Below is a poem I wrote– a prayer, really– on Saturday. On Sunday morning came a very clear answer, to my prayers and those of many others, in Yut’s decision to give her life to Jesus. A church is born in my slum, after nearly 3 years of sharing and praying and waiting… God is good!
Wisdom Made Foolish
This message you’ve entrusted to me
I love it, I live by it
It’s often what holds me together
It’s my deepest joy
But when it comes out of my mouth
In this place of temples and idols
Of desperate souls clinging to
Sacrifice and ritual
Golden monk robes
Seers and spirit houses and merit-making
It can sound like so much foolishness.
They search for release from suffering
And I answer with a man on a cross
Instead of nirvana, they see nails
Instead of wealth and comfort
A crown of thorns
They seek ultimate truth and purity
And I describe a God with emotions
Who can be known by mere man
And became one himself
Who speaks, and has a name
I tell them of a God who is jealous
To them, the ugliest of emotions
Demanding ultimate loyalty
Unwilling to share his worship with the idols
They’ve bowed down to their whole lives
And grace, how convenient a thought
No need for doing good, they conclude
Just a prayer and we’re clean
The good and the evil made equal
Their merit-making empty
But to me it sounds so different
A victor, not a victim
Of evil men or bad karma
An intimate Creator
We made in his image,
Not vice-versa
A devoted husband,
Calling me away from lesser loves
And mercy that is my only hope
Not a lazy, imagined salvation.
It’s the power of God
For those who are being saved
For those to whom you have said
“Let there be light”
And opened their eyes
Spirit, come
Or my words are empty
And my signs are misinterpreted
I’ve seen you do it elsewhere
And I’m asking for it again
In this place where no one has yet praised your name.
A few months ago a team from InterVarsity’s multimedia department, twentyonehundred, came and took some footage of our team. They are working on promoting Urbana, the student missions conference that is coming up again this year. Over half of our team were influenced by Urbana. For myself, I may have ended up doing some kind of missions had I not gone to the conference, but definitely not among the poor for 5 years in Bangkok, Thailand. It challenged me to care about the poor, to take my call to be a witness seriously, to not treat missions as just feel-good tourism but to really risk and invest in a place and in God’s work there.
Follow this link to watch the video, The Street Where They Live (video will start automatically).
Click below to read my most recent newsletter. Some highlights:
- Women in my slum put together a drug-awareness event for the kids as a result of house meetings
- New opportunities opening to develop youth in Phothong to be leaders
- My Buddhist neighbor Yut and I will begin studying Scripture together soon
- My new role and budget for when I move back to the States in October
I recently had a visitor ask me the question, “when you leave later this year, what about Thailand will stick with you? How will you act differently in the States?”
This is an interesting question, because I know this place has gotten under my skin and into my blood, but while I’m still here it’s sometimes hard to see how I’ve changed. The Thai in me will stand out most clearly when I’m back in America. But with a little reflection, here are some of the things about me or habits that I anticipate will seem a bit odd in the States, or will have to work at changing.
- My first impulse will be to wai (greet by placing the hands together and bowing the head) whoever picks me up at the airport.
- I’ll probably feel slightly offended if someone sits with their feet pointing at me.
- I don’t think I’ll be able to wear shoes in the house anymore.
- I’ll prefer eating with spoon in the right hand and fork in the left.
- I’ll need at least a few meals per week of something spicy over rice.
- It will take awhile to get used to paying for things with debit or credit cards rather than cash all the time.
- Speaking of money, I’m much more familiar with green 20s, pink 100s, and tan 1,000s than army green 1s, 5s, 10s and 20s. (In fact, are they still green? In these same denominations? It’s seriously been a long time.)
- I’ll have to refrain from voicing shock and disgust at how huge serving sizes are, and how long the list of unrecognizable ingredients is on food packages.
