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.