How lucky are you?

Everywhere you go in Thailand, people wish you "good luck" when you leave, and as I answer them with "God bless", I am left pondering 'luck'. Christians may be surprised to hear that even my Bible reading has been about lucky people... seriously! What is luck? Do you have it? Do you want it?

In Thai class we are studying a module on Folk Beliefs. It helps to explain much of what I hear around me about luck. Luck in Thai culture includes everything the world chases after - in a nutshell, happiness, fame and fortune. Although Buddhist ideology has no teaching on luck, the search for luck governs all the details of Thai life; a classic example of folk beliefs that have become totally intertwined with formal religion, almost to the point of taking it over - so it becomes Folk Buddhism.

In Folk Buddhism, the year you were born is very important, as is the day, time of day, and lunar cycle. I had to look on Google to find out that I was a Thursday baby. This means my 'lucky colour' is yellow-orange. And so if I buy a house or a car, it should ideally be yellow-orange for it to bring me good luck. Now if I happen to buy a red car (because I have better taste than to buy a yellow car), all I have to do is put a sticker on the back to say 'This car is yellow'... So it seems the spirits that bring the luck are literate but colour-blind!


 "What day were you born? What monk image is lucky for
you?" Other types of amulets contain powerful spells making
 the wearer bulletproof and immune to slashes on their skin.

The strings this friend at the cancer hospital wears
are bought at temples, to keep the 32 spirits that
 inhabit her bodily organs bound in her body. They
have mantras chanted over them, making them 'lucky'

Thai Folk Buddhists believe that a healthy, normal person has 32 spirits residing in the body (not quite a Legion, but getting there...). If anyone is sick it means some of the spirits have left and one must perform ceremonies to bring them back. One of these lives in your nails, and another in your hair, which means that there are very precise rules about when you can cut your nails or hair. For example on Tuesday it brings bad luck, you will lose your possessions. Wednesdays it would be good for the body and gives a happy heart, unless you do it at night, in which case you will have a short life.

And if you think that's involved, I won't even start explaining the rules about naming your child. Just for example, a Monday-born child is not allowed to have any vowels in their name - it will bring evil times upon their life. So even if the consonants in your name bring you luck and prosperity, if you have a vowel, you're stuffed. These examples are not even the tip of the iceberg. Can you imagine a life governed by such fear? One wrong move and you are liable to bring evil on yourself. Not only that, if you kept every rule to the tee and always checked what was the auspicious time to do something, you are still liable to suffer. Of course. This is where we transition seamlessly from Animism to Buddhism - your suffering is probably because of bad karma in a previous life. And so the sufferer is left stranded between two guilt-ridden belief systems, neither helping in the slightest to alleviate their suffering. Realising this, we begin to glimpse the unbearable burden our brothers and sisters carry through life. Utter hopelessness.

Jesus speaks into it with piercing clarity. Like a rainbow shining into darkness, Jesus re-defines Luck.

He said (in Matthew 5):

 

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

⁵ Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 

He turns the vain and empty ideas of luck right on their head.  The way up is down.

The word 'blessed' comes from the Greek makarios - to be happy, or approved by God... believe it or not, this word comes from a word that means 'lucky'! It can be summed up in the word 'Congratulations!'  So, Jesus is saying, you who are hopeless, helpless, in despair and totally empty, devoid of value and worth... you are the lucky ones! Why? Because these attributes fly in the face of your nature and craving. You know your true condition, your eyes have been opened by spiritual surgery, you are under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and you now qualify to live the life you were created for - you inherit God's Kingdom itself! R.T. Kendall (whose book 'The Sermon on the Mount' I credit for most of this) refers to the Kingdom as the realm of the unhindered, ungrieved Spirit - the most sublime level of living on the planet.

So I ask myself - am I lucky? Certainly I am, to the degree I allow the ungrieved Spirit to reign in me. And what do I have to do to earn such outrageous luck? No amulets, spells or nail clippings on Wednesday needed. To the degree I take my eyes off the glitter of the world that leaves my heart cold, and allow Jesus' light to fill me, I will experience the kingdom!

