Week 15 - Phayao

Happy Advent.

Last week started as usual, with outreach on Monday night. We missed several of our friends and I wondered if it didn't have something to do with the recent police "cleanups" of the area.

We did see one child sleeping on the bridge with a puppy, a cup, and no one else around. Emily and I sat on the sidewalk nearby watching the girl for a while. As we did, we were approached by an Irish man who said he'd seen us around. We get these occasionally: tourists or Western ex-pats who want to stop and say they appreciate what we're doing. I never know what to do with the compliment, so I usually smile and nod. But this guy had a different angle.

He wanted to know if we could help him with something, but we had to pledge confidentiality. I have fewer scruples than Emily, so I eagerly accepted his terms, knowing that I would keep confidential only whatever I felt like keeping confidential. Emily was a little more forthright about our willingness to report the reportable. It didn't seem to matter to the guy, as he went on.

He has a Thai girlfriend that he met at the mall, not on the street, he was eager to clarify. She had a history of prostitution, which she had left when she met him, but now she's pregnant. He suspects she's returned to her old life and wonders if we would be able to identify her as someone we see on Sukhumvit if we were introduced. Basically, he wanted to use us, a Christian NGO, as his personal private detective. I explained that that's not really what we do, but that we could refer him to someone who could help his very vulnerable girlfriend. He shook his head vigorously. "These people," he lectured, "are very smart." By which he meant, "I'm the victim of a conspiratorial scam." Not only did he believe that he'd been duped into a relationship--a likely possibility and not a unique story--but he believed she intended to hire someone to kill him. After we reiterated that we could not help him, he said goodnight and went on his merry, paranoid way.

Nearly the entire rest of the week was spent in Phayao with Phillip and Constance, some American friends of Tim and Amy's. We took an overnight bus there to celebrate Thanksgiving with them, Thai style: fish, curry, thom yum, though Bethany did manage to make a bowl of mashed potatoes. Phillip and Constance work for the Education for Life Foundation and had gotten a large donation of bikes. They loaned us a few and we got to bike around Phayao, which borders a lake. Getting away from the city was absolutely therapeutic.

Now I'm feeling a bit dissipated--thank you, Rachel. After an impromptu vacation in Phayao, we're looking forward to our planned servant team retreat this week on the beach in Kosamet. Before then, we do have outreach tonight. This will be our final outreach and it's going to be an all-nighter. We had planned this for a couple months earlier, but never executed the idea. It should be very illuminating, seeing when our friends are able to go home and seeing how many of them may have control factors, people who are managing their begging.

Prayer requests:

--That I'd stay awake tonight.

Week 14 - Last "Normal" One

As I walked near the King's palace and throne hall yesterday, I could see workers putting up lights around what equates to several city blocks' worth of fencing to prepare for the King's 82nd birthday on Dec 5th. It's not Christmas, but it does give the sense of a new season, which is appropriate given that the temperature sank drastically over the last half a week. I nearly didn't use my fan at all last night until I heard the high-pitched flapping of a mosquito above my ear.

Yesterday, we had our last day out at Klong Toei. I thought we would be teaching, but activities were limited to a two hour party. There was a lot of dancing and, strangely, a lot of throwing baby powder in our own faces and at each other. Not all of the kids were there, but most of the familiar faces. I think sometimes one underestimates the depth of connection made with another person, particularly with adolescents who hide it better.

On Thursday, and to a lesser extent on Tuesday, we celebrated Emily's birthday, the third and last birthday of our group of five during these four months. The only thing lacking was the Thom Yum soup our neighbor, Bah Oot, prepared for our last two parties.

Monday and Wednesday outreach per usual. We are coming up against the reality that we will be leaving and that we'll have to tell this to some of the people we see twice a week on the street. I began this ordeal with B__ and it was more difficult than I thought. Difficult, because it seems to me she saw more of God in me than I saw in her, appreciative as she was of the meager relationship I'd formed with her. She said all of our group had Jay Dii, literally "good hearts." Great are God's works and unprofitable are His servants.

