Interest in Jesus has been growing in my slum.  Right now there is one full family and a handful of women who seem very interested in Jesus and who would likely want to learn more if we had some kind of meeting.  But how should that look here?  How do we as foreigners help Buddhists connect to the true God?  How do we facilitate an experience and relationship with Jesus that makes sense to Thais and not just Americans?

Over the 2 years I’ve lived in the community (not counting the 5 months I was on furlough) I’ve definitely seen changes in the spiritual environment of that place.  Not that there haven’t been moments when I’ve really wondered if anything was happening– I’ve definitely prayed many prayers of pleading and sometimes frustration with the slowness of seeing any fruit.  But when I step back and look at the big picture, the longer-term trends, I can definitely see God’s work.

When I first arrived it was sometimes hard to even get people to smile at me.  There were a few women who were friendly from the beginning, but I would say the majority seemed fairly cold.  Their experience with outsiders was one of either pushy Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness evangelists, or else child-sponsorship program workers who gave money handouts but remained distant and only came around when their budget was in the green.  They didn’t know what to think of me.

After months of smiling and wai-ing and repeating daily that no, I was not going home now because this slum is my home, people finally began seeing me as a neighbor.  They initially called me “kru” or “teacher” since I helped run a kids’ program in my house, but now I’m just “nong”, “pii” or “nuu”– little sister, older sister, child (an affectionate term used by the older generation that literally means “mouse”).

When I would share about Jesus I generally got smiles– “oh yes, he was a good teacher, like Buddha was a good teacher”, or, “Christianity is good like all religions are good because it teaches us to be good.”  It was still often referred to as the foreigner’s religion, or as part of the Western culture and identity while to be Thai is to be Buddhist.

But in the past year or so I’ve had increasingly frequent chances to talk on a deeper level with folks about spirituality and Jesus.  People have shared with me some of their longings and fears– their desire for close relationships but how everyone is marred by selfishness and greed, their feelings of instability in this economy and how they seek their idols for properity, their fears of death and ghosts.

Lately our language partner Gop, a very practical and strong woman, has been asking me deeper questions– “Why are you here?  I get that it’s nice to help poor people, but what do you GET out of it?”  As I’ve tried to explain what it’s like to follow Jesus who loves the poor, to desire to be more like him and receive from him, she stares at me with an intensity I haven’t seen from her before.  I mentioned the possibility of starting a group for people to learn about Jesus, and while at first she didn’t seem too interested, she later asked “so… if someone wanted to come to one of those meetings, would they HAVE to convert?”  I assured her that she could come and just listen if she wanted.  More intense staring.  I think some of her assumptions and fears about faith in Jesus are breaking down.

Our team leader Kevin recently moved into the slum and has been reconnecting with a family he had invested in previously.  I once had dinner with them and Kevin and watched them listen intently to Kevin’s story of the Gospel for over an hour.  These days they still seem hungry to know more.

So Kevin, Christy and I are talking about starting some kind of “seeker-friendly” group in our slum.  We’re starting completely from scratch.  We know what doesn’t work: debating about doctrine, simple spiritual laws, trying to argue them into the Kingdom.  What seems to connect with folks is experience, community, love.  They seek their idols as a way to connect with a higher power that can offer security and peace.  How can we help Thais connect to their Creator, their wealthy and generous Father?

We are thinking about building off of the Thai practice of meditation.  Rather than try to explain Jesus, how much more powerful if he would show himself to them personally.  We will still use Scripture and prayer, but will focus more on meditating on the words, and asking for signs and wonders, healings, for an experience with the living God, that they may see for themselves the difference between him and their idols.

Pray for us as we discuss how to best do this.  Pray for God’s mercy on us as we have no Thai Christian partnership in this slum and we are well aware of our limitations in connecting to the hearts of our neighbors.  Pray that God would bring people and most importantly that his Spirit would be present.  Praise God that he is the one pursuing these people and that he knows exactly what they need in order to believe and trust him.  What an awesome privilege to be a part of this mystery!

A while ago Christy and I spent the day with neighbors at Pattaya, a nearby beach. It is a favorite Thai hangout, as well as heavily frequented by Western tourists. It was a bit surreal to see foreigners who look like me staring at the white girl hanging out with a group of lower class Thais. And to hear my Thai friends make comments about the farangs walking by and then turn to me and say “oh yeah– I forgot you’re one of them!”