If you have a couple of minutes, spend some time in the Father's arms as you listen to the words of this song... No one knows you better than Him.

The price of treasure

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Matthew 13:44

This month I have seen more baptisms in Isaan than the preceding 11 put together. God is calling people to Himself, and they are responding like they should - they have found a treasure better than they ever could have imagined existed!

The pictures here were taken at a nearby waterfall where we joined a local church that we partner with, to celebrate a total of 21 Isaan people taking the plunge to declare their belief in Jesus, leave their old life of making merit behind, and start a new life as a child of a gracious God. The man in the white shirt used to be a witchdoctor. His whole family have now decided to follow Jesus.

This lady, previously heavily into idol worship and animism, decided as she saw others taking the step, that after years of not responding to the gospel, it was her time to receive Jesus. Then she was baptised immediately. We rejoiced with the angels :)

For an Isaan person, receiving baptism is a bold step and not an easy thing to do. Public confession of Christ may not cost them their lives as in other parts of the world, but it does have a high price. Mae Luan and Lung Yaa are 2 people I wrote about before who I have seen accept the Lord with joy at first, recognising Him for who He is, only to become disinterested weeks later. Another couple I met received healing from Jesus, and were very close to believing, but people in their village stopped buying from their shop, they were cut off, treated as outcasts. They are now no longer interested in following Jesus. For so many, the cost is too high.

The incantations contained in amulets are
believed to protect one from all kinds of
dangers, and Thais pay thousands to buy one.

Telling your neigbours that you no longer need to appease the territorial spirits, or make merit for your ancestors is usually the best way to lose friends and alienate people in Isaan. Why? Because the village community serves the local spirits with fear. If you don't appease them, you incur their wrath, and bad things happen. Demonic attacks are not storybook material here, they are commonplace, marketplace gossip. (They are so prevalent in fact, that Thai movies will often involve ghosts and spirits in every genre!)

One gruesome spirit, widely feared in Isaan villages, is called Phii Popp. This spirit causes death by eating the victim's internal organs. After biopsy, the internal organs really are found to be missing. No medical explanations are available. If this happened in your village, a witch-hunt would begin. Who is hosting this evil spirit in the village? The Christian is an easy scape-goat.


Christians don't appease the spirits or wear amulets to ward off evil spirits, worship their ancestors, make any merit, or give offerings to any idols. It was for this reason that Mae Ying and Po Som were kicked out of their village and forced to live in a shack in the middle of their rice fields. They are 2 of the most loving, kind hearted disciples of Jesus I have met, I would never have guessed that they could be accused of hosting a murderous spirit.
We have much to learn from their example. The cost of the field was nothing to them, they had found the treasure; they counted Him worthy. Not only did they patiently endure false accusations, ostracism and slander, but they have continued to pray for and lovingly witness to that village.

Yesterday, I visited the little house church that they now lead, in the village where some still believe they have the evil spirit. We took communion together, and remembered the One who went through it all for us first, and remembered that we are not alone. That Christ will build his church, and is is even now calling all people to Himself. We heard Mae Ying tell the Bible story (Isaan is an oral culture, so telling is more effective than reading), retold it as a group, discussed it and prayed for one another.

This simple house church model is what has resulted in all the baptisms recently. Servants of God from different backgrounds, both Thai and foreign missionaries, are re-discovering the meaning of Church - the Church is not a building but a group of people, whose existence is for the purpose of loving and blessing those not yet in it. The house church is indigenous, low on expensive resources, high on participation, and self replicating. Are we seeing the beginnings of a church planting movement? It is what Isaan has been waiting for, for so many generations.

Flooded rice fields - you can only see the leaves of trees, which look like bushes, because the trunks are under water. 