On Tuesday, Jeff and I joined with the MST project, which seeks to engage in conversation Western men visiting the popular sex tourist areas in Thailand. It wasn't nearly as confrontational as I imagined, but that made it all the more frustrating. The Devil often comes masquerading as foggy logic and cyclical debates. I can only pray God did something through all this, will continue to do this in my life and their lives.

This coming week, we will visit American friends for Thanksgiving in Phayao, with some opportunities for working with them and for hiking.

Prayer Requests:

--That the relationships that the five of us have formed with transfer as seemlessly as possibly to Tim and Amy and that these relationships would bear fruit for the Kindgom of God.

Week 13

A fair amount of my time here in Bangkok has been spent reading. As a whole, the five of us were required to bring along six books to read and discuss while here. I've spent a lot of the last week reading the remaining two: Sexually Exploited Children and Sex Slaves. As I found out four months ago in Dallas, these are awkward titles to have on your office desk if you aren't a social worker or something close.

Sex Slaves, at one point, refers to Bangkok as "the world's brothel." When people ask me what I think of Bangkok, I usually say something about the food, mostly because "the world's brothel" is often what first comes to mind. I recognize that this thought is unfair to Thai people in general and citizens of Bangkok in particular, but for half a week every week, it's what I see of the city.

Women are trafficked here from all over the continent, but Sex Slaves asserts that the majority are from Burma and North Thailand. These women arrive under varying levels of coercion, from outright, drugged kidnapping to a conscious choice, albeit made under the duress of poverty and a familial culture that emphasizes concrete, financial indebtedness to one's parents. These are the girls lining the street that I walk down three times a week at night.

In the daytime, Bangkok offers me the chance to tour scores of intricately constructed wats--temples--all dedicated to a seemingly innocuous, peaceful dogma that fatalistically assigns a prostitute her lot in life with no hope to save.

What do I think of Bangkok? The food is excellent.

As usual this week, we had outreach on Monday and Wednesday. This week we prepared food packets beforehand--two chicken sticks, an orange, and bread. Nearly all the faces this past week were familiar, so our awkward Thai conversations were longer and more awkward, with lots of pauses, but with much grace. When someone we know allows us to sit with them, they are always happy to forgive our linguistic shortcomings.

The police were out in force both nights, apparently running off child beggars after "confiscting" their earnings and taking their shoe-shining kits. This meant that many of our friends were gone or hiding by the time we made it to Nana.

This week, Jeff and I participated in our first, and unfortunately second-to-last, week of partner ship with the MST--Men and the Sex Trade--project. The project seeks to humanize the men who visit Nana plaza and Soi Cowboy as broken sinners in need of grace as opposed to much more one-dimensional labels like "pervert."

Next week, we will actually approach men for discussion. This last week, we joined MST on a very eye-opening prayer walk through Nana plaza. I had seen the entrance to the plaza every week during outreach, but was unaware of the structure within. I found it disturbingly procedural. I needn't go into details here--you can always ask me--but the place is every bit as orderly as I imagine any Old Testament cult's fertility temples would be. The men there are not just out-of-control tourists on a bender, they are pious adherents of a religion.

At home, I've taken up yoga with Bethany leading the way. It was my idea, which should stricke anyone who knows me as odd. Thankfully, Bethany never lets me escape my committment. I'm getting sore in places I didn't know existed.

As I post this, there's only one week of English teaching left at Klong Thoei. I think I'll miss those kids, even the really loud ones.

Week 12 - The One About the Massage

Fact: the average meal here is around 90 cents, the sort of meal you would easily pay $9.00 for at Royal Thai on Greenville.

Outreach twice again this week. We spent a little time visiting with people we already knew, handing out Thai workbooks and pencils to the little ones. I am lost in these relationships, those which can seemingly go no further than "How are you." If they happen to say they are not well, and I ask why, I will not understand what they say after that. At times like these, I have to believe the eternal Logos is also preached in mystery, apart from the spoken gospel, that Christ in me is enough and that the Spirit will shout grace and mercy in a way that surpasses me.

An aside on the subject of mystery: does anyone think there's a link between Eastern Orthodox and the Southern USA pentecostal tradition? I've been obsessed with this question lately.

