I wish I had written this.

Location
-Alexis Spencer-Byers

They say I’m brave to live here—
A courageous soul, more so than most
And I believe that they intend it
As a compliment to me
But what they fail to understand
Is the grave insult implied
To those I choose to live among
If being their neighbor
Makes me a hero

What would they say
If they knew the truth-
That the suburbs with their perfect lawns
Their swimming pools and soccer moms
Terrify me
Far more than the dangers
(Real and alleged)
Of my beloved ‘hood?
What would they say
If they discovered this fact—
That I am not brave at all
Just more at home
Where I can be
As broken as the next?

the thing about babies unborn
is that their only task
is to prepare for the life to come
and the only urge in their every cell,
is a yearning to be born

this advent, put me back into your womb, God
so every cell in me finds that single-minded longing
for life again
- Cheryl Lawrie

If anyone tried to comment recently you probably got an error message– it’s all fixed now. So comment away!

For your amusement, here are some of the things Thai people have said to me:

“Why don’t you cut your toenails more often?”

“It seems like you’re fatter.” (This accompanied by hand motions which seemed to indicate that my face had swollen up like a balloon.)

“Have you been eating a lot lately?”

“You don’t speak Thai well at all.” (Thankfully, lately people have been complimenting me on my Thai almost every day. But for awhile this was very discouraging.)

[neighbor] “Sara! Where are you?”
[me] (washing my face before bed) “In the bathroom!”
[neighbor] (waits for me to emerge) “Oh, were you showering?”
[me] (thinking “to shower” might be a general term for washing in general) “yes.”
[neighbor] (looking into my bathroom) “You didn’t use much water…. you didn’t shower!” (accusatory, for Thais shower at least twice a day, religiously). “Why not, because it’s cold?”
[me] “Yes, and because in the States people only shower once a day.”
[neighbor] “But it’s not hot there. You need to shower twice a day. In the morning and when you get home in the evening.”
–Since then she has been watching to see if shower in the evening and will often ask me about it. I’m considering sucking it up and showering twice a day so I make a little more sense in her eyes.

“How much did you pay for your haircut?” “How much did it cost you to fly here?” “How much did that shirt cost?” “How much do you spend on food every day?” (Followed by very blunt opinions, almost always– “too expensive.”)

“Don’t eat too much food or when you go home your friends will tell you how fat you got in Thailand.”

“Narak jung luuy!” (or “So cute!”)– yelled at me by random people on the street.

“You’re 23?! I thought you were about 16!”

“Your skin is so white and beautiful. You have such pretty blonde hair. Thai people aren’t pretty at all– we all have black eyes and black skin.”

(in broken English) “Hellooooooo! Hey you! Farang! (foreigner)”

“Hello! I don’t have a girlfriend yet!”

…to some degree:

• cockroaches in my bathroom every evening
• loose floorboards in my main room
• the sound of rats in the room my landlord uses for storage
• waiting 25 minutes for my electric water heater to heat up enough water for my shower
• little lizards all over my house
• having no light in my bedroom if I don’t turn it on before 5 p.m.
• sometimes not seeing a piece of bread for many days
• spirit houses on every corner (okay, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that)
• drunken karaoke at 3 a.m.
• being called “farang” (foreigner), even by people who know my name
• comments on my “beautiful” white skin and “blonde” hair (in the States I’m really not a blonde, and many with my skin tone would work on their tan)
• being cheated by fruit vendors
• causing double-takes when I walk down the street
• noise– all the time, everywhere, except a rare late night in Permsup
• cat fights, dog fights, family fights
• roosters crowing at 5 a.m.
• packed sidewalks of people who are oblivious to everyone else
• frequent comments on my weight and language abilities
• sitting on the floor, eating off of the floor, sleeping on a mat on the floor
• hanging my clothes to dry, timing my laundry so there will be enough sun to wear the clothes the next day
• gossip about how I don’t have a TV (a big status symbol in the slum), how I only shower once a day, how much money people think I have
• my three-year-old neighbor barging in to help herself to my candy or gum

Praise God for giving me the grace and perseverance to live in this place. He really does give us everything we need to respond to his call. I wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else.

