In the US for the Threshold Organic Church Conference

I'm in the US right now to attend the Threshold 2010 conference, which is conference for those wanting to plant "organic churches".   I'm here with our team leader from Lampang.  Yesterday we had an opportunity to go to the US Center for World Mission with Larry Dinkins who used to work in Thailand with OMF.  It was an amazing time to chat with some of the staff at the US Center for World Mission about the issues we face in trying to reach Buddhists in Lampang and setting up organic churches.

I haven't slept more than about 3-4 hours in each of the last 3 nights due to jet lag and long hours of travelling, so I'm off to bed.

New Additions to our family

We have two new additions to the family given to us by fellow missionaries going on home assignment for a year.  They are two kittens which are just over 2 months old.  On our first term we were given a dog by some missionaries leaving Lampang and then quickly ended up with 8 extra puppies.  We decided that we weren't a dog family with our children so young.  They were like have extra children.  Cats apparently are less maintenance so we thought we'd give them try.

Well the kids absolutely love them and we hope they won't die from all the attention they are getting.  I love the fact that it was so easy to get them to use the kitty litter.  So far they are so much less work than the dogs were.

What! We have a new prime minister?

O.k. For all the Australians in Australia reading this, this is old news already.  But I only found out today that Australia has a new prime minister, and our first woman prime minister.  It happened 5 days ago already!  It shows how out of touch we missionaries can get living away from home.  I can't believe that only 5 days later, it wasn't that obvious on the Sydney Morning Herald online either.  There was a video clip of Julia Gillard (the new prime minster) moving into Prime Minister's office and I thought that's a little old.  Has Kevin Rudd (the deposed prime minister) gone on another one of his overseas trips.  I couldn't believe that she had deposed him (I didn't see it in her and neither did Kevin Rudd or the majority of the nation I'd think).

Stunned.  Unbelievable. Better go and break the news to my wife.  She's think I'm joking for sure.

Doing things "badly" but "wholeheartedly"

This year’s OMF Thailand’s conference speakers were Stuart and Jill Briscoe.  One thing which struck me and some of the other missionaries was when Jill advised us to do thing badly and wholeheartedly rather than not at all.  The context was when she had moved from youth ministry to become a pastor’s wife for the first time.  She had no idea about what being a pastor’s wife involved.  So she went round with a piece of paper and asked the congregation for their expectations of her as the pastor’s wife.  When she went home and read this extensive piece of paper she realised that she had none of the gifts to meet the expectations of the congregation.  In despair she went to her husband and showed him the list and he confirmed, “Yes, you have none of those gifts.”  What should she do then.  Her husband advised, “Then, just do it badly”.  When people saw her trying but doing it badly, what happened was two things.  People started feeling sorry for her and asked her “can I help you with that” and secondly, she stated to see that by doing it, she developed gifts she did not have before.

In my experience and that of many missionaries, we are put in situations where we just have to do things badly it needs to be done and there is no one else.  Before coming to Thailand didn’t think I was any good at cold turkey evangelism.  But after giving out giving out about 50 or so flyers advertising “The Lighthouse” (our outreach centre), it became almost second nature and people saw that I have a gifting in making new contacts and evangelism.

In the church culture in places like Australia and America, we’ve grabbed on to so much of the teaching on leaderships and gifts that we don’t tend to get involved in particular ministries unless we are “gifted” in it.  So we leave everything to the small minority who are considered “gifted”.  Perhaps if people were encouraged to do things even if it means doing it “badly” but “wholeheartedly”, then people would “discover” more of their gifts and more work could be done instead of the few doing everything burning out. 

On another topic, if we focused first on the character of our leaders (before putting them in leadership positions) rather than focusing mostly on their gifting, we’d have better leaders leading our churches.

Wrapping the Good News for the Thai

This extract from an article, "Wrapping the Good News for the Thai" by Alan Johnson highlights one of the problems we face as we try to share the Gospels with Thais.

"Although there were a number of experiences over time that helped to bring the reality of the complexity of communication home to me, one stands out in particular. I was conducting an English lesson with a couple of Thai high school students and we were working through Luke 5 in the English text. We came to the point where I wanted to discuss the meaning of the passage and some of its implications and since they were unable to converse easily in English I said that we would switch into Thai. I asked the question, why did Peter fall on his knees and say that he was a sinful man? Without a moment’s hesitation the young man said, “Because he killed all of those fish!” I have to admit that his response caught me totally off guard. He was reading the text through his “Buddhist eyes” of the principle of not taking life. It made me realize in a much clearer fashion that the worldview, beliefs, values and assumptions of my listeners were causing them to make different meanings than what I was intending, even when those understandings did not surface in conversation.

This started me on the process of trying to understand the meanings that people would be making in their minds from the terms and concepts that we use when we share the Gospel. It became clear to me that Thais were not simply rejecting the Gospel or Christianity, in reality the situation was much more complicated than that. At least part of their lack of response is a rejection of the linguistic and stylistic wrapping in which we as missionaries and local Christians were presenting the message. When the “wrapping” makes no sense it keeps them from ever getting to the wonderful gift of the Good News inside."

