For previous updates about my life and work State-side, go here.

This morning I have the opportunity to share about my five years in Thailand, and the great challenge of condensing it into 20 minutes.  Let’s see, that would be about four minutes per year, less than 30 seconds per month….  No, don’t worry, I won’t try to do that.  I’ll just give some highlights, some snapshots into what God was doing that I got to be a part of.

For people who aren’t familiar with what I’ve been up to:  in October I returned from five years of living and serving in the slums of Bangkok, Thailand.  My team and I worked alongside local Thai church leaders to reach out to the poor in that city.   Our vision was to see God’s Kingdom coming to the slums.  What that meant to us was not just spiritual salvation, but healing and justice and things made right in all of the brokenness in those slums.  So we worked with people in the communities to address their felt needs, to become empowered to work for change, as well as sharing verbally about Jesus to those who were interested.  We partnered with a Thai foundation to minister to tangible needs in the slums.  And ultimately we wanted to see churches planted, led by Thais in Thai ways, that reached out holistically to its neighbors, and reproduced to other communities.  Later I’ll give some examples of how we did those things.

When I found out that today the church celebrates epiphany, I thought that was really cool timing.  Because in the last few months I was in Thailand I watched my slum community have its own epiphany.  The meaning of this word in Greek is similar to “manifestation” or “revelation”.  We say things like “I had an epiphany!” often to mean we figured something out, had a flash of insight.  But the Biblical epiphany means God making himself known to man.  His initiative, not ours.  God coming to live among us, rather than us figuring out how to get to God.  Jesus was born into our world, born into each of our hearts, born into that slum in Bangkok.  I was there in Thailand as a missionary, but really it was God doing the work, drawing people to himself.  I just got to be along for the ride.

At epiphany we often reflect on the magi, or wise men, and their journey to Bethlehem.  The passage I chose from Colossians captures beautifully what it is that these magi discovered, what it is that my neighbors experienced and that I got to experience anew as I saw their child-like wonder of new faith.

(Colossians 1:15-23) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him— provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.

There is so much packed into this passage.  It’s rich with meaning and symbolism.  I’m going to just touch on two themes and how I experienced this in Bangkok.  The first is this idea of Jesus being the “fullness of God”, which was “pleased” to dwell in Jesus, to dwell in our flesh and walk our earth.  This is an incredible thought!  Look at who Paul says this is—the “image of God”, the creator of everything, the one who holds all things together.  This is who came to live among us as our friend.

The magi saw the sign of the star, and even though they were not Jews, they still sought out Jesus.  These were dignified astrologers, and yet when they discovered Jesus, this small, vulnerable child, they fell down and worshipped.  It’s quite the scene to picture!  One might imagine them coming to see Jesus and being less than impressed—I mean, he’s just a child, and born in a barn, to an unwed mother…  But instead, they clearly experienced something about Jesus that caused them to realize this is no ordinary child.  And he wasn’t—he was all of God’s fullness, made flesh and blood.  And for me, the fact that he did choose to be born in such humble conditions, rather than in a palace among the rich and powerful, causes me to worship him more, not less.  Jesus was, and is, pleased to dwell among the ordinary, the poor, the weak.

This kind of seeking, and then having an experience with Jesus, is often how Thais come to believe.  Most Thais worship a variety of gods and idols, and those who have begun worshipping Jesus often talk about how different an experience it is.  They talk about how they feel that God, rather than their idols, is alive, how they feel like Jesus is right beside them as a friend.  While Buddhist spirituality has some positive benefits in the lives of its followers, it lacks a love relationship with God.  In Jesus, they discover a living God pleased to dwell among them.

This first picture is of a typical Buddhist temple, and the second is at one of our combined worship services.  These are three believers from a slum community doing a traditional Thai dance in worship.

In the first slum community I lived in, I led a Bible study with some teenagers (in the picture above) who wanted to know more about Jesus.  Early on, they asked if we could learn about the birth of Jesus.  We talked about who his parents were, where he was born, who his first visitors were at the manger.  And I asked them, “if Jesus were born today in Bangkok, where do you think he would be born?”  And they answered, “here in one of our slums.”  His first visitors, rather than shepherds, would have been rice farmers like their own family members.  The magi would have been the city’s elite, but rather than coming in as experts or patrons, they would have knelt to the ground.

