Day 3 (at home)

It is generally a waste of time to sit and stare at a wall, but sitting and staring at a lake is a perfectly acceptable activity, and it is what I have been doing for a large portion of my afternoon. I have been too sad and sleepy to write anything worth reading up until now, but there is something about being in nature that forces my thoughts to behave in a calm and orderly manner.

And there are a lot of them- thoughts, I mean. There are things, events, people I meant to write about before I left Thailand that never made it out of my head. Then there are new ideas and feelings that have only presented themselves after leaving the place where I spent two months carving out a home. I expected to feel sad and disoriented, and I do. My first instinct is still to compare everything to life in Bangkok; I wonder how long it will take to (again) redefine normal. I don’t dislike home or America, but I miss the adventure and our church and all my friends.

A couple of people have already asked me, “How have you changed?” Which is a great question, but it is really much more vague than you might think. God has changed my perspective on everything from poverty to culture to the rest of my life. I’m glad that I was able to keep up with the blog, because I’ve already written about a lot of those changes. But I suppose the biggest way I’ve changed is this: I will not be content with a half-lived life.

In Bangkok, the gospel is urgent. It is radical. And it visibly changes the lives of those who believe it. Thai believers pray with intensity and faith; they serve with grace and humility. They do not do everything perfectly, but in Thailand the countercultural nature of our faith is evident, and there is no room for complacency. My friends on the summer team, the missionaries there, and the Thai staff have all encouraged me to seek more– more honesty in fellowship, more prayer, more service, more encouragement for others, more patience, more authenticity as the person God made me to be and not the person others want me to be.

And for all of these things I have been forced to depend on God, in a climate and a day job where I felt uncomfortable at best, counterproductive at worst. This was the best thing about the summer- the fact that every day was difficult. I tend to avoid doing things I don’t excel at, and the insecurity, fear, and frustration I often felt at my inability to do things well shoved me towards God. I didn’t just think God was a good idea; I needed God to get me through the day. He provided for me in so many ways at those times, and during the last couple weeks of the trip I was even beginning to feel like a competent adult who had made a few Thai friends-maybe the biggest answer to prayer of the whole trip. It was a rough journey, but I have left craving more of that, too. I would rather not be able to depend on myself. I don’t want to live my life in fear or boredom or mere comfort, but in anticipation of what God’s going to do next.

Day 55

Tomorrow will be my last day in Bangkok.

I am, quite frankly, terrified. Usually I sit down to write a blog post with something in mind to say, but today I don’t have nearly as many thoughts as feelings, and processing my own feelings has never been something I did well. The thing is, while I’ve been here, I’ve pretty much disconnected from life at home; in fact, I’ve basically treated my stay in Thailand as a permanent thing. I don’t know if this was a good idea or not, although it definitely helped me get the most out of the experience I was having instead of focusing on the places and people I left behind. But now I am suddenly faced with my return, which includes a thousand things to do and a hundred people to see before I even go back to school. I am overwhelmed with sadness for all that I am leaving behind tinged with excitement for the people I get to see at home. There is so much that I will not be able to explain to anyone at home, so much that I may never see again, so many people I have come to dearly love and wish I could share my life in America with as they have shared their lives in Thailand with me. I cannot wait to tell anyone who cares about what I did and saw and learned, but I don’t know how I’ll return to normal life, normal routines, normal grocery stores, “normal” culture, normal church, normal prayer times, normal weather, normal traffic. I have missed you, friends at home, but I have not wished to be there.

Wish you were here.

Day 50

This weekend was the:

First time I’ve traveled in Thailand outside of Bangkok;

First time I’ve ridden a bus like this:

First time I’ve used a toilet like this:

First time I’ve taken a shower with buckets of brown water;

First time I’ve watched kids finger-paint a water tower;

First time I’ve been stared down by a Thai bull from 30 yards away (cows look really weird here, btw);

First time I’ve sung for a group of people in 6 years;

First time I’ve stood on the back of a song taow driving 50 mph down a mountain;

First time I’ve climbed hundreds of mud stairs at a 45 degree angle to the top of a mountain;

First time I’ve eaten crocodile.

