Avatar Movie and its pantheistic push

Yesterday I had a chance to watch "Avatar" in 3D at the movies, the latest hollywood mega blockbuster which is starting to break box office records. It was an enjoyable movie and entertaining as you'd expected. Two nagging thoughts lingered in my mind after the movie though. You could see the post-modern influence - man with it's technological advances, fighting a primitive alien tribal group. It is the primitive tribal group which triumphs and portrayed as more noble. Secondly, the pantheism in the movie. The object of worship of the Navi (the alien tribal group) is a tree which has life giving properties. It reminds me of the movies by Japan's most well known and respected movie director, Miyazaki Hayao ("Spirited Away" and other animated movies) which has a similar pantheistic push.

It is sad to see people to reject the true creator of this universe to worship a tree.

"When people cease to believe in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in everything" G.K. Chesteron

Christmas 2009

Lisa's family Boxing Day

With my family Christmas Day

We weren't expecting to be in Sydney this Christmas so it was an wonderful blessing to be with family and friends this Christmas. There was lots of food, time with family and too many presents.

Target Asia

Last month we shared at the OMF Target Asia meeting along with other missionaries on home assignment, missionaries preparing to leave for the field and short-termers who had recently returned. OMF Australia organise 4 Target Asia meetings per year. I find them extremely helpful in finding out what God is doing in other parts of Asia and working in the lives of people. Unfortunately, the majority of the attendees (apart from those who were there to share) were older people. What would be do without these faithful and prayerful older people? How can we get younger people to attend these great meetings?

The next Target Asia meeting is on Saturday 20 February. I encourage you to go if you live in Sydney. The meeting is for the morning only and concludes with Lunch together. Contact OMF Australia for details.

Kiama. The best place in the world?

Last week we had a week's holiday in Kiama, which is about 2 hours drive south of Sydney. Lisa's parent's were able to join us for the first 3 days and my parents for the final 3. It was so good to be able to have our parents on holidays with us to help look after the children and help with cooking and cleaning so that it actually could be a sort of holiday for us and not just looking after the children.

Lisa's parents met an English couple on holidays in Kiama and they claimed that it was the best place in the world! I don't know about that but we certainly had a lovely time there and there were plenty of things to do with a young family. We went to beach most days were our eldest son started to get into body surfing. There were great parks and paths for the kids to scoot on. In the last couple of days we went fishing which was great fun (for me and hopefully for everyone else too). At night with the washing up done by our mother's while we were putting the kids to bed, we could actually have a couple of hours at night to relax. Nice.

All in all it was a fantastic holiday and it ended all too quickly.

Pain and the Chinese acupuncture man

Last Sunday morning I was helping one of sons in the bathroom and I just leaned forward when I felt a jolt of excruciating pain in my lower back. I couldn't get back up again so I had to drag myself across the floor and spent some time resting on my back. I've never had any problems with my back apart from some minor niggles which always went away so I was hoping that within a couple of hours I'd be o.k. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I was able to start walking again but with considerable pain. My parents called a Chinese man who'd helped my uncle's back with acupuncture and he was able to come that evening. I was willing to try anything at that stage if it would fix the problem.

He told me to lie on my stomach. He dug into my back with his thumbs to see where the pain was and then started to stick the pins in for acupuncture. That wasn't too bad until he started to twirl the pins around while they were still in my back and then it started to hurt. I thought I was just in for acupuncture, but then he starts grabbing my legs and twists my back to manipulate my spine. It was the most pain I've felt in my life and I was screaming in pain. The kids had been watching up until that stage but then they were led away. At that point I thought calling this man might have been a grave mistake. I was concerned that he was doing more harm than good. All would have been forgiven if at the end all my pain had disappeared. Unfortunately, I was a little better but still in considerable pain. I'm slowly getting better but there is still a lot of pain when walking and my mum notices that my right hip is higher than my left when I walk. Fortunately, Lisa's back is not too bad right now, otherwise we'd be in a lot of bother. I'm praying that it continues to get better day by day.

The lighthouse SOLD!

We heard news from our team mates in Lampang that "The Lighthouse" our outreach centre has been sold by the owners. The team has 2 months to move out. This is disappointing because we have spent a considerable about of money and effort fixing the place up and in advertising only to have to move after a year and half. However, we trust that God has his purposes in this happening. Please pray for the team as they are considering another property right now and whether God would have us rent this property or another one.

Daughter's 1st birthday

Our daughter had her 1st birthday last week . For Koreans and many other Asians the 1st birthday is very important. It must be celebrated on for before the day but not after the actual birthday. She is wearing the traditional Korean dress ("hanbok"). It was good to be able to celebrate her birthday with family here in Australia but it would have been nice to be able to share her birthday with our neighhours in Thailand and see what customs surround the 1st birthday there.