We discussed Nouwen's Compassion on Thursday. Nouwen writes in riddles, but there were a couple of edifying concepts in the essay. Mainly, that of presence. Nouwen aims in the beginning to dismiss the idea of compassion as a condescending pity, a common misconception. Compassion, for Nouwen, and I think accurately, is sharing the suffering of your neighbor. The practical manifestation of this becomes a question with in impossible number of answers, but Nouwen happens to mention sharing awkwardness as one of them. Sitting with a beggar who is likely Cambodian and knows little Thai, when you yourself already know little Thai, is assuredly one of the most awkward things I have done. Nouwen's exhortation is not to run from that awkwardness, not to exist in frantic impatience that desires only to run away from the moment, but to share the awkwardness with them in your brief relationship. It sounds goofy, but it rings more true than the noble fantasies of "compassion" in my head.

On Tuesday, our Thai friend Boo came over and cooked for us. Boo keeps outdoing herself in the cooking department. This time it was a yellow curry over noodles and sauteed garlic. I aim to try and recreate her achievements when I return home, but I doubt they will come close.

This week, I began my WMF project. My goal is to locate squatter communities around Bangkok. This mostly entails walking a lot. On Monday, it entailed some dude stalking me for a few blocks with a big stick. I wouldn't have minded so much if he'd actually swung the big stick or done anything for that matter, but whenever I turned on him, he just gave me a blank stare. He was either an imbecile or very high. Regardless, he left me a few blocks later.

The squatter communities are a mixture of depressingly inadequate and surprisingly tranquil. Grigg in his book Companion to the Poor distinguishes between several types of squatter communities. They are not all places of despair, although there are those. Some are highly organized, insular communities that care for their citizens. All of them exist on unclaimed property, often near a railroad track or canal. Some of them have been around for decades. I encounterd suspicious individuals, as mentioned above, but I also encountered the characteristic Thai generosity. As I walked through one community, an older gentleman came out to stop me from continuing, saying, in English, "Um, that one, he bite," as he pointed to a dog directly in front of me.

I got my payoff massage for winning the "new experience/extrem food" contest of a couple months ago. It was a real swank place. They washed our feet to begin--Tim and Jeff came along--and gave me some very loose-fitting pajamas to change into. I think she gave me the foreigner, "I'm trying not to hurt you" version of the classic Thai massage. She could have twisted me a lot further than she did, but it was nice. There was pan flute music. And then they gave us tea.

Prayer Requests:

--That I would work on my project when I have free time. Time is getting short.

Week 11 - Staying Present

It must be close to winter, because Lotus--a local megastore--has dragged out their tocques and scarves. Soon Thais will be bundling up for chilly days topping out at 85 deg. Farenheit. I will still be sweating, but even I've noticed the difference. For the past couple of weeks, I have been sliding under the sheets somewhere mid-sleep. The mornings have been dry and cool, or what passes for cool in central Thailand.

As promised, the regular schedule resumed this week, which included our Monday and Wednesday night outreaches. Additionally, we had the opportunity to visit one family we've gotten to know at their home. I think this really shows where the Mission of WMF takes traction; seeing someone who happens to beg in the context of their living space humanizes them.

I wish I could write in full about something that happened this week, but it would be unwise and maybe unsafe to publish even a slight detail. Suffice it to say that to witness the Holy Spirit calling one to belief over time is a special kind of blessing, the radical nature of which one can miss if you aren't paying careful attention.

I am trying to do my work here without distraction. In Nouwen's Compassion, he exhorts the reader to exercise a holy patience that allows them to remain in the present, particularly as it relates to our relationships. A trite, but relevant example is that of listening to someone as opposed to waiting for your turn to speak. At the same time, I have a brain, and I would have to shut it down entirely to avoid knowing that I have a mere six weeks left. I also have practical matters that need to be planned in that time. Still, there is a great need for me to remain present, to be with people--my living community, those we meet on the street, the children we teach on Saturday--in the present tense. To do otherwise, is to dehumanize them to some degree.

Prayer Requests:

--As already stated, that I would be present. As with all inward movements toward God and neighbor, I cannot do this of my own volition, but only the Spirit can move me. Pray for this grace.