- I’ll be wearing a sweater when the temperatures are in the 60s, long sleeves in the 70s, and short sleeves only when it’s above 80. I haven’t worn shorts above my knees in almost 5 years and I think I’d feel naked in them now.
- People will probably tell me I smile all the time.
- I’ll feel really uncomfortable talking above a whisper on public transportation.
- I’ll be thrilled by little things like thick carpet, baked goods, quiet, free press, Pandora (blocked here), American TV shows, clean air, driving a car, English worship services, beef.
- It will take me a while before I feel like it’s safe to wear yellow or red again (colors worn by the clashing demonstrators here).
- I’ll want to get in on the wrong side of the car and drive in the wrong lane. I’ll need people to remind me about seat belts for awhile.
- As dusk falls I’ll start thinking about lighting a mosquito coil.
- The days will feel super short in the winter and super long in the summer.
- I’ll have to remind myself that it is NOT okay to ask just anyone their age, salary, or how much they just spent on the groceries they’re carrying.
I’m sure there will be more to come. 
Follow this link to see a great promotional video for the Urbana09 student missions conference coming up in December. This is the event where God messed up my life and led me to the slums of Bangkok. Just kidding. Kind of.
Seriously, though, I would highly recommend this conference as a place to explore possibilities, network, hear from God, be inspired. It has changed many, many lives and contributed greatly to the movement of God’s Kingdom. More details at www.urbana09.org .
By the way, later this year the Urbana website will have a promotional video with an appearance by yours truly.
I have twice successfully completed the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic (STP). That’s 200 miles in 2 days, folks. Not for the faint of heart.
One clear memory I have of the first one I tackled is of the last hill into Portland. By that point I was over 190 miles down, with only a few to go. My whole body hurt. It must have been around 20 hours in the saddle over the past two days by then. Not to mention I had a bad knee. Not to mention I was riding with a couple guys who hadn’t trained so we were drafting with me in front, fighting the wind resistance.
I could see the skyline. It was torturous that the mostly-flat route would turn on us at this point. I suddenly felt like my legs were made of lead. I had to stop. It was stupid, I knew. Nobody stops in the middle of an incline, and especially not when you’re only 15 minutes from the finish line! All the bikers around me were catching a second wind, their adrenaline propelling them up that hill. But I had to stop and take big gulps of air. The guys I was with groaned.
Read the rest of this entry »
As an independence-loving, authority-questioning, full-blooded American, it is sometimes a stretch to see the world through my Thai neighbors’ eyes. Some parts of community organizing that inherently make sense to me are counter-cultural to the women I’m working with. Other aspects of it go against my own grain.
I heard recently that on the spectrum of individualism and collectivism, America ranks #1 for the former, and Thailand is at the extreme other end for the latter. Thais also have a much greater trust and acceptance of the existing social hierarchy and authority figures. Though protests and coups in recent years would seem to dispute this, this value is alive and well in my slum.
In many ways, the value of collectivism is really helpful in organizing people in the slums. There is a loyalty not only to one’s own family but to neighbors and community. The common good is emphasized more than personal achievement. One example of this is my neighbor Gop. She managed to complete college and secure a good job at a pharmaceutical company; she really doesn’t need to be living in a slum. But instead she has stayed, in order to provide for her ailing and addicted parents and step-parents, and more recently, to give back to the community that helped raise her. This kind of self-sacrifice goes against my American dream mentality.
I’ve never tried organizing in the States, but my guess is that it’s easier here for people to see the benefit of working for the good of a community, and of doing it together. When I lived in the States, I hardly knew my neighbors, let alone talked with them about how to work together on issues in our neighborhood.
However, when it comes to the inevitable confrontation with authority figures, I just think that comes a lot easier to Americans. The idea of working for positive change, even if that means going against someone with a title, just makes sense to me. I don’t feel that I owe deference just because of someone’s position, nor that I need to wait for them to do the work that I could do, or at least give some formal sign of permission. But this is where my neighbors and I differ the most.
