Week 3: Surprises and Settledness

Every single time I've gotten on my computer to try to express what has happened and where my heart is, I'm at a complete loss as to where to start! I feel like one week in my life here holds the weight and experiences of a month or more in the states. In the last seven days, the Lord has brought very good surprises, the realization of long-term struggles, and some much-welcomed peace and comfort.

Saturday evening I was talking with my missionary friend Tim about the loneliness that I continue to feel here. I think his response is the most telling and accurate way to explain this experience to you. He told me, after having been on the field for four years now, that the loneliness is something that's just always with you. I'm in a place where everything is unfamiliar - people, places, foods, customs, merchandise, government, language, etc. And I constantly feel out-of-place. Some of my closest Thai friends - those Christians who work at the church with me - played cards with me Sunday afternoon. But some of them don't know English, and the others feel more comfortable speaking Thai. So, even though I was enjoying a game of cards with my brothers and sisters in Christ, I was still an American looking in from the outside, wondering what exactly was going on.

Yet, there have been some beautiful surprises in the last week, too. Wednesday night I came home to my roommate, Pat, already asleep. He woke up to a phone call about an hour later, as I was going to bed, and despite the fact that we struggle through every conversation with his limited English, we stayed up nearly an hour talking about the deep pain that he feels so often, and I got to pray for him. He needs the prayer of God's people as much if not more than I do. The loneliness, confusion, and feelings of ineffectiveness that I struggle with, he feels too. But, at the end of the conversation, the greatest encouragement was that over it all he knows that before he met Jesus, he had no hope and no joy. Yet, now that he trusts Christ for everything, he knows he has a hope for the future, and he has joy in knowing Christ.

Instead of telling all of the stories from this past week, I think recounting Monday night will give a good picture of where I now find myself. After taking an afternoon nap, I groggily wake up to go play basketball with the guys at the college. When I get there, my new friend Wit calls my name out from the gym, and I go and sit with him between his badminton games. We have a good conversation, I meet a man named Sooy and his son Ki-o, and Wit and I plan to have dinner and maybe see Star Trek on Thursday.

From there I leave the gym and go outside to play basketball. I'm the only farang (a.k.a. - white American) playing most days, which means I'm the only one not speaking Thai as well. My team and I lose all four games we play (despite the fact that I'm the tallest person on the court). At one point - I think - one of my teammates defends my right to play over another guy who just got there (but who knows, maybe they were joking about how they just wanted a tall white guy on the court!). For the most part I don't share conversation with anyone, since I can't get past "how are you" and their names. But just before my last game, I meet a guy named Nat (a.k.a. - "Hon"). He explains that he doesn't know much English, doesn't have time to take classes, but really wants to learn. So, he figures the best way to do that is to share conversation with an American.

We decide to have dinner at the market, and I end up forcing him to let me pay "this one time" (there's my financial support doing one thing it was set aside to do). We struggle through awkward conversation in English as he tries to teach me some Thai as well. We talk about where we live, what he does for work, what he likes to eat, how I know Paul (our mutual friend who just came back to the U.S.), and movies among other things. Since Tuesday is a holiday, he'll be playing basketball twice, and he's not really interested in seeing a movie with me and my friends. We leave with the Thai "wi" and American handshake - a funny picture of two worlds colliding here.

As I walk away - in the wrong direction at first - I am struck with a mix of emotions and thoughts. I realize that I've finally made a Thai friend outside of the church, and hope that God uses whatever time we have together this summer to open his heart to faith. Yet, I also realize just how hard the hearts of these people are to the gospel - their contentedness in their easy-going lives is hard to break into with any alternative. Nat exemplifies a Thai person who is so gentle and welcoming, but who makes it obvious from the get-go that he's not going to readily open up his heart to me. Then, I personally see that even though I have just made a new friend, and am coming off a couple of really fun, comforting days, I am still an American living in a Thai world. I'm still an outsider in so many ways. But, while I'm walking home, I can't forget the reality that I'm doing exactly what God has set out for me to do. With all my inadequacies and inabilities, I'm simply serving here, and God will finish just what He wants to in spite of (or because of) everything I can't do.

So, then, maybe you've just been waiting to hear about the newest cultural experiences that I've had!? Well, I have discovered one thing that is very bad for my health: rotee. This delicious concoction of fried bread dough, scrambled/fried egg, sugar, an optional fruit, and condensed milk has taken hold of my heart (in literal ways probably too)! Since discovering them last week I think I've eaten five. I also went to the ancient city (more on that in the picture post). I tried pumpkin curry, ate McDonald's via delivery boy, saw multiple water buffalo, and watched and tried to play ta-kraw (this crazy game with a bamboo ball that's basically volleyball with your feet - check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXmjOMUdsPY). I've yet to drink soda from a bag, but I want to.

This post has already been extremely long, but I want to give you a clear picture of where we need prayer. As the inadequacies continue to be realized, I see how the growth of God's kingdom so deeply involves the prayers of His people:
-The Thai Christians and Career Missionaries. The Thai Christians, especially are the ones who really have the platform and cultural understanding to share their faith. They also have the long-term work in mind. The career missionaries particularly deal with loneliness and frustrations of ineffectiveness, as well.
-The ministries at New Community Church. In the next couple months we have three camps (and camps are almost always important in building community and sharing the gospel with people who would otherwise not hear). 1) I was introduced to the mercy ministry in Mahad Thai (the local slum) this week. My eyes were opened to the deep needs of those people, and the cycle of poverty they're stuck in. Yet, the mercy ministry is blossoming unlike any of the others, and children are coming into the church in beautiful ways through that ministry. 2) The campus ministry really takes off this week, and tomorrow we have the freshman orientation day where our newly formed University Christian Fellowship club will have a booth. 3) English classes continue to bring people to the church who otherwise wouldn't be there. We have a camp next month that a lot of planning is going into.
-Wit and Nat - my two Thai friends who are unbelievers, and whom I dearly hope the Lord brings to faith in Christ.
-My service. I forgot to tell you last week that I have the opportunity to write the daily devotion (the "Daily Manna") for the church for the month of June. I will post those devotionals daily during June here on the blog, too. Also, I continue to hope that God will use my service in teaching English, hanging out with college people, and doing whatever else for His glory (despite my lack of obvious use).

Already I've written too much. May God make this scripture come to pass for you all as well as for the Thai people: "I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them...I will rejoice in doing them good." -Jeremiah 32.39, 41