Day 47

I only have a few minutes before we leave on a retreat with the college students (please pray for that!), but I wanted to go ahead and update quickly because I’ve realized again what a humbling process this whole trip has been. I am not the kind of person who is great at talking to lots of random strangers, which is our main activity here, and it’s very different from being at school, where I feel capable and in control of my own life. And I think that God’s been trying to teach me to be more and more dependent on him- for strength, for ability, for my identity, for decision-making, for acceptance. But it takes a lot of humility to do that, and so I’m thankful for my almost complete lack of ability to make anything happen here on my own. I’m learning not to overvalue the gifts that I do have; even though they’re important and I intend to do things I’m good at for the majority of my life, I’m seeing that God really does show up in our weakest times. Even this blog, something I have felt in control of and good at, has been humbling, because for whatever reason, everyone here is always talking about Stanton’s blog. (Which is really great, and you should go read it, especially the post titled “Platinum”- www.stantonthailand.blogspot.com). I haven’t really felt jealous, maybe a little bit discouraged every once in a while, but mostly I think I’ve found the humor in this situation. It’s like the world is saying to me, “OK, Lyndsey, way to write a blog, but it’s not actually that big of a deal.”

P.S.  I promise I’m not fishing for compliments.

Day 44

I realized today that I have pretty much failed to write about what I’m actually doing here, so I thought I’d just do a little “Day in the Life” post:

9 am: I wake up. I put my hair in a ponytail because there is no point in ever trying to style it, as much as we all sweat here and as humid as it is. I put a book, my journal, and my computer in my backpack and trek through a field of grass and trash (affectionately termed “the Badlands”) to the coffee shop directly behind our building. There is always at least one of my teammates there when I arrive, and I check my email, facebook, and blog, listen to some music, and get some calm unwinding time in at the beginning of the day.

10:30 am: Everyone gathers in someone’s room for “team time,” the mentoring part of our “mentored internship” trip. We usually listen to a sermon or read an article or part of a book, then discuss it. This is often my favorite part of the day, and we’ve had some really awesome conversations. It’s great to be able to process through my feelings about whatever’s going on with people who are usually thinking the same things, and also to talk about more theoretical stuff about missions and God and community and culture. We’ve also had some great times of prayer for each other in the mornings.

12 pm: We all get on the song taow and head over to the central area of this district of the city, where we eat lunch from one of the stalls in the market, where they have something like a food court. Thai food is really fantastic, and fairly healthy if only because you get an ok portion of your main dish and a really large portion of rice. I usually order some sort of smoothie (“bpan” in Thai), syrup or fruit or coffee blended with a little sweetened condensed milk and some ice. A 16-oz smoothie from the market cost 50 cents and it is pretty much the most refreshing thing you’re going to find on a really hot day, which is every day. Usually we meet up with some Thai church staff friends for lunch.

1 pm: We arrive on campus, a few blocks from the market, lay out a thin mat on the sidewalk outside the badminton gym, and proceed to sit on the ground for about four hours. This is our hang out time with students, when we play Uno, play guitar, play badminton, play some random youth group game… Thai people love hanging out and having fun. The culture here is very group-oriented, not individualistic, and this cultural difference has a lot of implications for the way people view themselves and others and for the way they spend their time. We have a few friends who come to hang out every day, others who show up sporadically, and lots of new friends who are just walking by and want a chance to practice English, take pictures with white people, or simply do something fun in between classes. Our goal is to make friends and connect them to our club, where they can make friends with the Thai-speaking people at our church and hopefully become open to the gospel. Thai people are also very private about really important or deep things, so evangelism tends to be a long process of relationship-building and constant love.

5:30 pm: Sometime between 5 and 6 we all get hungry or the students go home, and we go to dinner. Sometimes we go back to the market, sometimes to another restaurant in town, but whenever possible we invite the students we’ve been hanging out with to come eat with us. After dinner, the schedule gets less consistent; sometimes the guys go to a park nearby to play sports. Often there is something going on at church that one or more of us is involved in: English class, prayer time at the Mahhathai slum, or some sort of party. The church building is also a good hang-out spot for continuing to spend time with students or church staff.

Whenever we run out of things to do: We head back to our studio apartments. The building is called Baan Faa Luang, or “Royal Sky House,” but we usually call it “the BFL,” which always makes me think of the Big Friendly Giant, a book by Roald Dahl. There are a couple of English movie channels on our TVs, and if we’re lucky there’s a really bad movie on that we can make fun of. I read a lot at night, as well, and have taken to spending my Bible/prayer/journaling time on the roof of our building. The roof has a beautiful garden and a fantastic view, and I feel like I’m floating above the city as I watch the clouds and lightning move across the skyline. Sometimes someone else comes along and we’ll talk or just sit and think together, but a lot of the time I’m alone. It’s been an awesome escape. On the roof or in our rooms, nighttime has been our other great conversation time as we think through the future, the past, and how our lives relate to God’s life.

12:30 am: I wash off all the sweat and street dust from the day, and crawl into bed.

Day 42

I am not ready for normal yet.