I was having a bit of an identity crisis. While I look and talk like the Westerners with their sunscreen and guidebooks and cameras, in some ways I am more like my slum-dwelling, Thai-speaking, sticky rice eating neighbors. When I’m in Thailand there are things about the States that I long for, but when I’m in the States I feel a little out of place and confused by the culture. In Bangkok I long for the quiet countryside of my hometown, a good deli sandwich, and the ability to blend into the crowd; in the States I’m always craving rice, shocked by prices, and sometimes translating my thoughts from Thai into English.

It’s amazing how much this place, language and culture has become a second home. And how much my neighbors have accepted me as one of them. This tension between identities is one I kind of enjoy.

A few days ago I went to a nearby mall and saw, I am not kidding you, a woman feeding her dog an ice cream cone.  It was sitting in her lap on a mall bench, was immaculately groomed and I’m  pretty sure it was wearing clothes.  And lapping at a McDonald’s ice cream come.

In my slum, the dogs are malnourished and nasty.  Even their owners (if they have one) won’t touch them.  They are skin and bones, often missing an eye, limb, or part of their tail.  And they are constantly trying to scratch their skin off (and sometimes succeeding) because of their mange and fleas.

Yet in nearby neighborhoods women are dressing and feeding their animals better than the children around me are dressed and fed.

Also, within a 5-minute walk from my slum a new Walmart-like store is being built.  In the complex will be a Starbucks.  I will now live closer to a Starbucks than I ever did in the States.  I could leave my mosquito-infested shack over a garbage-slash-sewage swamp, walk a few blocks and be inside the air-conditioned, coffee-scented, sterilized comfort of Starbucks.

This is the world of contrasts my neighbors live in.  Their slums are neatly hidden away from the middle and upper class eyes, but the wealth of their fellow city-dwellers is right in front of their faces.  They leave their slum and wait for their bus to arrive, amidst shiny new luxury cars and motorcycles.  They might spend 75 cents for a street-stall meal while across the street others are paying $10 for practically the same food.

And now there will be a coffee shop they’ll pass by, selling a drink for an amount that could feed their whole family. 

I, too, feel this contrast.  I sometimes think it would be easier to be a missionary to the poor somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where just about everyone is poor and there is not the temptation of upper class comfort in my backyard.  Not that these things are evil (I’m sure I’ll visit the Starbucks once in a while), but they do make it more of a challenge to choose the world of my slum-dwelling friends over the one I left behind.  Like Jesus refusing those who would make him an earthly king, I have to refuse some of these things for the sake of identifying with those I am called to, those who Jesus says are blessed, those who receive the Kingdom in ways that I need to learn from.

And I want to partner with Jesus in sharing good news to the poor, news that makes the most impoverished believer richer than the wealthiest in this city.  And I believe that as God’s kingdom comes he will heal this gap between the rich and poor, a product of the fall.  This is what I want to spend my life on, and it feels well worth the things I leave behind.

Once in a while I notice themes in my life, like reading a good novel that has an emerging message through its story line.  It’s kind of cool when God does that.

Lately he has been reminding me of how good it is to be safe in Christ.  And how many people, especially in Thailand, really do live in fear: of death, of bad luck, of the ghosts of their deceased loved ones.  This is one way the Gospel is truly good news to the Thais.  God is offering them an escape from fear, a promise of everlasting safety.

A couple scenes that have illustrated this lately:

One afternoon I came home and saw three of my young neighbors, 7 or 8 years old, splashing water on the outside of my house with long leaves.  They appeared to be imitating the way monks will often bless a house with “holy water” as part of a house-warming ceremony.  The kids were chanting “No ghosts in this house, no ghosts in this house.”  I asked them what they were doing, and one of the little girls said she was protecting me from ghosts.  She turned to me and whispered “I know the family who lived here and the father died in this house.”  I told her she doesn’t need to be afraid– Jesus protects us.  I was struck by just how real ghosts are to these kids.  And to the adults in the community, too, as I’ve seen repeatedly.

A few weeks later I was invited to a Thai funeral by neighbors.  People are somber but not emotional at these events, and they pay their respects to the deceased quietly, through lighting incense and bowing down before the coffin (as well as often paying their respects to the Buddha images and other idols in the room).  Then the monks chant for a good 30 minutes, in order to help the soul of the deceased leave the body and to make its way to a “heaven” while it awaits reincarnation.