English teaching opportunities galore

Since we've been back there have been plenty of new opportunities to teach English in Lampang.  I've started to teach at a local tutoring school for highschoolers (photo above).  The co-owner of the academy (Golf) I've known since our first months in Lampang.  For part of the lesson I'm using the "Big Picture Story Bible" and reading one of the stories with comprehension questions afterward.  With over 50 students it's hard to teach conversational English.  I'm teaching there again this afternoon.  A woman went to Golf this week asking if he was able to help her son prepare for an interview for an American Foundation in Thailand which gives Thai students a chance to study and travel overseas.  So Golf directed her to me.  So this week I'm helping this woman's son with interview skills.  Also, I was contacted by a couple who run a fruit drink shop, whether we could help at another tutoring academy which had just opened.     

Obviously, we can't take up all these opportunities, but they have been a way of making new contacts and hopefully through them we can find people who are seeking Christ.  It does show that more and more people know about us now than before.

However, if we had some short-terms staying for an extended period of time, they could take up these opportunities and our team for other opportunities.

Our son's first romantic card

When I checked my eldest son's school bag today I found this card inside.  Our son's first romantic card from a girl in his class (who apparently is his best friend).  O.k. she spelt his name wrong, but English isn't her first language.   Even at such a young age she knew that in matters of love it is best to write in his own heart language.

 

We've been amazed at our son's ability to adapt to change.  He has been in 4 different schools in the last 2 years.  Yet every time he has adjusted and made friends so easily, even when he can't speak the language.  He has such a good attitude.  Last week I saw him taking one of The Lighthouse flyers off the top of the cabinet and I asked him what he was doing.   He replied that he wanted to give the flyers to his friends at school so that they could come and learn about Jesus at The Lighthouse.  Wow! 

Although our eldest son can breeze through change our other two children have found it more difficult.  Our middle son still cries everyday when we drop him off at school and have to leave him.  We hope he settles soon.

Mistakes you make living cross culturally

When our son was chosen by his teacher to be the class representative for the upcoming Teacher's day at school  last week we didn't think much about it.  We just thought it involved giving a 'wai' (A Thai greeting where you put your hands together like when you pray) to the teacher.  The teacher asked us to buy some things which we didn't know the meaning but we were going to ask our neighbours to help so no big deal.  However, today talking to our househelper, who is a Christian, she explained that what our son will be doing is part of a Buddhist ceremony and not only will he have to "wai" the teacher, but a monk as well.

If we had known earlier we would have told the teachers that we were Christians and that because of our beliefs it is not appropriate for our son participate in Buddhist rituals.  However, he and the other representatives from the other classes have been practicing what they are to do in this ceremony for the last few days.  Teacher's day is tomorrow, so it is too late to replace our son with someone else.

It raises difficult questions as to what is cultural and what is religious in Thai society?  The 'wai' is so much a part of Thai society that to not 'wai' someone would be quite rude.  However, does a 'wai' to a monk make it something different?  Is that idoltory? 

We want to convery the message that we respect Buddhism and Buddhist, yet there are somethings we as Christians cannot do as it is dishonoring of God.  Making these choices as a newish missionary is so hard as you don't understand the culture nor can you probably seek clarification as our language is yet inadequate.

Why aren't they following the Bible?

This was in a recent prayerletter from a missionary working in another country ...

"6 months after becoming a Christian Mrs E went with a friend to her church. She enjoyed the preaching but thought the praying was strange. First, they all prayed out loud together. She felt like she didn’t have anything to say and couldn’t concentrate and so kept quiet but felt foolish. She didn’t want to just pretend and make a noise. Then the pastor and others were speaking gibberish. She wondered if it was English? She said it made her most uncomfortable. She was there for communion but was told it was only for baptised people. She was also told that if she wasn’t baptised then she wasn’t yet a Christian. She felt rejected by the very people who ought to feel most like her family. She said if she hadn’t loved Jesus she would never have visited that church again. I now have to spend my time explaining the church to her! She often asks, “ but why aren’t they following the Bible?" It's hard to explain!"

Makes you almost want to cry or bang your head against the wall.

It's arrived - finally!

Today was a joyous day.  Our homeschooling boxes from the US arrived.  We'd thought they'd never come. We'd be following the boxes journey from the US starting 24 May on the Fedex tracking system. Each day we'd check with interest where our boxes were that day.   It traveled to Canada, then China and finally to Thailand on 29 May.  It looked it was going to make the estimated delivery date of 31 May.  But then there was a dreaded "clearance delay".  Our boxes were held up in customs again and we were fearing the worst.  Googling Fedex clearance delays in Thailand, there were some horror stories of exorbitant duties being charged and how bad Fedex was.  Well on Friday, after almost a week our home schooling boxes cleared customs.  They reached Chiang Mai Saturday morning and they were on a Fedex delievery van.  This was it we thought.  However, by Saturday evening nothing.  There was an update on the tracking system - "delivery exception - Business closed.  No delivery attempt" and the package was back in Chiang Mai!  What!  Another let down.  I doubt that they even came.  We were home for a large part of the day and my mobile was switched on.

Anyway, today our Sonlight homeschooling boxes arrived.  I had to go out and meet the Fedex van at the petrol station because he had no idea how to get to our house, even with our househelper explaining in Thai.  I didn't even mind paying the extra 1,200 baht "clearance charge".  We got the boxes!  So the home schooling journey can now begin.

Happy faces

I also extended my motor bike license today and it only took about 10 minutes!  Thanks Peter and Karl for your suggestions about using the address on my work permit.  It worked at the transport office at Big C.  PTL for days like today when things go well.