Two weeks is actually 25% of our whole time here, but it is starting to seem like just a countdown to that long flight home. And as much as I pray and try to focus on the present, I can’t really shake this panicky feeling that I’m about to be missing out on a bunch of stuff- or worse, that I’ll forget everything about Thailand and everything I’ve learned while I’ve been here, that my life will go back to exactly the way it was. This process has been incredibly hard, but it has forced me to really seek God every day like I never have had to before. I keep staying up too late because I don’t want the days to end.

This whole summer has been one crazy experience after another, good or bad. I have never felt so often like I was in a movie, whether just hanging out with my team or enjoying time with Thai friends or going to NaNa or Mahhathai. Sometimes it’s a documentary on poverty, sometimes it’s a drama, and sometimes it’s just one of those feel-good movies about a bunch of crazy young people who become really good friends and have adventures. Sometimes it’s a bit of a Hallmark movie, except way better: last night, on the roof of our building in light-polluted Bangkok, I saw two shooting stars, and I was overwhelmed by how much God loves me and this city (I know those don’t sound connected, but they are).

I want my life to be like this. I want most of all to always be on an adventure with God, and to have to depend on God the way I’ve had to, facing the challenges of this summer. I want to live in community the way the church here does, and the way our internship team has, with honesty and love and trust that’s scary and a little bit radical. I want my heart broken again, as hard as it is, because I know that God’s heart is broken, too.

It’s one of the worst things about being here, seeing so much that is wrong and ugly and being almost helpless to fix it. Today at church there is a boy from Mahhathai, about 8 years old, with several wounds on the skin of his legs that are really really painful. I don’t know if he hurt himself or if someone else hurt him, but I do know that his legs look like no one’s taken care of them and they’ve gotten infected. It’s one of the darkest things I’ve seen here, and something I didn’t really expect, but a lot of people have a pretty low level of concern for their children. I can find someone to take care of this kid’s skin, but I can’t force his parents to care for him. And it makes me wish I could stay and pour out more and more love into this community, not because I’m good at teaching English or talking to people (because I’m not), but because someone needs to do it. I’m not ready to leave this work undone.

Day 40

I never thought I would be thankful for desensitization, but when I went back to NaNa (the red light district) on Monday, I was glad that I was no longer overwhelmed by the evil surrounding me. The district was far less crowded and busy this time, for reasons nobody knows (maybe the World Cup has slowed international sex tourism?), and that helped, as well. The downside to that was fewer kids were on the street where we could give them a balloon, a temporary tattoo, some food, and some crayons. But it was a lot easier, this time, to really focus on the kids who were there instead of on my own feelings about the whole situation. There were still heartbreaking moments, probably the worst of which was when a brother and sister were collected by their angry mother, who wanted them “working” and not playing. It was all worth it, though, going into this sickening place and sitting on the ground and staying up late, to see the pure joy on a little girl’s face who recognized us from across the street.

These kids, and also the kids at the Mahhathai slum, are some of the most endearing children I’ve ever met. I don’t want to suggest that poverty is somehow good for them, but it is so much more rewarding to me to spend time with children who haven’t gotten everything they’ve ever wanted. There are no elaborate productions to capture the attention of these kids, just stories and crayons and one or two soccer balls and a lot of love. They’re really excited to be given one Silly Band. It’s hard to write about this without sounding like I wish American children were also in danger of malnourishment, but it’s also impossible to ignore the contrast between the bored, demanding kids I’ve tried to deal with in children’s church at home and the easygoing, loving kids here. They’re not perfect- the girl from the street in NaNa can be a bit of a demanding brat- but, right or wrong, it’s a lot easier to identify and excuse the issues these children have. And even that girl wandered wide-eyed around 7-11 trying to pick out a snack as if it were the most important decision she’d ever made, and begged us just to stay with her, talking with her and stroking her hair, when we had to leave (she followed us all the way to the end of the street). And that’s kind of heartbreaking in itself; how long has it been since anyone treated this girl as if she were special?

Day 38

God is good
All the time
He put a song of praise in this heart of mine…
God is good, God is good
All the time

I don’t usually like worship songs that could come anywhere close to being described as “inane,” but I try to acknowledge that sometimes the simplest words are the most fitting. That was the case tonight, as I sat in the sala at the Mahhathai slum community and heard this song being sung in Thai. I had just come in from playing with some of the most adorable, joyful, loving kids I’ve ever met, and it struck me then what a blessing it was to be a part of this gathering at Mahhathai, when some of the members of the community gather for prayer on Wednesdays. It is genuine, this prayer time, and simple, and loving. Thai people often have prayer times when everyone prays at once- what I’ve heard referred to as a “concert of prayer”- and the meeting always has a leader, who asks people to pray for different things in turn.