A day as an Isaan rice farmer

It took us two and a half hours driving - on good tarmac roads, followed by good dirt roads, then potholed dirt roads, and finally heart-in-mouth-dirt-roads that looked impossibly narrow for our 4x4, to get to this little house church in the middle of endless rice and tapioca fields. 

The believers had brought goat meat along on ice - two goats with bad tempers had meant that God provided a goat feast for us all that day... so while we heard about the amazing stories of some of these believers, one man got busy butchering the goat meat while others got on with barbecuing.

Of course when I say goat meat, it was mostly internal organs. If you click on the photos to enlarge them, you'll spot the heart, kidneys, stomach and intestines. Of course no good BBQ goat meal is complete without home-made bile sauce.

And so pretty soon the mat was laid under the lychee tree, and we sat down to a meal of goat, fish, sticky rice... and something strange looking that our hosts wouldn't tell us the ingredients of, except to call it 'bravery soup'.

Eventually my team leader Phil tried it and we were told what it was. With the 3-day-old suckling calf watching, we all tried a spoonful of... cow placenta soup!! 

Yes, I hear your cries of disgust, but it really is all in the head... if you didn't think about it, it actually just tasted like a very flavourful, herby soup. And so I earned my bravery badge, much to the amusement of the Isaan people around us, to whom this special soup was a healthy and rare delicacy.

After the meal we all sat down for church, Isaan style - in a circle under the tree, singing together, praying together, sharing testimonies and the amazing news of the gospel for those there who hadn't yet heard.

Finally, we wanted to experience what all the rice farmers are busy with in this rainy season:
re-planting rice. Rice seed is first scattered in the fields until it has sprouted to about a foot high. Then the seedlings are uprooted and re-planted in an organised, evenly spaced way when the field is flooded by rain, so that they will produce a better crop. This is the stage they are at now. So we had the joy of joining our Isaan brothers and sisters in planting their rice field, wading in mud, wonderful chocolate-milkshake-mud!

We finished the field in under an hour with so many mucking in. Rice farmers are usually toiling at this all day, for days on end, bent over double for long hours in the sun. Our prayer for them and for Isaan is a bountiful harvest, the glorious provision of God described in Psalm 65 below, both physically and spiritually.

We look forward to accepting our invitation to harvest the field in December, and to seeing a spiritual harvest of the work God is doing in this region in due time!

       Psalm 65 

1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
    and to you shall vows be performed.
2 O you who hear prayer,
    to you shall all flesh come.
3 When iniquities prevail against me,
    you atone for our transgressions.
4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
    to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
    the holiness of your temple!

5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
    O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
    and of the farthest seas;
6 the one who by his strength established the mountains,
    being girded with might;
7 who stills the roaring of the seas,
    the roaring of their waves,
    the tumult of the peoples,
8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

9 You visit the earth and water it;
    you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
    you provide their grain,
    for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
    settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
    and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
    your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
    the hills gird themselves with joy,
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
    the valleys deck themselves with grain,
    they shout and sing together for joy.

Meet some miracles

Fruit is one of my favourite things about Thailand and this is my favourite fruit season. In this picture you can see why - dragon fruit, mangosteen, rose apples, lychee and mangoes! 

I recently had the opportunity to join my Thai friend Silk (who leads the house church I attend) for a day of watching 'fruit' ripen - the fruit of 5 years of sowing seeds and waiting. We visited these wonderful miracles of God in the villages around Ubon. I came back full of joy. Here is why:

Meet Po Bun and Mae Phoon. This is their house, one that I don't think I could ever live in! It is surrounded by rice fields, far from the village. They are extremely poor. Kris and Silk met Mae Phoon the day they were driving around asking the Holy Spirit if there was a person of peace in that village. They felt they should stop when they saw Mae Phoon sitting at the side of the road. She was paralysed and couldn't walk, so was waiting for someone to give her a lift to the town. They helped her, but also offered to pray for her healing, and she got up and walked!