Are we all missionaries?

We were visiting one of our supporting Churches and the sermon on Sunday happened to be on Romans 9-10. In Romans 10 is the famous missionary passage:- 14How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" (ESV). The minister told the congregation that is wasn't only "Rich and Lisa" who are missionaries but that everyone in the congregation are missionaries (to their neighbors etc) I've heard this said countless times before so it didn't think anything else of it. However, I was reading the above book this week (in the excellent chapter titled Amateurization and Professionalization) and it challenged this assertion that "we are all missionaries".

"The general call for missionary volunteers with which we are familiar in missions is often reinforced by the urgent reminder that 'we are all missionaries'. This is confusion compounded. In the first place, there is no general call for missionary volunteers in the New Testament. All New Testament missionaries were personally conscripted by Christ, his apostle and their representatives, or by Holy Spirit-directed churches.

In the second place, although all followers of Christ are called to be witnesses, it is not true that all are called to be missionaries, any more than all are called to be pastors". (p.215).

I think Hesslegrave's right. Any objections?

Christchurch Thursday Women's Group

This morning Lisa spoke at the Thursday WEB group at Christchurch St Ives which is group of about 100 women. She is a last minute person so the last couple of nights have been very late. Her presentation consisted of a letter to our daughter. By the sounds of it, the presentation went well.

What I'm reading now: Revolution in World Mission

Generally an offer of a free book raises my suspicions and I don't take up the offer because I have to divulge my name and address (call me paranoid). However, this free book was advertised on the Biblegateway website which is quite a respectable site and the title caught my attention so I ordered the free book.

I was quite surprised by the book. Basically, K.P Yohannan, the founder of the mission organisation Gospel for Asia asserts that western churches should stop sending western missionaries to Asia but instead use that money to support native missionaries. Native missionaries cost a fraction of the money required to support a Western missionary and native missionaries are much more effective. He sights a couple of exceptions. Perhaps western missionaries are needed in countries like Afghanistan and a few countries like that where there are very few Christians and no native missionaries. The rest, we should be supporting native missionaries.

The other significant thrust of the book is that western churches are prejudiced in terms of there giving. They give money to their own missionaries without much accountability for how effective they are but when it comes to giving money to native missionary organisation, they demand accountability and request someone from the organisation to sit on the governing committee in the local country.

He conceded that western missionary were necessary in the past in places like China to bring the gospel to that country. But now he argues that most western missionaries are either just doing social work rather than preaching the gospel or they are just ineffective.

It is true that native missionaries cost much less and usually are much more effective in evangelising their own people. And yes, some missionary are probably not very effective on the mission field and really should be back in their home country.

However, I doubt that if western church stopped sending western missionaries and just gave money to native missionaries, that we would see the great advance in the cause of world missions which K.P seems to suggest. Some might think that because they have given money to support native missionaries and prayed for them that they've done their bit for world mission.

K.P raises some important issues which we need to reflect upon. Gospel for Asia seem to be doing an amazing work. But I don't think the answer is as clear cut as K.P implies and he focuses too much on his experiences of ineffective western missionaries but neglects those who are being used tremendously by God. The book is free from here.

Cornerstone Presbyterian Biblestudy

We are well and truly on the deputation trail now. I shared at this Biblestudy last night and I didn't get lost on the way! Speaking at Sunday School and Bible reading for Lisa at Christchurch this Sunday.

First Christchurch Biblestudy

Being on home assignment one of our roles is to report back to our sending church and to those who have been faithfully supporting us. On Tuesday night we shared with Tim & Em's Biblestudy (above). This Biblestudy wrote letters to us (pen and paper kind - amazing for Gen Y'ers) and prayed for us and it was great to be able to meet them in person.

We are looking forward to sharing at many other Biblestudies.

Linking up with a student from Lampang

The woman on the right was a student of mine in Lampang. Her husband (left) had already come to Australia and was studying English while working as a Thai masseur. After returning to Australia I was able to contact them and meet up for lunch last month and yesterday to spend the morning together. I helped work out how to use the ferries at Circular Quay.

I was invited by the leader of the Thai Diaspora ministry in Sydney to come visit their English teaching outreach sometime ago and I'd arranged my meeting with my Thai friends for the same day. So I invited them to come along with me. They didn't stay for the lesson but did sign up and they will start coming from next week.

It is not an easy life live in Australia. Sometimes they work until 3-4am and then have to go study English on top of that. They have left their 3 year old daughter with their parents back in Thailand. They hope to eventually be able to have enough money to bring her over to Australia.

It was encouraging to see so many Thais attending English classes (around 20?). Also I was surprised to a see some shops with Thai writing only! Obviously there are a reasonable numbers of Thais living near the city.

