thailand, family, God

just before christmas i had a great visit from an old college friend, who is jewish. both his parents are ordained rabbis, even though they make their own living. and my friend is liberal in his view of God and spiritual matters.

i’m an evangelical protestant missionary, even though i have issues with organized religion and the way my faith is represented by some evangelical groups. i felt that he had a much easier time understanding my issues with institutional faith than many of my friends who are church leaders. we also had a great time talking about our old college days, his benefit of having a phd from MIT, and his current tour of Asia.

we had lunch with our other mutual friend– closer to him (and i didn’t know he was living in bangkok), who was a devout roman catholic in college. all of us were physics majors and studied in the same small classes in our small liberal arts school, www.wesleyan.edu.  our catholic friend was sick of grading stupid undergrad papers at berkeley and finally gave up his intellectual pursuit as a professor with a phd, even in book publishing, and is currently getting an mba and considering b’hai from a distance. his current passion is to provide for his wife and two children that he loves.

our catholic friend asked me point blank, “so, paul, why are you trying to convert these thai people?” i answered that i’m not here trying to proselytize anyone but to support the leaders of the thai christian church. not that different as an objective, but i wanted to counter the underlying attitude in the phrasing of his question. still, we had a good time bashing stupid people and stupid organizations. not sure how valuable these encounters are for my ministry here, but they definitely help me keep my thoughts clear, and to place my passion for ministry in the midst of the larger society beyond the walls of the church that i was born in. and i hope that my faith and ministry will be a light of true hope not only among the thais in thailand but for individuals from all kinds of backgrounds.

check out below my mobile photo of a traditional thai house that my friend’s mother lives in; timothy was playing with his daughter last wednesday.

Reun Thai (a traditional thai house)

not that i’m not aware of the recent movement to distance ourselves from the established religious instition (and be Jesus-followers), i do think that leaving one’s own country and observing or experiencing the Christian faith in a foreign country is an enlightening experience; it helped me to see more distinctions between my faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and my cultural heritage; as a korean-american, who grew up in thailand as a MK, my cultural is pretty confusing. still, i can see how those ’stuck’ in each of those cultures have difficulty seeing that some of what they do to express faith is more an expression of their cultural value using biblical prooftexts, and how they see different behaviors among Christians of a different culture and are quick to point out their syncretistic faith. usually, i view my own korean church from the american or western perspective.

but i ran across this article that helps me to see how americans may also have our cultural values mixed in with our faith. below’s the first paragraph, but take a look at the whole article i just linked.

New York – I’ve attended church weekly all my life, and virtually every congregation with whom I’ve worshipped displays an American flag. It often stands close to the communion table, probably a church’s most sacred spot. Some denominations even recite the Pledge of Allegiance – multiple times. One church I visited in the Midwest began Sunday School with the Pledge but apparently lacked faith it would stick. We interrupted morning worship with another recitation.

or, if you humbly disagree, back to the roman catholic church.
enough said!

NEVER DOING IT AGAIN. it was actually very fun, exciting, rejeuvenating, and blessing to meet my old friends. they poured out their love on us. for our first visit back, we made it a goal to try to visit everybody. so, we stopped by korea for a week, los angeles, washington DC, princeton, new york, hartford, boston, chicago, san diego, san jose, houston, AND some of the surrounding cities. my family was with me for about two-thirds of the time. it was tiring, and if i have to do it again, i’ll have to be in better shape. now what to do about our agency’s policy about taking one-year sabbaticals at the end of every term…

BUT I’M GLAD WE DID IT, cuz it was our first visit back since we left for thailand over two years ago. we’d do it again, if we could go back in time. we had great opportunities to share what God has been doing in and through our lives for the past two years in thailand. but now that our “first” visit is accopmlished, we’ll go for more focused visits in the future, so that we can get some rest, and also spend more quality time with our friends in fewer regions of usa. most of the people were encouraging, but there were one or two idiots that made us feel like we were wasting our time, “oh, cool! you guys get two-month vacations?” [i was thinking, but calm enough not to blurt out, "what makes you think i'll be visiting you during my vacation?" or, "so why don't you quit your job, relocate your family, and request financial support in orer to serve people in a different country?"] besides, if i wanted a vacation, i’ll go to a beach in thailand.

DON’T QUOTE THIS, but here’s an interesting paragraph i found on someone’s blog: this was a true missions experience with people getting sick, riding in the back of a pick-up truck, going to a rural village that looked like circa 1900s, getting bitten by land leeches, working in the mountainous fields which [paul] and [peter] almost fell off!!!  wowee, what a trip!!!

There are old Christian hymns being sung everywhere. And public stores hold up signs saying “Merry Christmas”. I just got an e-card from the president of the meditation club, wishing me a “Merry Christmas”, and another one from a European atheist friend who works at the UN. Everyone seems to be happy to celebrate Christmas. Why does the Christian nation of America seem like a Scrooge?
Wanna not be a scrooge? volunteer for something useful!

in other news, check out this article about one of the best hospitals in Thailand.

wanna lose weight over Christmas? Get some sleep!

it’s been two years already in thailand, and we’re back in usa for our mid-term reporting; my agency strongly encourages this visit, esp after the first two years, cuz people tend to forget the missionaries. long-time missionaries already have well-established relationships but the new guys like us have to work on it. that’s the reason.

