Love each other / Unite for freedom, justice, and peace / Forgive and don't hate each other / Pray with faith, act with courage / Never surrender

http://www.freeburmarangers.org/

http://www.partnersworld.org/

a couple websites that explain what i've seen a little of in the past week, and more importantly, what these other people are up to... really good stuff!

more later.
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Trat

“What’s your name?” Trat keeps asking, and then repeats my name every few seconds, just to check, just to cement this connection with the foreigner sitting next to him on the green tarp.

He’s excited and excitable, tugging at his “Crow Sports” t-shirt, rubbing the back of his recently shaved head, fiddling with the Buddhist amulet around his neck. We are here on this hot Saturday morning with about thirty other kids and a handful of club staff and volunteers, hunkered down in a bit of shade near the cemetery slum where Trat lives for some songs, games, stories, and snacks.

Even so close to the old Chinese cemetery, signs of life abound: green, leafy trees which soften the glare of sun on hard red earth; an impressive pile of garbage which testifies to the community inside the cement cinder-block wall sprawled around the slum; blue jeans on the line; toothbrushes and toothpaste jammed into the crook of a light-post; and an adorable dimpled baby being passed from grandmother to aunt to sister to cousin…

Life’s a crowd here, and Trat is often lost in all the noise. He’s keeping half an eye on the story turning page by page in the hands of the club leader, but mostly he’s busy flipping and catching his 5 baht coin. Finally! He spots the ice cream vendor pulling up on a bike, and is off like a shot.

When he wanders back, I ask him a few questions. “Chocolate” seems to work its way in to many of his answers, and he’s also a big soccer fan. He’s lived here his whole life, with his parents and older brothers. His mother sells birds to people wanting to release them on the beach for good merit. His father works not far away, at a hotel in Pattaya, but if it’s glitzy, it is, in truth, a far cry from where they live. Trat wants to be a soldier when he grows up… see Thailand, serve the king, eat well and dress sharp.

Does Trat know Jesus? It’s hard for Trat to even hear this question, in all the kids’ club hubbub, and his eyes glaze over a bit. Finally he nods non-committally: “I’ve heard of him…” Jesus is the man he coloured a few minutes ago on a picture of Psalm 23. The guy taking care of fourteen sheep, which Trat and his friends garbed in international flags – the colours of Thailand, Brazil, Italy, Germany, and some other favourite soccer teams.

Maybe the boys aren’t far off; after all, Jesus is the good shepherd to sheep of all stripes. He’s more than heard of Trat, knows his penchant for chocolate and his future hopes; knows the shadow cast by the cemetery over his slum home.

Knows all the other shadows cast here, and walks beside Trat anyway.

Noi

Noi, on the other hand, is full of questions for me:

--“Why does God love the whole world?”

--“Does Jesus especially love kids?”

--“Why did he have to die?”

-- “Will you be at church tomorrow?”

Noi listens carefully to make sure my answers are good’n’orthodox, interested not so much in me as in the consistency of this Jesus she’s heard so much about.

God loves the WHOLE world because it all belongs to him! So he wants to take care of it, just like you want to take care of your cat and your dog, right? Noi smiles and buries her nose in the front of my shirt. Apparently this sniffing is an affectionate thing around here. And somehow Noi does manage to give her cat, Mai, and her dog, Mee, the same kind of affection, even though 10-odd people live in their shack.

Jesus very VERY especially loves kids. One time his grown-up friends tried to stop some kids that came running to see him, just like you and all your friends came running to see us today! But Jesus told his friends to be quiet, and guess what he did? He let them sit on his lap, just like you’re sitting here with me! I wonder if Noi, at eight years old, has had the chance to do this very much. Her father is a question mark, though an uncle of sorts is in and out -- busy with drugs. The mother-figure in their home is usually gone, selling helium balloons up and down the Pattaya coast. Older sisters beat on the little ones until they move out in search of dubious jobs, and Noi’s grandmother is worn threadbare keeping the remaining kids together, so there may not be a lot of room in her lap for someone small needing a snuggle.

Can YOU tell me why Jesus had to die? Noi is in her element here, and fires off a no-fail answer – “Love!” She also fires off today’s memory verse, complete with actions: “Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good!” And that’s just it, because Jesus’ action on the cross is the best example we’ll ever see, of good overcoming bad. Noi and her next-oldest sister, Nung, are sharp as tacks and both so diligent in filing away these gleaming bits of God’s word. The difference He makes is palpable, and sometimes seemingly impossible. Will Noi and Nung be free to follow their minds all the way through school? Instead of stopping after grade six, like so many of their friends, to sell gum on the beach? -- or worse things, in worse places? Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good…

(Pause) I’m sorry, Noi; I won’t be at church tomorrow. I’m only here one day. She’s disappointed, but starts counting off everyone else who will be there: her and Nung; their older cousin Mem; Khun LeeAnn, who first told them about Jesus; Pi Bon, who plays guitar for their songs and has a really cool tattoo; Nong Boom, who can only see from one eye because his dad hit him; and maybe even Baifern, though she has to work a lot more, now that she’s twelve.