The monk chanting is always a creepy experience for me.  Other Thais I have talked to have also said they feel funerals are scary.  I usually just sit quietly, without kneeling before the idols or taking the mediative posture while the monks chant.  I take the time to pray and just observe.

This time I was sitting close enough to the monks to read the fans that they hold in front of their faces while they chant.  Each one has a different phrase on it.  They read “Bpai mai glap, lap mai dteun, feun mai mii, nii mai pon” or “Go without returning, Sleep without waking, Let their be no rising from the dead, Escape without being caught” (roughly).  Not only are the relatives and friends making merit so the deceased can have a better next life, but also so the ghost of their loved one doesn’t stay around and haunt them.

There was one day when I asked some of the youth in our church how their lives have changed after becoming believers.  The first thing they told me was that they feel so much freedom and joy knowing their eternal destiny is secure, and they do not need to be afraid that they have not made enough merit before they die.  This is what I love about the Gospel right now.

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death– that is, the devil– and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:14-15)

Would many more Thais be set free from this slavery!

I’ve had a number of people ask me, “What is it like being a missionary in Thailand?”  Here is something I wrote to one person who asked that; I thought I’d post it here for other people who are curious.

What is it like to be a missionary in Thailand…  There are definitely some perks about serving here.  Learning the language and culture is an ongoing adventure of discovery, even though Thai is said to be one of the most difficult languages in the world, and there are so many layers to the culture that I’ll always have more to learn.  One main aspect of the culture is FOOD—which is delicious, in abundance, and cheap.  The Thais love their food and take pride in it, and every activity involves eating.  A common greeting (like our “how are you?”) is “have you eaten yet?”  So much of missionary life is sitting with people and sharing meals, developing a higher spice tolerance and learning to eat parts of animals that would never get cooked in the States.  J  There are beautiful beaches here and jungle areas to explore during retreats and time off, the streets are always teeming with open-air markets, and it is sunny for at least part of every day.  I’m glad God called me to this place.

But it’s not all easy.  It is extremely hot here, and serving the poor incarnationally means I suffer from the heat, humidity, mosquitoes right along with my neighbors.  This and other physical stressors, as well as culture shock (feeling like you have to relearn everything that once came naturally) often bring out the worst in missionaries.  This is actually a good thing—it keeps us humble, helps us to remember we need Jesus just as much as those we came to share the Gospel to.  Almost everyone here believes in Buddhism, as well as everyone they admire, from the king and prime minister down to the public school teachers.  It is infused in everything, and every other religion feels foreign.  It is difficult for Thais to believe that they can become a Christian and still remain Thai, that they will not be a traitor to their culture and upbringing.  So while we don’t face persecution or danger as missionaries, we face very stubborn walls of resistance in most Thais’ hearts.  The Gospel has made slow progress here.

But it has also been exciting to learn about Buddhism and Thai culture and see ways that God’s fingerprints are all over them.  For instance, the Buddha prophesied a man who would come to save people from their wrongdoing, who would be injured in the hands and the feet.  Thai culture has many values that God has placed there, like the high value of doing good and sacrificing for others, honoring one’s elders and showing hospitality.  It is beautiful when Thais become believers and we get to see God work at redeeming their culture, using practices that previously were part of Buddhism now used to honor Jesus.  And worship using traditional Thai forms is especially powerful.  In many ways being a missionary is about getting a bigger picture of who God is, seeing a side of Him that you miss if you stay in one culture.  I have hope that as more and more Thais express their worship and the Gospel in their heart language and their native forms, more and more Thais will understand that being a Christian is what being fully Thai means—being the Thai that God created them to be, following Him.

Here are some more thoughts that have been accumulating since returning to the States after two+ years in Bangkok:

1. We are so isolated here in America. It is not difficult at all to go from bedroom to car to cubicle back to car and home again without really connecting with anyone. In Bangkok I could barely walk two houses down without having a conversation with someone. The food venders I frequented all knew my name, lots of the hospital employees know me (well, I might be special case in that area…), taxi drivers love to talk, I shared most of my meals with neighbors, friends or at least friendly market frequenters. Here you can even check yourself out at the grocery store without saying a word to anyone. I sometimes feel like I’m living in a bubble, breaking through it only on previously-scheduled coffee dates or movie nights.