Fishing trip

On our to do list while in Australia was to take our son fishing. He'd asked us several times in Thailand to take him fishing but we weren't able to. So when one of our friends asked us what we needed, Lisa mentioned that our son would love to go fishing. So our friend organised this fishing trip. With some help our son was able to catch a couple of fish. The one in the photo above we threw back.

But these 2 Trevally were able to be taken home to eat.

I was left to gut the fish for the first time in my life. Our friend suggested to fry the fish with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Viola. O.k. It doesn't look so great but it tasted fantastic. Special thanks to Wayne for organising the trip and serving us so wonderfully.

My childhood photos

They say that a picture can tell a thousand words. Well these photos are worth at least a few laughs to those who know me now. I dug these photos up from my parent's house.

Feb 1981, a preschool photo in Korea just before I left for Australia

Can anyone pick me out in this photo?

1981, A few months later, kindergarten in Australia

Not hard to pick me out (tip: click on the photo to make it larger)

Obviously, my parent's had not been able to get us a school uniform yet. At least I had the right coloured shirt (thought not exactly the right shade of blue). My brother was wearing a red shirt and stuck out much more than I did in his photo. I know how my parent's must have felt because I put my son through the same thing when he went to school in Thailand. Funny how your memory changes of things. I thought there was only 1 other Asian kid in my class in those days. But I can see at least another 2 in this photo.

School photo, 1987

As I was looking through these photos (I have all my class photos from 1981 through to 1987) I could remember all my teachers names still from year 3 onwards (Mr Higgins y6, Mr Bishop y5, Mrs Baker Finch? yr 4, Mrs Thompson yr3). I was curious as to where all my classmates have ended up in life. I started doing a google search with their names just for the fun of it. The third name I searched proved fruitful. She is currently a lecturer in Law at Sydney Uni. I remember her being very smart in yr 6. I recently saw one of my classmates in an annual report for airline company and found out that he was as the CEO of Asia Pacific Aviation. I wonder what other things google will find out.

The other thought I was left with was wondering how my life would have been different if we hadn't moved schools so much and I had the same set of friends from kindergarten through to the end of highschool. That would have been special, but something my kids will probably not enjoy either.

Lampang Team & the Spiritual Battle

Photo of the Lampang Team a week before we left

Reflecting back on our first term in Thailand, it's hard to believe the number of crazy experiences in our short 2 and half years. It seems that at least a normal 10 years worth were crammed into 2 and half.

How can I forget getting a call from my wife telling me to rush back to the languauge school because a fellow missionary has been hit by a car while on her motorbike and having to ferry this missionary to the hospital in my back seat. Then trying to translate for my friend with only 10 months of Thai. How can I forget our neighbour's pitbull terrier sinking its fangs into our househelp's thigh while trying to protect my wife and baby daughter. How can I forget having a tyre blow out going at 120kmph on a 8 lane superhighway on the way home from Bangkok.

I think of the number of missionary who have had to suddenly return home because of cancer or some other serious medical problem and can't help thinking is this normal?

This week our team member had a car accident in Lampang driving to the Lighthouse for an outreach activity. Sure I could be overspiritualising, but I couldn't help thinking that this was another attempt by Satan to discourage our team members. In Thailand, we didn't need much help in seeing that we were part of a spiritual battle.

What I'm reading - Siamese Gold: The Church in Thailand

Why has church growth in Thailand been so slow? Nearly 180 years of missionary work, yet only around 300,000 protestant Christians or less than 0.5% of the total population of 65 million.

“Siamese Gold: The Church In Thailand” by Alex Smith a former OMF missionary in Thailand tackles this question by examining the church’s history from 1816 to 1980. History has much to teach us. Otherwise we end up making the same mistakes.

I haven’t finished the book yet but it is clear that Smith views that the early missionaries focused too much on medical work or building schools rather than focusing on evangelism.

Here are some interesting quotes from what I was reading today.

This was advice given to American Presbyterian missionaries in a letter from 1846:

“Fear not to go forward as you are engaged in the Lord’s work, and go on this distant mission at His command; it is your privilege to plead the Saviour’s promise to be present with you. While you feel your own weakness and unfitness for so great a work, forget not the strength of His Almighty arm. Live near to Him, and you will have nothing to fear.” p.27

We so concur that it has been a privilege to serve in Thailand so far. It has been a difficult work, but probably not as difficult as the early pioneers. In around 1958, the American Missionary reported, “We doubt whether an amount of missionary labor equal to what has been employed in Siam (former name of Thailand) has ever before been expended with so little visible result” (quoted on p.42)

However things are changing in Thailand and there is greater hope. As our director in OMF Thailand wrote recently:

“Since 2000, over a thousand new churches have been established in Thailand. This means that a quarter of all the churches in Thailand today are less than eight years old. The number of churches planted in the past 20 years is greater than the number of churches planted in the previous 150 years.