• ground iguana with sticky rice
• eel soup, barbecued eel
• fermented fish paste
• rat stew
• pig intestines with garlic/pepper sauce (this one is my favorite of the list, surprisingly)

Just in case you’d like to send me something but don’t know what would be good to send a missionary in Bangkok, here is my updated list of ideas:

• Books (a few suggestions– let me know if you’d like to send me one of these so I can take it off the list and avoid duplicates): Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur (Frank Houghton); Chasing the Dragon (Jackie Pullinger); Saint in the Slums: The Story of Kagawa of Japan (Cyril Davey); Desiring God (John Piper); Cry of the Urban Poor (Viv Grigg); Spirituality of the Road (David Bosch)– or any other Christian books or biographies of missionaries that you think would be encouraging
• Packets of instant oatmeal or hot drinks I can use with my water heater at my house
• newspaper/magazine articles
• worship music
• blank journal
• Ultrathon mosquito repellant lotion
• travel-sized anti-bacterial lotion
• stain remover like Stain Stick
• granola bars

If other things come to mind I’ll add them (or take them off the list if I end up with a stockpile) so you can keep checking back if you’re one of those wonderful gift-givers. I have been really blessed by how many people have sent me packages and this is not intended to solicit more– it’s hopefully just a help to anyone who was wanting to send me something anyway.

That is the first line of a popular song here that my three-year-old neighbor was singing the other evening. Her parents taught it to her as a joke.

Iew has the darkest skin of anyone in her family, and in a country that bases so much of its social interactions on comparison, she is forced to hear comments on it daily. Having white skin is such a strongly held ideal that it seems everyone is focused on it. Most face lotions, powders, even deoderant contain whitener. People are often holding up their arms to each other to compare skin tone. A Nigerian expat I met recently complained about the Thai people not being hospital. I’m convinced his vastly different experience is based on his appearance (and the assumptions that go along with that).

Hence the lyrics to the song that would never be aired in the States (at least not nowadays). That same evening, Iew’s mother was holding her affectionately, pointing to the TV at a beautiful, white-skinned Thai woman and telling her daughter “that woman is very pretty. You’re not pretty at all– you’re so black.” With a smile on her face. I don’t understand.

And so as a three-year-old, Iew is already trying to find some other way to look beautiful. In contrast to her sister and cousin she lives with, Iew is obviously a dancer and performer. Every evening I am over she shows me her new dance moves, which are disturbingly provocative. I couldn’t figure out where she was learning it until I was over later one night and saw that her parents were letting her watch the equivalent of MTV (they were actually watching it with her).

Please pray for this little girl. I’ve made it my mission to tell her daily that she is beautiful (and she really is), that she has beautiful skin, that God made her this way. Pray that God would protect her from the temptations to be provocative as she grows older and begins to understand what that really means (and what she can get for it). Pray for her parents, Chiao and Lin, who have good intentions and really love their daughter but are also a product of the corruption in this culture. Pray that more people in this country would come to know their Creator and accept who he has made them to be.

I try to go running a few days per week at about 6:30 a.m. A short description of what I come across will give you a good snapshot of my area of Bangkok, I think.

I first head out of Permsup, greeting some of the people who are already awake that early. My neighbor Lin is usually heating up water for the children’s bucket showers, and these past few days the TV has been on, tuned to a channel broadcasting news of the tsunami tragedy. I often pass by an elderly man who still boils water over a wood fire every morning. Kids are getting dressed in their neatly-pressed school uniforms. Alarms are going off, radios are playing, meat is hissing on the barbecue.

I run passed food stalls that are just opening up, selling donuts or barbecued pork or bananas and sticky rice. The street is already busy with cars and motorcycles, elderly men and women taking their mornning stroll.

And then there are the bald, barefooted monks, dressed in orange and carrying buckets to collect gifts made in merit-making. I make sure to leave a lot of space if I run past one of these men, because if I woman touches a monk he becomes “unclean” and must then go through an elaborate purifying ritual. Yet it is almost always women who make merit to these monks, kneeling on the ground, placing their gift in the bucket and then receiving a blessing from the monk. Who these men pray to or what power they believe they are summoning in making the blessing is a mystery to me. But the women believe that by making an offering to one of these holy men they are increasing their karma and that of their loved ones, improving their chances for good fortune now and in their future lives.

As I continue running I reach a path along a canal, which would be nice scenery were it not for the garbage littering it and the faint smell of sewage coming up from the water. As I continue running an elaborate Buddhist temple comes into view.

My route then takes me to a main highway, which is already busy with people waiting for buses, food vendors selling breakfast, mangy dogs wandering the sidewalks. The air is already hazy with pollution. I run past several spirit houses and often see people laying fresh flowers on the alter, replacing the bottles of soda with new ones, lighting candles, paying respect to the spirits who supposedly reside there.

By the time I return to Permsup I am reminded again of how blessed I am to not feel I have to appease spirits, bow down to men in robes, hope that I have done enough good in my life to escape punishment from the gods. It is to break bondage such as this that Jesus came. Praise he Lord that he is a God of grace, slow to anger and abounding in love. May his presence grow in this city and the number of his worshippers increase. Bangkok needs Christ’s freedom!

