given a path to make their tragically shortened lives an expression of grace.

As author Greg Barrett plumbs deeper into Mercy Center and Father Joe's "gospel" of hope, he is forced to examine his own spirituality. This unblinking look at his own life and beliefs- and how they contrast and interact with those of the people of Klong Toey- serves to draw the reader into making his own personal examination. But these introspective moments enhance the story rather than diverting it, and the reader becomes aware of how Barrett's experience at Mercy Centre was one of challenge and inspiration.

The book avoids maudlin sentimentality; Barrett dryly details the facts of poverty and the horrors of the Bangkok sex trade, while Father Joe unflinchingly predicts the terminal prognosis for many of the AIDS patients at Mercy Centre. However, moments of beauty help the reader find Father Joe's appreciation of revealed grace: A young girl dying of AIDS seems to float on a balcony, enjoying a gentle cooling rain. An absent, disgraced father begs for- and is granted- compassion and care. Barrett quietly and subtly develops a picture of the lives and families struggling to endure and overcome the reality of the Bangkok slums.

As Barrett relates, Father Joe recognizes that he and the Mercy Centre are "bandaging wounds", not yet actually curing the ills of the slums. But he offers hope, which is part of his prescription. And Father Joe and Mercy Centre offer tools for the people of Klong Toey to use in effecting the cure. "If you don't have anything to eat in the morning...if you don't have any shoes...GO TO SCHOOL!", he constantly exhorts the children and families at Mercy. And with Father Joe's help, they do. Greg Barrett has written a moving and powerful account of how Father Joe has undertaken his mission, and compellingly describes how much remains to be done. "The Gospel of Father Joe" is a book that will motivate the reader to "take a second look" at those around him, and to find ways to help others help themselves. Read this book.

Practicing Adaptive Leadership in Hell - Buddha Bellies and a keen Ear

Exercising Adaptive Leadership under the most difficult of conditions is an extraordinary feat. After taking on Mother Theresa's challenge to work with the residents of the slums of Bangkok, Father Joe has managed to create and sustain a nonprofit aid organization. More impressive still is his ability to persevere in the face of intense injustice. As I read the book, I kept on asking myself how he could continue working after such emotional trauma and what could possibly compel a Midwestern priest to become an interfaith saint in the slums of Bangkok. Oddly enough, he doesn't consider him a "fookin hero" and claims that the people of the neighborhood changed him. While that may be true, it still doesn't resolve the questions of how, or why that happened. Father Joe never tells us directly but instead offers the reader to come and see for oneself through anecdotes. Through the tragedy of Soi, the response to the Tsunami, or his activism in response to the asian currency collapse, the reader learns of Father Joes values and methods. His dedication to the community and his belief that that everyone is "inherently good" sustain his work.

Klong Tuey is a lot like the slums of Cartagena. I, however, am not like Father Joe. I wish I could have read this book prior to my travels to Colombia. Perhaps, it could have answered some of the questions I had regarding the injustices I was seeing and my role while in the "thick of it." This summer I felt powerless as if seeing poverty through plexiglass but being unable to act.Some obvious lessons immediately stand out. Father Joe lived in the community in which he worked - not separating himself from his clients even to the detriment of his own health. In addition, he does not mince words when discussing the pandemic. Speaking at a donor conference, he explicitly singled out tourism, an economic engine for being too costly on children and their potential for exploitation. Acutely aware of the pending economic crisis he wrote publicly about the dangerous combination of prostitution and drugs. However, most inspiring to me was his ability to continue serving the community despite personally being connected to trauma. After all, I never came close to providing the kinds of services and outreach Father Joe did but I still felt troubled and frustrated. His ability to work through that frustration even as he sees the systems that propagate the disease of poverty is completely different from my experience. Whereas I saw endemic poverty and became frustrated because I was not able to act on a macro scale to fix the root causes of it - Father Joe and the Mercy Clinic are like the little engine that could, continuously churning out compassionate care. Finding out how they were able to create a "joyful oasis of suffering" would immensely help me as I go forward past Duke.

An inspirational story of a man who saw injustice and does what he can to fix it. What makes his story fascinating is just how hard it was to do some good. Not impossible, mind you, but hard enough to keep most people from trying. His philosophy also strikes me as uniquely American. They need a school. Let's build one. Where do we start? Highly recommended.

The book took a while to build but once about halfway through the book I found it very good. I am so glad and impressed there are people like Father Joe, and many other missionaries like him. I found his religious philosophy to be very close to mine.

I read this book for one of my classes at Duke University and I loved it. The title may turn a few people off--don't be scared you won't get a ton of religion shoved down your throat--just a lot of wisdom, philosophy, and reality.
This is an incredibly moving account of an unorthodox, and untamable Catholic priest working in the slums of Thailand. Father Joe's goal is to bring a bit of light into children's lives. He works in a community plagued by AIDs, prostitution, drug use, and filth. This book is informative, moving, and thought provoking without turning too mushy or patronizing towards its namesake. It is everything a good book should be because it will challenge all of its readers. Father Joe may not be the comfortable image of a saint so many of us envision, but he is real, and he is not afraid to push barriers of religious hierarchy, government, or social norms to get things done.
Whether you're an atheist or a devout person of faith I promise you will walk away with something from this read. A MUST HAVE!