All of this suggests that NOW is the time to send more workers. To meet the tremendous opportunities available, OMF Thailand will need 100 new workers over the next three years. 25 have already signed up so we are looking for 75 more. Looking further into the future, we would like to have 20 to 25 new workers each year until 2014.”

Becoming Global Conference at SMBC

Today I attended the "Becoming Global Conference" at my old Bible College, SMBC. It is an annual conference which helps the local church with missions. The 3 seminars I attended were excellent with each presenter having vast amounts of experience on their topics.

First I went to Bruce Dipple's (my missions lecturer from college) seminar, "Developing a missions programme that will intentionally strengthen your church". He talked about the false dichotomy of "here" and "over there" and how the missions enthusiasts can talk about the rest of the world but not be occupied with what's happening here, and how churches can be too occupied with local church growth and the rest of the world is forgotten. I was struck when he minded me that our partnership in mission is the Gospel (Philippians 1:5) not the missionary. It is wrong to have the missionary or their family at the centre of missions. No. We should have the Gospel at the centre of mission.

Some quotes: "Mission conforms to the purpose of God. It is God's mission not our mission. Missions finds Biblical basis in not what the church wants to do but in the misison of God. God's purpose is that the whole nations will come to worship him. It is not just in the great commission, but mission's basis is the nature of God."

I left the seminar full of ideas and a longing that churches would just do some of the things suggested by Bruce in this seminar. It would so impact local churches.

Brian Stark spoke on how to make short-term mission trips worth while. He argued that the goal of the short-term missions trip is to help those who go become more Christlike. It is life change of the people going, people sending, and those they go to serve. Short-term missions can have a significant impact on the individuals, the church and the community. That is, if it is done well. For it to be done well requires 2 years. 1 year for preparation and 1 year afterward to cast the vision after you come back. This seminar was really helpful in thinking about how to organise short-term missions. There was so much good stuff in this seminar.

Lastly, I went to Helen Macnaughton's seminar on how to help missionaries re-enter their home culture. There was one slide which struck me about the factors which affects re-entry stress.

The reason for return
Physical/emotional/spiritual health at the time of return
The stage of individual and family life cycles
The degree of preparation for return
The amount of accumulated stress from on-field experiences
The number of other stresses concurrent with re-entry
The opportunity of have good closure before leaving the field.

Gosh. Many of the above factors were not ideal for us and our re-entry.

I learned so much today at the Becoming Global Conference. So much more than I expected. Local churches would benefit so much from this conference. It is such a pity that so few go and miss out on this blessing.

Turning the tables on a market survey call

At 7:30pm I received a call from a market survey company asking if I would mind doing a 10 minute survey. I was in the middle of putting my 3 year old to bed and told her so. Could she call back later when it was more convenient? Normally I just say I don’t want to participate but this time for some reason I said it would be more convenient 30 minutes later at 8pm.

Before she called back the idea popped into my head that when she called backed I’d ask her if she’d mind if I asked her some questions first. I must have read somewhere that this is what someone did. I can’t imagine it being an original idea.

Anyway, when the time came and this girl dutifully called back and I asked her if it was o.k to ask her some questions first. I said that I was a missionary and I would like to find out what people think about Christianity. I could register the slight surprise in her voice but she agreed. The conversation went something like this.

Rich: “Are you religious at all?”
Girl: “No. Not at all”
Rich: “What do you think about Christians and Christianity”
Girl: “I don’t really know much at all”
Rich: “Oh, that’s surprising. Can I ask how old you are?”

And so the conversation went on for a little longer. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting her to be so non-religious and know so little about Christianity. She was only 26 years old from Tasmania. I’ve heard that Western culture is becoming more and more post-Christian but this was my first experience of someone who knew so little about Christianity (I didn’t sense any dishonesty from her part).

Note to self: Prepare a better set of questions for those know nothing about Christianity.

N.B. Market survey was about the upcoming byelection in our area and about my voting preferences. What did I think about Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbell and lots of names I didn't know. It wasn't 10 minutes though, more like 20.

Reentry photos

Hmm, which cheese to chose...

Unbelievable choice
(tip given by a person at this weekend's church camp - always look at the bottom row. It usually has the cheapest items)

Lisa braves the self-checkout at Woolworths
(Tip from Rich: Don't remove the bag until the green light comes on! Otherwise you give a message on the screen saying "Alert, incorrect weight", please wait for assistance)

What I'm reading - The Reentry Team

I picked up this book at OMF conference about helping missionaries when they return from the mission field. It is a very sobering book but extremely helpful. Some of the re-entry stories are so sad, but the positive stories so uplifting. If you have missionaries returning for home assignment and you want to understand a little of what they might be going through this is a great book to read.