Everything about this trip has been covered in blessing. It has been such a blessing to be here, to go through several stages of adjustment and to finally be comfortable doing a lot of things that used to be so foreign. Even the fourth of July, when I was so homesick, turned out to be a beautiful time when our entire team gathered, sort of spontaneously, on our building’s roof and spent a long time immersed in each other’s company and good conversation. I’ve learned so much, as well, that I’m not sure I even understand the full extent of it until I get back. There is so much I didn’t know before about the world, about myself, and about God, that I can’t wait to take back to my “normal life” with me. Until then, I’m trying to enjoy and really live the last 2 1/2 weeks of this journey.

Day 35

Yesterday I proudly asserted that I was in no way homesick and hadn’t been for this whole trip, and today I went to church by myself due to a small misunderstanding, walked in a few minutes late to Thai worship music, and spent the next five minutes trying not to cry because I so badly wanted to be back with my own family or at my own church where they sing songs I know in English.

Thai people don’t know or care when America’s Independence Day is, and that, too, has made me wish I was back eating my dad’s burgers or his homemade smoked pork barbecue. Or even some potato chips and French onion dip; the only flavors of Lay’s readily available are: original, Xtra BBQ (close, but not quite normal), sour cream and onion, sushi, and pork. They also don’t eat pie here, or cake or cookies that contain adequate amounts of sugar, or “normal” ice cream other than DQ soft serve.

So, being already depressed, I started thinking about my friends on the team and how great they are, and how we’re all going back and splitting up in three weeks, and then I was sad because I was in Thailand and sad because I had to leave soon.

I don’t really have a great wrap-up for this, or a wise response, or a take-away thought for you folks at home, but I don’t want to just talk about the great things I do or think here. Today I just want to ask for your prayers, that I’ll be able to truly be thankful for this country and my time here, and that I’ll be able to live every day for itself and not worry too much about readjusting to life in the U.S.

Because I do have a lot to be thankful for. Watermelon is in abundant supply, and I’m sitting in the coffee shop that feels like part of my little home here, and I’ve spent some time reading today and these little pleasant things make me feel less self-indulgently sorry for myself. Ever since I got here, I’ve been craving salt and vinegar potato chips, and a few of my teammates who went downtown a few days ago found a small bag of them and bought them for me. So maybe I’ll finally break them out today and feel special and loved by John, Julie, and Stanton all over again. And later tonight some Americans in Bangkok are getting together for a cookout, so… who knows what kinds of great American traditions we’ll manage to carry on?

Day 29

Yesterday I spent most of my afternoon chopping down very tall grass by the side of a road with shears.

It made the road look nicer and wider, but altogether it was a nearly pointless activity, because Bangkok is a swamp. The grass will grow back, at most, in three months, and no one will be here anymore to go back and chop it down again. I also sprayed our church’s little “sala,” the community room we built at Mahhathai 3, with termite spray in hopes that the building won’t collapse.

In five years the owner of the land is going to raze everything in Mahhathai 3 in order to develop the land. Meanwhile the members of the community live in extreme poverty (a couple of typical houses are in the slideshow below), and the problems of poverty are compounded by gambling, drugs, and alcohol.

Even the work I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, when we went to color and talk with children begging, has a very small chance of making a long-term impact on the kids or their families. They may take away fond memories of the Christians who showed them love once a week during their childhood, but their lives are being shaped by enormous cultural, societal, psychological, and economic issues.

In the United States, I think the most drastic situation we can think of where hope is needed is in the life of a suicidal person. We just don’t see desperately ugly things very often, and even our homeless usually have some sort of shelter to go to for help, however short-term it may be. Terrible things and situations happen in the U.S., but I hope it doesn’t sound belittling to people dealing with those situations if I say that things are just not as bad there, especially on the scale that things are bad here.

Confronting political, economic, religious, and cultural problems that leave the poor, the neglected children, the shelter-less without recourse is a hugely complex task which we can only even begin to tackle with God’s help. I believe that God wants to see things change in Thailand and in the world, and I believe that God wants to use his people to change them. May God call more of his children across the world to greater, truer, and more sacrificial obedience to the commands of Jesus.

In the more immediate future, I will continue to cut grass with shears because it is a service I can provide today. It is a small beautifying act in a place where ugliness is the norm. I will pick up the trash other people have left outside their homes because I believe that things are better when they are more beautiful, because in that way they reflect the beauty of God. I never knew before that evil, left unattended, could have such a compounding effect; but it really does seem that in a lot of ways people trapped in these situations have forgotten what beauty is. And if there is nothing better to be seen, why not gamble for a bit of diversion? why not drink for a bit of forgetfulness? I pray that our attempts to bring a bit of aesthetic improvement to our friends’ neighborhood will point them toward that which is better, and towards the immeasurable beauty and hope and joy that knowing God has brought to our lives.

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