She decided to give her life to Jesus and Kris and Silk began to visit her weekly to read the Bible together. 

The Isaan people aren't big on reading and understanding, it is more of an oral culture. So instead, they use Bible storying - telling the story twice, then asking them to tell it, and discussing three key questions - what does it teach us about God? What does it teach us about man? How will we respond in obedience to this?

Her husband, usually drunk, wasn't interested for a long time. However one day, he had a drunk-driving accident on a motorbike, which left him covered in blood and in excruciating pain in a forest off the side of the road. In his pain, he remembered Jesus. "Jesus, if you're real," he said, "take away this pain, and I will follow you." Immediately, all pain went. He made it through the night, and decided to follow Jesus from that night on. Both now study the Bible diligently, with the hunger of first love. 

Meet Mae Nan. She is an amazing businesswoman. Suffering from mysterious pains which the doctor couldn't diagnose, she went to see the monk. He said it was a curse that someone had put on her, that would result in death. Worse still, he demanded a large sum of money to do the necessary rituals and chants to lift her curse. Wondering how a spiritual leader could be so set on material gain, she began to ask questions about the God that the Christians who visited her mentally handicapped brother.

She received prayer, and was completely healed. Kris and Silk then began to visit her weekly and read the Bible with her. One day, the Buddha images that she had on a pedestal in her shop spontaneously fell on their face while they were studying the Bible. She immediately knew that this meant she had to get rid of her idols and give her life to Jesus. She was baptised weeks later.

 When we visited, she shut her shop so that she could study the Bible without interruptions. We talked about how a Christian should deal with the Buddhist traditions and festivals that are such an integral part of the culture, like spirit houses, ancestor worship, Buddhist festivals and ceremonies like weddings and funerals. Finally we talked about thanking God before meals. Asked to practice, she prayed a grace that you might expect of a 10 year old Christian rather than a 10 week old one! This lady had a gift of listening to the Holy Spirit and obeying immediately, and a passion for the lost, that makes her a beautiful 'person of peace' (Luke 10).

Finally, meet Mae Ying and Po Som. This lovely couple have been Christians for a few years, but are only now getting to know their Saviour through personal relationship and reading the Bible. They are passionate about sharing what they are learning with others in their village hungry for truth. Here, Silk helped them with questions they didn't know how to answer, and helped them understand the book of Esther by story-telling it after they had already tried reading it. Finally, they shared about problems with forgiveness in their marriage, and received encouragement to forgive, as Christ forgives us, in order to really love. Their sweetness and humility touched me deeply. 

Only Jesus! He heals hearts and bodies, restores relationships, breathes new life. These are walking Miracles. 

The Butterfly Effect

Last weekend, I went to visit a friend and attend the Skyrocket festival in a neighbouring province. This is where people shoot home-made rockets into the sky to scare the rain-god so that he loses control of his bladder and therefore heralds the start of the rainy season! The visit was a reminder of why we are here, a reality check in many ways.

There were moments of culture shock such as not having running water, the absence of furniture in Thai village houses in favour of a 'piling system', sinks left unused in favour of washing up squatting on the floor, and worst of all, coming in the house to find a snake on the floor.

But besides this, we were struck again by the darkness that pervades this place. It is a darkness that envelops, touching every part of life: from eating a Thai barbecue to the sound of Buddhist chants ringing through the village, to children's games and grown ups' fears about ‘phi’ (ghosts or evil sprits); from going to a ‘wat’ (Buddhist temple) to see a dodgy pop/dance concert on temple premises, to the ever present ladyboys dancing at the festival amid phallic fertility symbols. I felt like we had stepped back in time, into the pages of the Canaanite rituals of Old Testament times.

While beautiful traditions live on, like traditional music, stunning traditional costumes and dances, the practice of generous hospitality, and the caring for the elderly by grandchildren; uglier traditions also die hard, like superstition, holding its captives in a vice-like grip of fear. The snake we found in the house was immediately released alive just outside the house, because of the belief that if you kill one, two will enter in its place.

