The group Bluetree is probably best known for their song “God of This City,” a song born from a dark place on a missions trip in Thailand. CNN tells the story of a recent trip by the band that could have cost them their lives.

CNN’s new “Belief” blog recently highlighted the story of Bluetree, a worship band from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and their missions work in South East Asia. A trip to the closed-off country of Myanmar took a potentially deadly turn when Army troops interrupted their singing:

“It was definitely surreal, one by one these guys in army combat uniforms start showing up with rocket launchers and grenade launchers, they are totally tooled up to the max …  and they hand me a guitar,” Boyd said. “It was like ‘Now you sing.’ They didn’t ask politely, it was just ‘Now you sing.’”

Read the whole story at the CNN website.

And if you’ve never hear the story of how “God of This City” was inspired, take a few minutes to hear how a performance in a brothel’s front caused the band to see the injustices, but also the hope.

Bluetree penned the song after the band went to Thailand and played in a bar that was the gateway to a brothel, with women making deals with customers in plain view. The night also inspired the band to start a charity that tries to save workers from the sex trade. But they can’t be philanthropists from afar, Boyd said.