we’re really enjoying our visit with our old friends; they’re loving us in many ways; stuffing us with great food, giving us their time, money; some even take time off work to hang out with us; it’s been very encouraging and refreshing; i’m glad that most of my supporters are my old friends; but i also hope to get more churches set up in a supporting relationship cuz we only have 8 right now. we’re ok with living expenses, but now that we want to do some work, we feel a need for a greater budget, starting with a vehicle purchase. so this makes me appreciate active mission depts in local churches.

but one of the issues i find myself addressing, as i talk with friends, is that “missions” is not reserved for special christians. a lot of my friends are already involved in amazing ministries, and many of them are not even pastors or church leaders; i see them fulfilling the Great Commission right here in their neighborhoods! i want them to know that in biblical terms, they and i (missionary paul) are in the same category– believers trying to fulfill the great commission; the institutional church has different categories for us, of course, and treats people like me in a more special way;

that brings me to question the very existence of missions depts in churches; does that misrepresent the great commission in some way, so that many of my friends are led to think that i’m more special in God’s eyes than they are, just cuz i left the country?

foreign missionaries are sometimes invited by the local church or denominational leadership. but that’s for countries with developed church leadership; the first missionaries or missionaries to “unreached” people groups are rarely invited or even wanted;

so, what should we do? try sending a team of people to offer free medical service? not to afghanistan! the taliban agreed to free all the remaining korean hostages, and the korean gov’t agreed to pull out its remaining 200 soldiers as it had originally planned anyways, and also not to allow other korean christians in the country.

i understand that the afghan gov’t doesn’t have full control over what goes on inside its borders; that’s a reality that we should accept; i also don’t encourage anyone of any religious background to go there for any reason.

still, given that someone or some group feels convicted to go there to love the people there– remember that the korean gov’t insisted that the hostages were there only to provide free medical help, how can this incident help them to realize that they were mistaken? i mean, what goes on inside a person’s mind who now has to say, “oh, my mistake, it wasn’t God convicting me to go there”?

i know it’s not that simple; but it seems that terrorism pays well. God is great!

nothing profound to say about this big concept; but a couple of pictures to illustrate my question:

timothy really likes whales; so he opened up all his bibles and compared the stories and pictures of jonah and the whale; i was excited to see his systematic mind.

displayed at baiyoke II, the tallest bldg in bangkok. hinduism serves as a backdrop for thai culture as well as religion. how much of it is “religious” or “cultural” i don’t know.

whether inside the church culture or elsewhere, individuals and institutions don’t seem to be fully aware of the distinction between culture and religion; should there even be one? in usa many issues are being discussed “rationally” (or culturally?) but with “religious” perspectives excluded; for example, we can’t use the bible to say anything about gay rights; but others can say anything to say whatever they “feel” is “rational” about such complex issues. my question is this: how are culture and religion to be distinguished and/or related? i’m at this point going to start with an assumption that they are actually one and the same, a false dichotomy (probably made by christians). i mean, what is the “rational” basis for including atheistic perspectives but excluding theistic perspectives for social or political discussions?

i was going to write about free speech, but lawsuits came to mind; e-harmony, a popular dating site set up by an evangelical, is being sued by homosexuals; click here. do your parents own a dry cleaner? click here to read about what a US judge sued for. something unrelated but just as controversial, a creationist museum. my question is, where’s the justice in all this? for e-harmony, since when is a company obliged to provide ALL services to ALL people? can we men sue a women’s club for excluding us? of course, it’s not about free speech, but i’ll write about that later; general freedom is what interests me today…

free speech my butt! america is known for freedom; they’re on thailand’s case for the coup last year; they want a democratic iraq in the Middle East. but, perhaps, they first need a lecture on democracy from Muammar Gaddafi. we americans are proud of our freedom; but using “freedom” blown out of context, or ignoring the context of nations in the rest of the world, we implement tyrannical strategies to coerce our political concept of freedom on others. “No, but this is for your own good!” pastors, be careful what you preach! if you just preach the bible you might soon get sued or arrested; make sure you preach absolute freedom so that no one will know the truth. or first get confirmation with the aclu! (i actually like the idea of separation of church and state, as long as xns aren’t singled out.)

even in missions, or the modern global christian society, we have clashing contexts. westerners who hold to the ideology of individualism say you can have a good church service, but you must have your own personal (meaning, individual) quiet time first! asians who hold to the ideology of collectivism (or, corporate identity) say that you have to go to the large group meetings, since what you do alone doesn’t really count; in the middle are the modern asians (now aging) who think they have to do both, or that the western method is the truly biblical method that asian churches had not known of until now. so i’m growing wary of tyrannical approaches missionaries from different cultures employ to get the locals the “true” biblical teaching, be it worship order, dress code, or whatever.

that’s a familiar line in traditional evangelicalism; many “sinners” hated it; i wonder though if some are now trying to “love the soldier but hate the war”? either way…
(and i’m not saying that only “sinners” hate the war; i think war is bad too, and i think of myself as a “saint”!)

in the mission field (or any cross-cultural context, like in most cities around the world), a church leader might feel pressured to distinguish between cultural issues and spiritual issues; for instance, senior missionaries might suggest that believers can do this (eg, eat meat sacrificed to idols) but not that (eg, eat food cooked in blood), and so on.

that’s how i was trained; but right now, i’m not sure if these distinctions or dichotomies help us to love our neighbor and stand for the “truth” of the gospel; i’ll have to think more on it, but i wouldn’t be surprised if this “rational” way of thinking has done a lot of harm in the mission field.