2. Why are there 50 different types of toothpaste??

3. Maybe this is also true in Bangkok and I didn’t notice it as much, but clothing fashion here is pretty crazy. I mean, I was only gone for two years, but already I feel like someone truly catering to popular fashion would have pitched my entire wardrobe by now.

4. Thanks to genetic engineering, preservatives, and lots of other artificial devices, the grapes here have no seeds, produce doesn’t go bad in three days, certain foods taste better, and I don’t have to stick my bread in the refrigerator. I have mixed feelings about all that…

5. What is it exactly that has caused my health and energy level to improve so much in the past few months? Lots of sleep, less pollution, no mosquitos, changes in medication? Or is part of it the distance I have here from the immense suffering in the world? “…wanting to alleviate pain without sharing it is like wanting to save a child from a burning house without the risk of being hurt.”– Henri Nouwen

…in America. Not fully, but in certain ways.

For instance:

• I discovered that I am much more familiar with what 10 baht can buy than what a dollar can buy.
• The cold when I step outdoors still surprises me every time.
• Coming from a very non-confrontational culture where smiles are nearly always worn, I’m shocked by the amount of bluntness, harsh words and down-right arguing I hear both on TV and around me (why are they fighting about what kind of facial soap to buy??).
• I can drink the tap water. That’s so cool. But bottled water costs over a dollar– why?
• Is it normally this dark and depressing in Oregon during the winter? Oh, how I’ve taken sunny days for granted.
• Going into the convenience store in the airport totally overwhelmed me. I’m used to glancing at products and being familiar with them. Now even the brands I know here have changed their packaging, diversified their products… I hope no one was watching me because I must have looked like an idiot taking so long to pick out chewing gum.
• Coming from a huge, frantic, sprawling city to small-town Oregon makes everything here feel small, slow and quiet. Our local 4-story hospital which used to look so big now seems tiny in comparison to the 11-story one I frequent in Bangkok. And where are all the cars??

Observations after my second full day here. I’m sure I’ll have more later.

I have noticed a new sign lately that I am another large step out of culture shock. I have found myself defending Thais, rather than joining in to the conversations of “why in the world do they believe…”, “it doesn’t make any sense when they….”, “why can’t they just understand…”. I think in the midst of culture shock, when much is new and foreign, we tend to believe that what confuses us just doesn’t match up to some universal logic or set of morals. And so because we don’t understand, we easily label it as foolish. But as I have come to learn about and from my Thai, Buddhist neighbors more about why they do what they do and believe what they believe, I have gained a greater respect for them and their beliefs.

Now this has not at all changed my own beliefs– about God, man and how we are to live. I think we can hold firmly to our own convictions without having to belittle the people who hold others. I will never believe Buddhism is the path to salvation, but I no longer think the people who do are stupid. As I have done more study into the religion I now realize it is far more complex than what we see on the outside. Not only that, but I’m begininning to understand more deeply how it affects Thais to believe one thing fervently since childhood, along with every known family member and ancestor, not to mention every government official and member of the country’s royalty.

Yes, Thais bow down to man-made Buddha images, and yes they know that these figures cannot hear or speak or move. They believe in a spiritual power behind these statues, not the materials themselves. They have been doing this since they were babies and their parents held their hands together for them in the Thai gesture of respect, and they watched everyone around them doing this as they grew up.

Buddhism is not simply a religion of killing off one’s desires and spending long hours in silent meditation. It actually has many honorable teachings, such as doing good rather than evil, self-restraint, refraining from greed, respecting one’s elders, seeking after wisdom.

It is true, however, that the aim of Buddhism is to attain one’s salvation by one’s own efforts, and this can never be accomplished. Buddhists need Jesus. They need the freedom of knowing that Christ’s work on the cross gave us freedom from needing to earn enough merit to get to heaven. They need Jesus’ forgiveness for the ways they have abandoned the creator God and turned to lesser gods. They need love from the Lord rather than the callous indifference of their idols. In this country of broken families, they need a Father.

But no amount of arguing or comparing Christianity to Buddhism in a simplistic way will ever get through to them. It is not that their beliefs are foolish and ours make complete sense. To them, our religion is too easy– free forgiveness from sin is ridiculous. And that God would lower himself to become man– ludicrous. To Thais, if you do good you receive good and if you do evil you receive evil. None of this free mercy or suffering of the godly that Christians believe in.