There is the common story of short-termers who come back after 6 months on the mission field to have his friends comment that they had thought that he had back-slidden because he hadn't been at church or they ask if he had a great vacation. Unbelievable yet it happens all to often.

There was another story where a missionary family comes back and because prices have gone up so much they cannot afford even to buy groceries. However God provides when there is a grocery store which provides them with free fruit and vegetables which are slightly bruised or imperfect which they would have thrown out but still perfectly edible. They shared with friends about God's great provision. This is what happened next. "We had been home all of six weeks when we received a call that the pastor and associate pastor of our sending church wanted to see us. Because we hadn't met with the missions committee yet, we thought this was going to be their interview with us to see how our work in Africa had been. To our utter amazement and shock, this was not the case at all. It seems that several members of the church had heard my testimonies of God's faithfulness in providing for our needs. Somehow, though, the story had gotten changed around and these leaders were very much on the defensive, wondering why we were spreading rumours that 'they as a church' had not been providing for us and that the missionaries were eating out of garbage piles! Not even in this situation did these godly men ask us if we needed anything, nor how our work in Africa had been, nor even if the stories the members had told them were true. They were just upset that their care for us had been challenged" (The Reentry Team - Caring for your returning missionaries, Neal Pirolo, p.95-96).

Many churches do reentry for their missionaries very poorly. However, in many cases this probably due to ignorance rather than intentional neglect. This book could go a long in educating churches. Missionaries need to be making their churches aware of this resource, and people in their churches need to be reading it. I've read that the attrition rate of first term missionaries is almost 50% (either returning early or at the end of their first term not return to the field). We've praying that we don't add this statistic and God willing we can return in March next year.

Don't leave your shoes at the door

This past weekend we were at the OMF National Conference at Chatswood. Our two sons were in childcare and our middle son (3 years old) insisted on taking his shoes off before going into the playroom even though the childcarers told him that he didn't have to. Taking his shoes off is pretty ingrained now in his little mind.

The conference speaker, Marlyn was relating a similar experience with her daughters when they went back to Canada. Her father took his granddaughters to Sunday school and when he brought them back after it had finished his comment was "they are a bit disobedient aren't they". Apparently the girls refused to sit down in the Sunday school during story time when asked to by the teacher. Maryln explained that on the contrary that they were being very obedient. In the Philippines where they worked they had to train their children to never sit on the floor at church because it was very dirty with chicken poo and other nasty things (they worked in a tribal setting). Imagine the confusion and the conflict in their little minds when things like this happen on their re-entry.

50 great Christian books online for free

John Piper through his Desiring God website has 50 great books at the following website downloadable for free here. Many of John Piper's own books but others as well such as biographies of people such as Wilberforce and Edwards. I've download, "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper and have been struck by his call in the opening pages and pray that I may not indeed look back at my life and cry at how much of it I had wasted. I also heartily recommend, "The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern world" and in particular Tim Keller's article.

Fish & Chips - So good

Don't get me wrong. I love Thai food. But after 2 and half years of it, one of the great things about being back in Australia is the variety of delicious food so readily available. Today I bought fish and chips (plus some calamari rings) from the seafood shop at St Ives Shopping Village. It was so, so good.

3 way language block

Just a moment ago I received a phone call at home. It was for my mum. I answered the phone in English, but then the woman caller spoke Korean so I switched to Korean. She wanted my mum's mobile/cell phone number. I started reading the number from the piece of paper on the fridge and I got stuck half way through on the number 5. The word which kept coming into my mind was "haa". But that didn't seem right to me. I tried again but the same thing. I said it out loud but it was definitely not right. Finally, after stumbling a few times, I gave up and started to read the number in English. I couldn't understand it. What was wrong. How could I forget basic numbers in Korean. After a minute or two I realised what it was. "haa" was 5 in Thai. No wonder it felt wrong. "Awe" was 5 in Korean. Hopefully I won't have too many of this language mix ups in the future.

Making Thai contacts in Australia

Menus I picked up from Local Thai restaurants

I went walking down a local shopping strip getting menus from the restaurants where we can get takeaway or home delivery. Out of about 8 restaurants, 2 of them were Thai. I hesitated outside the one Thai restaurant which was open. I wanted to go in and see if the owners spoke Thai or not but I was afraid of looking like a fool. I walked passed the restaurant but then turned back and went in. I heard the cooks speak Thai so I felt a bit braver. I asked the cook whether she spoke Thai and said that she did. I ordered a Larp Gai (minced chicken dish) not that I was hungry or wanted food but to order something. She said that it would take about 10 minutes. During that time I was able to chat with the 3 ladies working behind counter cooking food in Thai. One of the ladies had just arrived from Thailand and couldn't speak much English but the other lady spoke English quite well. The ladies invited me to come back with the children.