This was really an incredible story to them, because in their Buddhist society, the rich and powerful were seen as the “good” people, since they must be full of good karma.  But the poor were poor because of their bad karma, from this life or previous lives.  But here is Jesus being born among them, replacing shame and lies with hope and new identity.

Three of these girls became followers of Jesus, and though the fourth didn’t officially make that decision while I was there, she was so captured by Jesus that she read through the entire Bible and sought after him more than many Christians I know.

This incarnation, this “fullness of God” that is “pleased to dwell” among us, is why we ministered by living among the poor in Bangkok.  We want to bring God’s love and his healing into those communities, rather than just inviting people to come to church in another part of the city.  Church is his body of believers, anyway, rather than a building.  We tried to take on as much of their lifestyle as we could, honor them through learning from them, and break down some of the barriers that naturally exist between us.  Soon they stop seeing us as just “western” or “wealthy”, but as fellow human beings seeking similar things.

Below is a picture of my bedroom and also a view down one of the three lanes in my community.

These are more pictures from my house.  Here I’m making Thai food with my friend Yut, and the second is a picture of children singing from worship books on our front porch.

These are pictures from the first slum I lived in that has actually been evicted now.

We have church in homes right within the slum.  People feel the most comfortable dropping by to experience worship, and more likely to join in as we sing songs using their instruments, in the style that they most resonate with.  Buddhists are used to having to go to the temple in order to “make merit”, and many are thrilled that they can worship and pray wherever they are.

This is another picture of what worship looks like.  This was the church that started in my house in those last few months I was there.  In that community there were no believers when we moved in, but after a long investment in relationships and trying to show God’s love through our actions as well as words, 6 people became believers within 2 weeks.  So we started this weekly gathering for worship, studying the Word, praying together.

We always start with a Thai meal, sharing from communal bowls of hot curry or stir-frys, eating everything over lots of rice, of course.

We also try to follow Jesus’ example of caring for the whole person in all of their needs.  We work with people to identify what they feel are the most pressing issues in their communities, help them to develop as leaders and work together to find solutions, rather than always depending on outsiders.  In my community they were most concerned about the children, particularly that they weren’t being supervised well and had nowhere safe to play.  So these are a couple pictures of events they planned and led together that were both fun and educational, and really helped the kids feel loved by the adults in that community.  Events like this helped the adults have hope that they could work together to bring about change, and that they didn’t have to stay isolated or fatalistic.  This is one of the least visible but most destructive effects of poverty: it steals people’s dignity, the identity God gave them when he created them and said “it is very good”.  But when we help people to begin to dream, to plan, to act, then some of this damage falls away.  Eventually they plan bigger actions, try to get at the root of the issues they face in their slums.  They can then seek outside resources and help instead of just waiting for someone to offer it.  They are more empowered to partner with those who can bring lasting change instead of feeling at the whims of those in power.

Below is a picture of my good friend Yut, the very first believer in the second community I lived in.  I’d like to share her story to illustrate the second theme that stood out to me from today’s passage.

At epiphany we often think of the magi making their journey, and then about the three gifts they gave Jesus.  But the greatest gift in that story is Jesus himself.  In the passage in Colossians it says that through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. And that because of this, we are now holy and blameless and irreproachable.  This is an amazing gift—God is making all things new!  He is reconciling, healing, the things in this world that are broken, such as poverty.  He is reuniting us with himself, and with the identity he gave us when he created us.  Gifts that we give, that the magi gave, are in response to this greatest of gifts, rather than attempts to earn it.  They are simply signs that we are giving our worship, our loyalty, our hearts, to God, which is what he really wants.

This was very good news to the poor in Bangkok.  Buddhists in Thailand, most of them, believe their gods DO need their offerings.  They believe they must work their way to a better next life, they must appease the spirits so they will be blessed rather than cursed.  The poor often feel their poverty is a curse because of their bad karma, so they try to make more merit.  This is often done through monetary offerings, which they just don’t have.  So they feel stuck in their poverty, aware of their sin but unable to cleanse it on their own.  Many of them just accept poverty as their fate, and give up trying to make their lives or their communities better.