It was all topped off by a reminder of how prevalent the ‘butterfly' effect is here. Someone who repeatedly chooses to be unfaithful to their spouse is known in Thai as a 'butterfly'. All the three Thai ladies with us had been affected by this. Two were nursing broken hearts from 'butterfly' husbands. One was a butterfly herself, married but using her good looks to have two other relationships with foreign men online in exchange for monthly payments. Her husband was unaware of this, but her children regularly saw her engaging in her online relationships. As we talked, her openness was almost as shocking as the content of the story. There was a complete absence of shame, no sense that this wasn't the way things should be. She was very matter-of-fact. She had 3 children and 2 elderly relatives to support, and it could not be done on her regular income. This was her solution.

What seems so clearly wrong to us may be easier to justify if you don't know where your next meal comes from, or how you can afford to send your children to school. Desperation has pushed so many Thai women into immoral or unhappy relationships, it is almost the norm here rather than the exception. They are disillusioned with men, with relationships (which can look more like a business deal than a bond of trust), disillusioned with life itself, in the absence of hope for the future. Some are motivated by greed, buying the lie that wealth and possessions bring happiness. It is an emptier, more hopeless, darker life than anything I could have imagined. 

This group of 22 million Isaan people have been without the light for so long, they scarcely recognise it when it is presented. They have been denied the chance to know the One who came to save them for so many centuries ... but the tide is slowly turning. Even since last year, there have been so many of God's servants we have seen called to move to this area. The Isaan New Testament has been translated and is in its final stages of review and awaiting publishing. It will be a beautiful day when the Isaan people will have the Word of God in their heart language! "For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desire." (Heb 4:12 NLT)

A generation of believers is rising up, hungry and thirsty for the kingdom of God in Isaan. On the way back, we had the opportunity to visit a small Thai church. Only a handful of believers, they sang their worship simply to the beat of a tambourine. But their voices and hearts were full of devotion to their Lord, and passion for the lost. Fellowship with them was sweet. We experienced the same sweet aroma of Christ when we visited a small church in another province the previous weekend. These small beginnings make us rejoice, give us hope. In this broken nation, He will build his church, and the gates of hell will not stand against it. (Matt 16:18)

The two sides of Songkran

April 13-15th is the Thai New Year, or Songkran. 'Wet and Wild' is probably the best way to describe this water festival to you. It is the biggest festival in Thailand, a time when everyone takes days off work and returns to visit their families and home villages. We were able to experience the traditional side of Songkran at the Cancer Hospital, where we were invited to take part in the celebrations.

As you can see, there is a simple rule for Songkran shirts - the louder the better... :oD

The ceremony is really quite simple and beautiful. Younger people pour small bowls of scented water with flowers, over the hands of elders to bless and honour them. The sprinkling with water is about cleansing, purification and fresh starts. It signifies the washing away of bad thoughts and actions, and is thought to bring them good luck in the new year. When we poured the water over the hands of elders at the hospital, we said "God bless you" and "Happy New Year". As this is normally done by family members, it really showed love and respect for us to bless them in that way when their family, like ours, was far away. 

 Although the origins of Songkran are far more religious, splashing complete strangers with water has become the main attraction of the festival. If you plan to step out of your house during the 3 days of Songkran, you can expect to get soaked by people standing on the side of the road with water pistols, buckets and hoses. If somehow you escape this, then on the road there are hundreds of pickup trucks with people crammed into the back, throwing water, sometimes iced water, at all and sundry. If you're out, you're a fair target! This is all good fun in the unbearable April heat (regularly 40 degrees in the afternoon, with high humidity!). 
In the centre of town, there was a stretch of road set up with fountains and sprinklers all along its length...