Later in the afternoon I went to pick up the kids from their first day at preschool and I went past so many Thai restaurants. I wondered whether real Thai's worked in these restaurants or not. It might be a great outreach opportunity just visiting different Thai restaurants in Sydney.

Reverse Culture shock 2

Self Check out

Taking the frustration out of finding parking

EFTPOS machines. I didn’t use it at all in checking out at the supermarket in Thailand. Cash is still king in Thailand even for buying cars! However, I mostly use credit cards in Australia and when I was checking out at Woolworths for groceries I saw the EFTPOS machine it said, "swipe anytime", even though the checkout chick was still scanning the items. This was new. So I swiped the card and started going through the options. But I got stuck at the last option. It had “Entire sale” or another option I can’t remember. I paused thinking which button should I press. I didn’t know the entire sale amount and it wasn’t showing so I hesitated in pressing it. By that time the check out chick had finished scanning my items and seeing how incompetent I was, she reached over and pressed the “entire sale” button for me. She had a bit of look of contempt on her face as if I was such an idiot.

Anyway, I said my nicest “Thankyou” to her when she gave me the receipt and she gave me a sincere and happy “have a nice day”. Obviously she didn’t know that I was some weirdo out of Australia for the last 2 and half years. This option must have come in while we were away. It certainly wasn’t there before we left.

Just before this incident, I overheard an elderly couple who had lined up behind me, seeing that the line was long, say to his wife “lets go to the self-serve option”. This is something new too. I guess it involves scanning the items yourself and paying by credit card(see photo at the top). I heard rumours about this just before we left so it must have been introduced while we were away.

Parking: One very positive reverse culture shock was seeing thin metal rods coming down from the ceiling at the parking lot of the shopping centre at Westfields, Hornsby. A green light at the botton of these rods indicated an empty space, the red light an occupied space. Then there were helpful indicators showing you how many empty spaces were left and which direction. So all you needed to do was follow the arrows and look for the green light. Fantastic. Gone are the days of spending endless minutes going round and round looking for parking.

Reverse Culture shock 1

We’ll we’re back (in Sydney)! Thailand gave a fitting farewell. The plane taxied to the runaway. Their were blue skys when we left the terminal. We had 4 planes in front of us waiting to take off. 5 minutes later, it was bucketing down with rain, so hard that at times you couldn’t see more than a few metres ahead. With winds up to 100kph, the Captain decided to wait on the tarmac. We sat on the tarmac for 40 minutes before it was safe for us to take off.

The 8 hour flight was not so bad as our two sons slept reasonably well (apart from our eldest son vomiting some flem up). However our daughter (9 months) woke every couple of hours.

We landed in Sydney at around 5:30 am (2:30am Thai Time). We got through immigration and picked up our bags in quick time. Too quick in fact. We forgot our stroller. So it took another 20 minutes to get Qantas baggage staff to go back in and get it.

First reverse culture shock happened at the airport. Lisa was feeling faint so I went to buy her a bottle of water. AU$3.50 (120 baht) for one small bottle of water! I couldn’t believe it! So expensive. Prices seemingly have gone up incredibly in the last 2 and half years. I had to do some grocery and other essential shopping yesterday at the local supermarket (Woolworths). I didn’t buy that much but I ended up forking out nearly $200. That’s nearly amounts to 6,000 baht in Thailand (and a month's rent or us in Lampang). The most I’ve spent in Thailand has been only half that amount for a lot more things.

The second reverse culture shock was the amount of choice at the supermarket. In Thailand (outside of Bangkok or Chiang Mai) there are maybe 5 different cheeses all up in just one small row of the diary section. In Australia, the cheese has it’s own section taking up half an aisle. I felt overwhelmed with choice to the point I couldn’t buy anything. With things being so expensive I didn’t want to make an expensive mistake. The range of food (at this small to medium size Woolworth’s supermarket) was extraordinary. So much choice with everything and so nicely packaged.

One positive reverse culture shock was not seeing a single dog on the 1 hour trip from the airport back to my parent’s house. Also, I’ve hardly heard a dog bark (apparently our neighhour has a small dog though which barks and poos in our lawn). Anyway, I didn’t hear any dogs barking last night and had a great sleep.

I got to see my first Bledisloe Cup (Rugby Union - Australia vs. New Zealand) on T.V for the first time in over 2 and half years. Unfortunately, Australia lost by 1 point in the final minute (not much has changed in this regard).

Anyway, more reverse culture shocks in up coming posts.