We haven’t had any kind of open confrontation with authority yet in Phothong. And maybe we won’t, at least nothing dramatic. But even just the fact that a group of women is meeting together to talk about issues in the community and what they can do about it, and that this group usually has at most one community council member in it, has caused some tension.
Gop helped me lead our last house meeting. A group of mothers and grandmothers were planning an activity for the kids over their summer break– a drug awareness afternoon for 6 to 12-year-olds. Afterwards Gop and I debriefed the meeting. A lot was said about the success of the meeting and the plan, but she also shared her insecurities.
“I felt like I led that really strongly,” she said. “I wanted other people to talk, but they didn’t say much.”
“Why do you think that was?” I asked.
“Well, here’s what I think. I think people came here and they saw that no one on the council was here and they started wondering ‘why am I at a meeting that wasn’t called by the council? Why isn’t the council the group trying to help our kids?’”
The most interesting part of this, to me, is that the council is practically non-existent at this point. It’s like the “emperor with no clothes.” Everyone pays deference, but the president has long since fled because of debts to community members she couldn’t repay, and the vice-president recently abandoned her family to move in with another man. Those remaining haven’t met together in months. The group has a history of squandering government funds meant for community improvement. And the list goes on. Yet still, this is the group that the community has signed over responsibility for bringing about any kind of change in the community.
I tried to reflect back to Gop that I had talked with each of the women individually, and they definitely do have a desire to work together. They knew coming into it that the group would be made up of people who really were concerned for the kids, not necessarily those who “should” be there, those with titles.
“Yeah, we shouldn’t have to just sit and wait for the council to do something,” she said. “Hopefully once people see how well this program goes, once they see that we really are doing things that are good for the community, people will trust us more. Hopefully others will join us who right now don’t know why we’re the ones trying to do something for the community.”
It’s exciting to see this hope growing in Gop and others. I’m encouraged by Gop’s desire to learn and grow as a leader. I do think that as she grows in her confidence to lead, even though she is not part of the council, that she will become less dominant in the meetings and more free to invite others’ input, trusting that the group is committed to each other and to acting for the good of the community. It may go against the culture of the slum, but it has always been God’s intention that Phothong community members would be free to act, free to make choices about the environment their kids are growing up in. I’m praying that this movement toward taking responsibility for their slum would grow and truly transform that place.
Stories and updates from the last few months (pdf format):
Thais don’t call their country Thailand, but “Pratet Thai.”
Bangkok hasn’t been the name of their capital since 1782, but foreigners never caught up with the name change. It’s current name is Krungthep (”city of angels”), which is short for it’s full paragraph-lengthed name, the longest place name in the Guinness Book of World Records: “Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.” Roughly translated: “The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn.”
The most common greeting here is not “how are you?” but “have you eaten rice yet?” Which means, “have you had a meal lately?”, because without rice you haven’t really had a meal.
A lot of parents shave the heads of their babies (girls and boys), believing the hair will grow back fuller and shinier
Community organizing within my slum of Phothong has been my primary focus for the past 6 months or so. Things have been happening so quickly, I’ve been on such a steep learning curve, that I’ve gotten way behind on sharing any of my stories or what I’ve learned. Now I’m wanting to do that, but I kind of don’t know where to start. I think this will likely be a series of posts, since I could honestly write a book about all that’s happened since August.
Maybe first a bit about why I’m so excited about community organizing in this context.
In September our team, along with other Servant Partners missionaries from other sites, were part of a great training on community organizing. The week was led by Rebecca Gifford, director of Millennium Tools . It totally changed the way I was thinking about organizing. I had originally thought of it simply as people in a community getting together to talk about their issues and work toward solutions together. That is part of it. But the more I’m learning, the more I see it as a type of leadership development, assumption-challenging, paradigm-shifting, empowering process. So much more than just cleaning up garbage or circulating a petition.
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