So for my neighbors, it is not a simple turning from what we often see as the obviously false to the obviously true. In our churches here, almost across the board people have come to Christ after a personal, tangible experience with God. Only when they feel that he is real and alive and longing for relationship with them does that knowledge break through the paradigm they have grown up with. Many have had dreams and visions, miraculous healing, or sensations during worship that convince them that Christianity is not a man-made religion but a relationship with a living God.

I have been doing research into Buddhism not to create a well-formed apologetic approach to presenting the Gospel to Buddhists, but to understand them better. My readings, and conviction from the Lord, has helped me to turn from my temptation to be condescending and disrespectful, if only in my thoughts, to having a deeper love and depth of understanding of my neighbors. It has also given me ways to begin conversation, to know more of what the deep longings of the Thais are and how they are trying to attain them through their religion. When I can use my intellectual understanding to be able to connect to the hearts of people here, rather than rational argument, that, I believe, is when I am best able to communicate the Gospel.

Please pray for my continued efforts to show Christ’s love through my life and my words among Buddhist slum-dwellers in Bangkok.

In my ongoing efforts to fully enter into Thai culture, I have recently begun learning the Sah Duang, a type of Thai fiddle.

I couldn’t pass up the offer for free lessons made by a regular at the coffee stand I frequent in the mornings. Tawan, a retired musician, has been teaching traditional Thai instruments to children in his neighborhood without charge for the past several years. He offered to spend two hours a week with me, whenever I was free. So we decided on Saturday mornings.

He invited me to come over any evening that week to listen to the children rehearse. That first evening I was not only treated to a really impressive performance by the young band, but Tawan and his wife also fed me and the kids dinner and then GAVE me my own sah to begin practicing with.

I get the impression that his small house is filled every evening with grade-school-aged kids practicing their instruments: string and mallet instruments, Thai flutes and percussion. On his walls hang dozens of handmade instruments, photos of performances with children, Buddha images and shrines. In conversations with Tawan he has more than once mentioned that he is growing older quickly and has little time left to make merit before he dies. His service to the children, and to me, is clearly inspired by a love for the dying art of traditional Thai music, but also by a fear of what awaits him after death. I was recently hanging out with a couple youth from my Bible study and they testified that the security of knowing they will be in heaven for eternity is one of the greatest blessings they’ve received in their conversion from Buddhism.

I have now had two lessons so far on Saturday mornings at Tawan’s house, where he teaches me along with one or two other kids who are learning the sah duang as well. From the first meeting I realized I would not only be learning a new instrument, but also a new notation system that bares little resemblance from the one I’m so familiar with. I’m finding that my Western musical background does not help me as much as I thought it would. Not only are the notes written in Thai characters, but melodies and rhythms are written out only as a reminder, an approximation of what the music should sound like. If you have not heard the tune, it’s impossible to look at the music and play it accurately.

The instrument itself is one of those that sound really bad until learned well. There are only two strings and nine possible notes, so memorizing them is not difficult. But getting a sound that doesn’t sound like a wailing cat is the tricky part. I pity my neighbors. J Also, there are no frets or other markers on the strings, so you have to use your ear and adjust your fingers in position and pressure to get the note in tune. And anything but gentle, steady motion with the bow produces painful squeals.

But I am hopeful that with some work I will be able to produce the beautiful sound the sah is capable of. I’m not sure how exactly this will fit into my ministry here, but at least I hope it will communicate to those I am serving that I value and enjoy their culture, I have not come to impose mine. Perhaps I will be able to implement the instrument in worship here, or teach others who are interested how to play it. But for now, it is a way God is allowing me to enjoy another aspect of this country, and to learn and receive, a humbling position for a missionary, but a necessary one.

Sawadi Bpi Mai! (Happy New Year!) Here’s to new beginnings, including a personal resolution to keep this blog better updated!

Many Festivities; Few in Honor of Jesus

New Year’s here is the Thai equivilent of Christmas, in terms of significance to them. One would think the Christmas trees, English-language Christmas carols (many blatantly about the birth of Jesus), red and green decorations were all in honor of Christ’s birthday. But now, Christmas has come and gone with very few Thais even realizing December 25th was a holiday. The festive atmosphere, meant to simply imitate the holiday trappings of the much-esteemed West, is all about ringing in the new year.