Stopped by Police

Two days ago as we were speeding along the highway (literally) towards Bangkok from Lampang, I was day dreaming a little bit when I saw a man waving his arms frantically ahead. It took me a moment to register this and then I realised that it was a policeman. There was a lump in my throat. I was driving on the right overtaking lane at the time and most likely speeding above the 120kph limit.

I stopped where the two police officers were waiting for me. The officer asked me in Thai for my driver’s licence. I looked at him blankly as if I couldn’t understand him. Then after a few seconds, he said in English “licence”. I looked in my wallet for the copy of my licence which I had prepared for just this kind of occasion (if you give your real licence then you are forced to go to the police station to get your licence back). However, I couldn’t find it and had to give him my real licence. He told me in Thai that I was in the right lane and that I was going too fast. I have him another blank look and raised my eye brow. He stopped for a moment and finally said in English “high speed”. I replied, “I thought the speed limit was 120” in English. He talked into his walky-talky and after hearing a reply said to me “126” in Thai. I looked confused. Then he wrote down the number 126 on his note paid. Then he said “200 baht”. If I gave him 200 baht I knew that it would most likely just go into his pocket. The normal process is to write a ticket and that I have to go to the police station to pay the fine. I didn’t want to go to the police station and add additional time to 9 hours journey. But I didn’t want to pay the quasi bribe either. He asked me “back in Lampang when?”. I replied “I’m going to Australia”. The officer looked back at the back of our car full to the brim with luggage and knew I wasn’t lying. He might have been thinking of writing me a real ticket but if I wasn’t going back to Lampang I couldn’t pay the fine at the police station. He thought for a moment and I kept on waiting. Finally, he gave up and waved me on telling me “slow, slow”. As we were driving off I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face. This about the third time I’ve been stopped police and pretended that I can’t speak Thai. I don’t like doing it and I feel a bit guilty about it but I don’t like paying bribes either. I’ve heard so many stories of missionaries being fined for speeding when they definitely weren’t (e.g. saying that they were going at 140 km when the car is physically incapably of going at that speed).

I know many other missionaries who try talking Thai with the police when they are stopped buvt in most cases it doesn’t work and they end up either with a ticket or paying the fine directly to policeman to avoid the hassle of going to the police station. I'd say in this rare case, having Thai is not an advantage.

Asian way to pray

Yesterday morning our househelper and her husband (a pastor) came to see us off, as well as our team mates, Peter & Kelly. Our househelper apologised that she was too poor to give us a going away gift but offered to pray for us as we left. So our househelper and her husband, Peter and Kelly gathered around us to pray. The pastor and our househelper started praying out loud both at the same time. This is way that prayer is done in many Asian countries i.e. simultaneous prayer with everyone praying out loud. I’d forgotten this though (I was expecting just the Pastor to pray) so after a few moments, I gathered my wits and started to pray in Thai as well for the Pastor’s family (quietly though as I’ve still a lot of work to do in praying in Thai). It was hard though as I’m not used to this style of praying. I lost my train of thought a number of times as I picked up bits and pieces of what the Pastor and our househelper was praying and was distracted. After the 3 of us stopped praying, Peter then prayed in English for our family. Even in farewells there is a cross cultural experience.

On Dial up

Last week I went to our landlord to have our internet connection cancelled. We discussed the various options and decided to disconnect the internet at our house. Anyway, the next day I come home and I find our ADSL (broadband internet) is down. My first thought was, "Oh, no. He's cut the internet now and didn't wait until we left!". I called him to check my suspicions. Yep. He got his secretary to go and cut off the internet that morning! Urrgghhh. I thought that it was fairly obvious that we would want the internet disconnected after we left. He knew we weren't leaving until the end of the following week.

Even after 2 and half years we still face these situations all too often. Anyway, we are limping on dial-up internet until we leave. Very, sloooooowwwwwwww.

Memories come flooding back

Did I really do this? Life before our car!

As noted previously I went down to the language school in Lopburi to sit my Level 2 exams. The time coincided with a new batch of missionaries arriving. After sitting my exams in the mornings I had to the opportunity to help out the new arrivals as I had lots of spare time and not much to do.

Seeing these new missionary in there first days at Lopburi brought back so many memories. It also reminded me how much I had forgotten about the huge adjustments process when we first arrived in Thailand.

What do I do with the hose?

I mainly helped one European family from one of the Nordic countries. They had three children under 5 (like us). Very, very blond haired. None of the children speak English. My heart went out to them at what lay ahead for them because we were in their shoes 2 and half years ago. They will probably have it a bit harder than us as their children don’t speak English (so won’t understand the childcare helpers) and they are so blond so they will receive lots of attention from Thais whenever they go out.