When my friend Yut began really seeking after Jesus, it was largely because her attempts to buy the favors of her gods had failed.  She told us, “I’ve been a good Buddhist my whole life.   I’ve made merit, gone to the temple, but none of it is working.”  Her family was on the brink of falling apart, she had lost a job and they were in serious debt.  She felt at the end of herself.  But when she heard that Jesus wanted to make his home in her, that he offers her grace and freedom from the law of karma, and that she doesn’t have to (and can’t) pay him back or earn it somehow, that was such good news.  Like the magi, her journey took her awhile.  After investing months into our friendship, many hours talking through her questions about Jesus, she was finally ready to commit her life to him.  On the day she made the decision, she said, “even if I don’t see God do amazing miracles in my life, just knowing that I’m his daughter, that I’m not alone—that is enough.”

This picture is of Yut receiving her first Bible.  We threw a party for her shortly after she committed her life to Jesus, and she was so thrilled to receive that Bible.  She practically grabbed it out of our hands.  The other woman in this picture, one of Yut’s friends, also became a believer that night because of Yut’s testimony.  As we met with them later, both of these women talked endlessly about how much peace they had received, how they were no longer afraid of spirits or death, how they would wake up at night feeling like Jesus was right next to them, inviting them to talk to him.  It was amazing.  Instead of an identity based on karma, they are now “holy and blameless and irreproachable”.  They are daughters of the King of kings, this fullness of God who dwells among them.  Instead of giving offerings to nameless, frightful gods, they are now worshipping a God of love.  One day as church was getting started, Yut turned to me and whispered, “do you know what I would do if Jesus were right here in this room?  I would throw my arms around him.”

This amazing gift of Jesus among us, come to reconcile all things and bring new hope, inspires people to give in return.  This is why the magi gave gifts—because the gift of Jesus is worthy of everything we have.  It is why Yut shared the Gospel so freely with others, leading this neighbor, her sister and her husband (just last month) to Christ.  It is why she gives away bags of rice to those needier than her in the community, why she has recently fought successfully to give up her gambling addiction and truly care for her children.  It’s why Thai believers we work with lead house churches as volunteers, help run a scholarship program for youth from the slums, help a community being evicted save together and relocate to a new plot of land.  When people receive this gift, this hope of Jesus’ reconciling work, they give their lives in response.  And the Kingdom in all its dimensions begins to take shape.

For me, after watching this epiphany take place in slum communities in Bangkok, I’m hooked.  I feel like it is such a privilege to be a part of this healing work Jesus is doing.  I’m going to continue to work with Servant Partners in their L.A. office, as well as move into a low-income community there and see how God would use me to reach out to my neighbors.

The original epiphany happened over 2,000 years ago, but Jesus continues to take on our flesh and blood to make himself known.  He is pleased to dwell among us, and pleased to use us as his hands and feet, to be his church inside this building and outside.  In this new year, may we experience this Christ within us in a new way, and offer this gift to others with greater boldness and love.  Amen.

Servant Partners: Change in Urban Poor Communities

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Servant Partners: Church Planting in Urban Poor Communities

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• Six new believers and a church planted in my slum!
• The challenges of discipling the urban poor
• Signs of fruit that will outlast my time here
• Details about my return to the US
• Prayer requests and pictures!

She, along with most everyone I talked to, believed that nobody but themselves really cared, and that nobody would want to work together on anything.

It sounded also like she doubted both her ability to do much and whether it was “allowed”.  Though the council had been essentially disbanded after the president ran off with community money, followed shortly by the vice president, everyone still defered to this defunct group.

But once Gop and others began meeting to talk and plan about what their kids need and what they should do about it, they started to grow in confidence.  They ended up putting together two well-planned events for the kids of Phothong, which besides providing safe and educational activities also proved to the community that things could change, ordinary residents could decide to work together and act rather than wait for the council or an outside agency to do it for them.