December, 2004

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope you have had a blessed holiday season. It was definitely different leaving most of my Christmas traditions in the States, but a joyful time nonetheless. The reason for celebrating Christmas had not changed, though all of the trappings of the day might. God has made his dwelling here on earth not only in Bethlehem or the US, but among believers the whole world over. It was powerful to see Christians here in this pagan country, where Christmas means very little, praising God for the gift of his Son.

Christmas in Bangkok

Nearly all of the believers in the Peace Community church network are former Buddhists and pagans. They did not grow up with Christmas traditions, so the parties, caroling and celebration of the church are for many where they have learned how to celebrate Christ’s birth. These activities also serve as a fun way to reach out to neighbors who have not heard much, if anything, about Jesus, and who will seldom turn down games and good food.

One of the most popular pastimes in Bangkok is karaoke, so it is fitting that Thai Christians love to go caroling. But in contrast to the brisk door-to-door singing that sometimes happens in the States, here it is an elaborate affair. One evening this month a group of about two dozen of us piled into cars and stopped at 10 church members’ houses in different neighborhoods, mostly slum communities or low-income government housing. At each home there was singing, prayer and blessing for the house and those who live there, and then a time of sharing food and fellowship. As we walked through the community we sang songs and handed out small gifts to the children. The trip started at 6 p.m. and wasn’t finished until nearly 2 a.m.

On Christmas Eve the Permsup house church hosted a huge Christmas party at Dave’s house. A few women from the community cooked up a feast, feeding the 70+ people who came with plenty of leftovers. There were games and singing for the kids, a gift exchange, and a showing of the Jesus film. A good time was had by all.

As for my own Christmas day, I spent it with my teammates Jen and Dave. We ate good food, relaxed in our team leader’s air-conditioned house, opened care packages from friends and family and spent some time in Scripture together. It was a very special time.

Going North for New Year’s

The big Thai holiday this time of year is New Years (Bii May). Ratchai, the new believer in Permsup, has invited our team to join his family on their annual trip back to their home province of Kalasin for the holiday. We will make the 7-hour trek on the 28th and probably come back on the 3rd. It sounds like this will be a laid-back time of meeting the family’s relatives, eating a lot of sticky rice and a spicy papaya salad called Som Tam, and a break from the heat of Bangkok (it is still in the 90s during the afternoons here). Jen and I will be taking a break from Thai lessons during this week, but will have plenty of opportunities to practice, I’m sure. Dave will be trying to learn more of the family’s first language, Issan. We are still trying to figure out this heart language of the majority of Bangkok slum dwellers. It appears to be similar, if not identical, to Lao, though we have heard that it once had a distinctive alphabet. This, however, has disappeared ever since the Thai government destroyed all written forms of the language several decades ago. It is still passed down verbally, however, and most families in the slums are bi- if not tri-lingual. It my hope to one day be able to speak about Jesus in Issan to the poor of Bangkok.

Language Learning

My daily language lessons and practicing with friends and neighbors is teaching me much about perseverance, but is also progressing quickly. I can now hold simple conversations with people and have started to develop some real friendships. I now definitely know more Thai than either Spanish or French, which I have studied in the past. And though it is a lot of work, especially as an introvert, thinking on how God will soon use my voice here compels me forward. A few weeks after we return from Kalasin, Jen and I will be learning the Thai alphabet. As an avid reader and writer, I am excited to be able to understand written Thai.

Prayer Requests

1. Please pray for two of the youth in Permsup: Ahng and Fon. These two teenaged girls seem to be the closest to accepting the Gospel. Fon, who is 14, has already expressed interest in committing herself to Jesus, but seems reluctant to go against her family which is devoutly Buddhist. Ahng is my neighbor and my landlord’s daughter (she was in one of the pictures in my last letter). She is studying the Bible as an optional class in school and is often asking questions about God. Both girls have been coming to the house church together. Pray for God to be continuing to till the soil of the hearts and that I would be faithful in modeling, interceding, and witnessing in the simple ways I can now.

2. We have just approved a new member to the team named Clara. She will be joining us hopefully in the early fall. She has some background experience in youth work and ministry to addicts—I am excited to have her join us. Please pray for her fundraising and preparations.

3. As always, pray for my language learning. Ask the Lord to continue providing what I need to keep my energy and determination levels high. Thank him with me for the generous and kind language partners he has already blessed me with.

4. Pray for my trip to Kalasin to be a safe one and a time of bonding with this family from Permsup. Pray for Pie, Ratchai’s wife, and Nat, their son, who are not yet believers. Dave and I will probably be asked by many about our faith and why we have come to Thailand; pray for open hearts to what we have to share.

Blessings to you in this coming new year.

In Him,

Sara Stephens