On their first night in Lopburi I took the family to Big C (a shopping centre). I showed them where to buy a food court card to be able to buy food. I suggested a Khaow Mun Khay (Chicken rice) as something suitable for the children. They didn’t really eat much of it though. Then they went through Big C trying their best to buy what they needed to start living in Thailand with the frustration of not knowing where things were and whether it is the same thing as back home. It was probably close to 9 pm when I got the the family back to their new home, and by that time it was well past the kids bedtimes and understandably they were tired and irritable.

The next day after my written exam in the morning, I helped the a bunch of the missionaries when they were opening their bank accounts. They had questions about when and where to use the debit cards which they received and it was a Visa Electron card which we don’t have in Australia - “Could they used it as a credit card or not”.

Then I took the husband of the family from the night before to find a suitable SIM card. His family stayed at the administration centre because they didn’t have many toys at their new home. Even with my 2 years of Thai it was hard understanding the details of the different prepaid SIM cards available with different amounts you had to top up with different credit expiry dates. Unfortunately the phone they brought from Europe wouldn’t accept the Thai SIM so we looked around for a new phone. Then 2 pairs of new trousers. A quick trip to the dressmaker to get the trousers put up. I was tired after all that and I’m sure he was more tired than me.

Late afternoon all the language students met for fellow group. I took this European family back home and said goodbye to them as I would be heading back to Lampang on the train that night and probably would not see them again. I prayed that God would look after this family and help them through what will probably be one of the hardest years of their lives with so many adjustments make especially with 3 young children to care for too. God did for us and only 2 years down the road that time is already a distance memory. As the orientation directors commented it showed how far we had come. It was great seeing my favorite sellers at the market, the fruit lady, fried bananas ladies, the dried meat and sticky rice couple, the eccentric
grilled chicken guy, the old lady across the street from where I lived; and to be able to converse them with Thai so much more than when I left over a year ago.

Perhaps the timing of my level 2 exam and this new batch of missionaries was coincidental, or perhaps God was encouraging us as we go home on home assignment in a couple of weeks that we have come a long way since we started 2 and half years ago.

Café church served up in Marrickville | News stories | Sydneyanglicans.net

Ross, a friend of mine from Bible College and his wife Rachel are starting a new church in a cafe in Marrickville, Sydney. The owner of the cafe is Muslim! They can have church there as long as they buy coffee.

Café church served up in Marrickville | News stories | Sydneyanglicans.net

Great stuff!

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Training it in Thailand and other Anecdotes

I caught a train to my Level 2 Thai language exam in Lopburi. My first long train trip in Thailand! I nearly didn't get on my train as I was expecting a long train with at least 10 carriages. When a tiny two carriage train pulled up I couldn't believe that this was my train.

I prayed before I got on the train that either I'd be able to share the gospel with someone who sat next to me or have a good period of study. Well no one sat next to me so I nearly studied for 7 hours of the 9 hour trip!
I had a bit of a cough (no fever though!) leading up to the train trip so to allay the fears of the other travelers I bought some face masks. It wasn't so comfortable breathing so I took it off after about 30 minutes.
Then I happened to look across at the lady sitting across from me on the other side. She was wearing the same type of mask. Then I realised that I had been wearing the mask inside out! No wonder it wasn't so comfortable breathing through it! (Hint: the blue side goes on the outside, the white side on your mouth!). I don't recommended the "sprinter" train during the day. Even thought I bought a second class ticket, the aircon was broken and I had to flick the cockroaches off my arm a couple of times.
Well I passed my Level 2 exams (the speaking and listening parts anyway - the written section I'll find out in the next couple of weeks) and I was on the overnight "sprinter" back to Lampang. Much nicer than the day "sprinter". After an hour delay at the train station I finally board at around 11pm. This nice bed was waiting for me. Just the right size for me so that me feet just touched the end of the bed (so if you are taller than 171 cm - the bed will be a bit short for you). Lower bunk is definitely better than the top bunk I've been told. Unfortunately the European tourists opposite chatted away until about 1am so that I couldn't sleep. Urrgghh. Not the best night sleep I've had, but I must have had some patches of sleep here and there.
In the morning, the beds were put up and I was face to face with the person traveling on the top bunk who I hadn't met the previous night (he'd got on previous to me in Bangkok). A nice medical student from the U.K on holidays with his wife(?) who was in the top bunk in the next section as they had booked their tickets too late to get the same section. We had a nice chat. I asked him if he had any "faith" at all since I'd told him I was a missionary working in Thailand. He was religious until about 17 but then moved away. His issues lay with the question of who created God and he found it more reasonable for life to develop through evolution. He had obviously read up a lot on the topic and he explained to me why the second law of thermodynamics (which says that all things degenerate rather than improve) only applies to "closed system" and not open systems such as cells so doesn't contradict the theory of evolution. Unfortunately, we were approaching Lampang so I gave him some tips about what to do in Chiang Mai and we parted company.