A couple months ago one of the other women involved in these meetings and actions, the current community treasurer, stepped in to take over the ignored duties of community president temporarily.  Since then I’ve seen her visiting homes individually, and she lead a successful decision-making meeting over use of a new government grant which many were happy about.

Then about a month ago I heard that she had passed the role on to Gop, who has never had a place on the community council.  But after showing herself to be a responsible leader, Oi thought she would be the best for the job.

This is for the short-term, as there will be another election in October.  But it is sounding like Gop will likely be elected to continue in her role.

That wouldn’t surprise me, as she is already taking this position seriously and working to bring about results.  She has talked with me about using our house again as a place to host kids activities, and also to plan.  She has decided to call together anyone in the community who is interested in helping their kids, rather than just the community council– the group that made all decisions in the past.  She’s talking about other ideas she has for developing the community, including building emergency exits, an idea the women were talking about earlier but hadn’t seen to completion.

Gop definitely has areas to grow in, particularly in working with people to really think through the issues and come up with ideas together, rather than just promoting her ideas.  But I am encouraged that Phothong now has a leader with initiative, who really cares about its development, who is honest, who wants everyone to be involved in working toward solutions and not just an elite few.  It is exciting to see this lasting fruit that I will be leaving as I transition home.

• 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

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.

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.

It’s been a slow process in Phothong.  In later posts I’ll probably go into more of the specific stories and processes we’ve used.  But suffice it to say, nobody who has lived for decades under a patron-client, “false generosity”, fatalistic world-view will quickly come to see themselves as capable of weilding community-transforming power.

So many of Phothong’s choices have been made for them.  So many people and groups (ourselves included) have come in and offered services or money on their own agendas, using their own decision-making processes, making their own assumptions of the community’s needs, without recognizing the capabilities of these strong and creative (though broken like the rest of us) men and women in front of them.

Most of the residents of my slum have grown to prefer this.  In many ways it is easier to wait with outstretched hands, even if that means losing the power to choose and to act which is so much a part of what it means to be human.  It is also easier when the fear of disappointment, the memories of past failures and oppression loom large.  Easier to not try anymore, easier to give up.

“Nobody wants to work together,” I would frequently hear.  “Nobody wants to put in any effort or come to anything unless they get some kind of handout.”

But the people saying that did want to do something.  And I heard that repeatedly.  So clearly not everyone wanted to sit around waiting.  But because they felt like the only ones, they assumed it was pointless to try to work toward any kind of change.

As I have talked with people individually, shared some of those stories to others, and gathered these discontented women in my house to talk together, I’ve begun to slowly see this paradigm shift happen.  We’re not there yet.  And sometimes it feels like we’re going backwards.  But people are beginning to work together.  On the king’s birthday the entire community celebrated the holiday together for the first time, as a result of this dialoguing, reflecting and acting together that has begun.  People are beginning to express creative ideas that had no outlet before.  They are beginning to tell their stories, to see the value and potential of working together rather than waiting for outside help.  It has been exciting.

The paradigm shift is also happening inside of me.  The “iron rule” has become ingrained in me : “never do for others what they can do for themselves.”  I am growing in my ability to recognize strength and capacity in the poorest of my neighbors, rather than just see their needs and problems.  I’m seeing how my neighbors, working together, are so much better at bringing about change in their community than I could ever be.  As I’m grasping these principles and watching them work, I think that wherever I live or work in the future I’ll be operating out of these concepts.  In the future I hope to pursue my long-held goal of going to law school, and hope to use those skills in organizing and public policy advocacy Stateside.

There’s still a long way to go in Phothong.  I’m praying that the trust I’ve gained in working with the community toward what they feel is important will open more doors to sharing the Gospel.  I’m praying that ultimately the people will come to see their need for spiritual transformation as well, though like the Israelites of Nehemiah’s time, it will likely be working on rebuilding the “wall” that comes first.  But I believe God desires holistic health for my community: hope rather than fatalism, unity rather than isolation, reconciliation to their Creator and empowerer.  It’s been so much fun to partner with God in this work!