But there is a more modern, and uglier side to Songkran. Towards late afternoon, the processions of Buddha images and formalities end, and throngs form in the street to dance, party, and throw water. As most of these people have been drinking steadily through the day, it is an alcohol and drug fuelled 'party', with many unsavoury sights and consequences that I will spare you the details of. This also means drink-driving, which has earned Songkran week the title 'the 7 dangerous days'. 

This is the topsy-turvy nature of religion. While on one hand we ache for cleansing and purification, we cannot control our sinful nature. We end up living a double life, and destroying ourselves in indulging our sinful cravings. But Christ brings freedom. He is able to truly cleanse our hearts by dealing with the sin and actually change us in the process. Only His Spirit living in us ensures that we are no longer the same. What a redemptive message there is in the pouring of water to cleanse:

"By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way ... let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise" Heb 10:20-23 (NLT)

Broken

When was the last time you received a gift? Did you know how to respond?

I recently gave a surprise gift to a Thai friend. She looked confused. Later she explained, "I like it but I don't know how to show it." Why? Because in Thai culture any show of emotion is taboo, especially love. Parents and children don't exchange hugs or kisses. Neither do husbands and wives. If there is a special occasion they give gifts but otherwise they don't. My friend continued, "If I am away for a year and then return to visit home my family don't make a fuss of me, they are just normal. I never heard my Mum tell me that she loved me, and she is now dead. Neither did I tell her I loved her. We just assume it by everyday actions - Mum cooks for me and feeds me, she must love me. My daughter came back home to visit - she must care for me." And that is it.

But this friend is a Christian. She has been with western Christians for years, heard and read about how important giving and receiving physical affection is between children and parents. As a result, she told her niece to hug her Mum everyday. Her niece obediently did... only to have her Mum warned by a neighbour that if the child continued to show too much affection, it would shorten the Mother's life. And so culture and tradition, superstition and fear won again. The foreign versus the familiar. Better the devil you know.

Is this the Buddhism the West perceives? This land of smiles, famed for its friendliness and a warm welcome, is a land of broken hearts, because they put their faith in broken cisterns. "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13. The promises of Buddhhism are empty - it is a broken cistern. Where it seems to promise freedom from suffering, it only creates more, by denying the very cravings of the human heart. The heart was made for love. And only God, who is by his very nature, LOVE, can quench our thirst. Broken people need to be healed. Empty hearts need to be filled... but only the Maker knows how.

We were made to give love, and we need to receive love. If these needs go unmet, they are expressed in other unhealthy ways. The sad reality therefore is that this people, my people, experience sexual abuse and promiscuity to epidemic proportions, so much so that it is almost considered normal. 'Men' were used synonymously with 'unfaithful' in a recent conversation with another friend. As you can imagine, a people broken by abuse and hungry for love will self medicate. Starved of normal expressions of love, and shamed by frequent abuse, gender confusion results. Thailand is now viewed as an international hub of gender-bending norms, and a centre of sexual alterations. 

Sometimes these problems seem so endemic in this society, so pervasive, that it is easy to lose hope. What we see is just the tip of an iceberg. The reality is lives all around us filled with pain and emptiness, scarcely recognised anymore ~ this is normality, all they have known for generations. At times like this, I remember the words of Psalm 121:
       1I lift up my eyes to the mountains — where does my help come from?

2My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. 

He is the God of the broken, because he is their Maker. He is the only healer and His work is perfect. His love heals every wound, as nothing else can. His invitation to the thirsty is found in Isaiah 55 (Message version): 

1-5 “Hey there! All who are thirsty,
    come to the water!
Are you penniless?
    Come anyway—buy and eat!
Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.
    Buy without money—everything’s free!
Why do you spend your money on junk food,
    your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
    fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention, come close now,
    listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
    the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.

Each of us are broken people. Each one is thirsty. Only in Jesus can we find our healing, quench our heart's thirst for love. I urge you today, receive His love. And the beauty of it is, this is a love that cannot help but overflow. Go hug your children, as our cousins across the pond would say, "love on" your family. We are blessed to be a blessing.