She’s in good company, this little girl who asks big questions.

Pattaya

Flabby old white guy, his No Money No Honey wife-beater showing off a bad sun-burn. Crammed next to him in the pick-up truck taxi is a young Thai girl, hair streaked orange and plucked eye-brows growing back in again. She jockeys her mini-skirt closer and throws an arm around him.

A more middle-aged Thai woman with warm brown eyes and a wide smile sits on a bench in a local shopping mall. Grocery bags are sprawled all around, and an ironing board is propped up behind her. She’s waiting for her more-than-middle-aged German boyfriend to finish up his emails home from the internet café.

Two-year-old Daniel is fidgety in the afternoon heat, fussing in his mom’s friend’s lap while she gets her hair straightened at a local salon. His pale skin and light hair prove his connection to a father who doesn’t know he exists. He’s an obvious step-brother to five-year-old Tim, who’s hyped up on Pepsi! and also missing a dad -- but that doesn’t put a damper on their brotherly scraps, even here in the salon…

Eve uses a plastic bucket to douse herself with cool water before she puts on a pink t-shirt and some striped orange pants. She doesn’t want to smell like home when she goes in to work tonight, and it’s been stinking hot lately. Swamp land is free, so this is where she’s lived all her life, but they might be able to move soon. When she finished grade six her mom asked her to go work at Naughty Girl. Eve’s been making pretty good money since then.

Nicha’s a nice girl from Sukhothai who finished grade nine. She moved down to Pattaya five years ago in hopes of snagging a rich American boyfriend like her friend Lutti did. Nicha would love to have a place like Jeff and Lutti’s, with plenty of space for cute little half-foreign kids to run around in. Maybe plant some fruit trees – her favorite is papaya. Nicha’s still mixing drinks in Pattaya, though, a few papaya slings thrown in for good measure, and hoping for the best.

Maow has been a mother to them all, every one of these obnoxious boys lounging around the table in their heels and lipstick, competing for the best joke. Teenagers! she thinks, and sighs. She’s glad she had a few drinks before she came to this party. The food is always great and the people mean well, but she’s been working the bars seventeen years and can’t always handle these smiling Christians and their hope. What?! Seventeen years already, since Bo died? Her young-married-farm-wife days are that long gone? Maow shifts her seafood salad around on her plate. Shrugs and smiles a bit apologetically at the young white church-girl sitting next to her at the banquet.

Rose is stunning in red, and unashamed to stand and ask for prayer. Nervous nonetheless, she is stunned herself when a small foreigner comes up and begins praying in broken Thai. Tears flow with the simple words she repeats with all her heart: Thank you, God. You love me. You give me new life. You see the good in me and you can take away the bad. We can walk together every day. Thank you, God. You love me...

Hello, I'd Like to Introduce My Favourite Tree

Cassia fistula,

a.k.a. "Pudding pipe tree,"

or in Thai, Ratchaphruek.

"Golden Shower" fits too.


(With deep apologies to my former favourite trees)

Chaiwat

In the picture, five-year-old Chaiwat is twisted sideways and laughing gleefully into his friend’s face, nudging him with an armload of books and toys. But his legs are so slight, dangling from the edge of his mother’s bed, and her smile from behind him is somewhat forced and wistful. She is dying of AIDS.

Six years later, I meet Chaiwat in the principal’s office at the Temple school he’s sponsored to attend. Outside, a golden Buddha gleams in the heavy press of sunlight; inside, Chaiwat perches uncomfortably on the edge of the vinyl couch. Gone is the hyper five-year-old grin. He is cautious with his eyes, reticent with his words… and maybe disappointed to be missing some of his recess time.

He shrugs off the healing bruise under one of his eyes -- from a boxing match, he says, with a friend -- but cannot shrug away the sad shadow in his eyes. Chaiwat resembles his grandfather in so many ways: the fine, high cheekbones; the politely deferential nod of his head; the fidgety fingers; and most poignantly, this haunted composure of defeat. Haunted again by death.

Not long ago, Chaiwat’s grandmother lost her mobility and much of her spirit to a stroke. I have just come from their patchy plywood home, which leans precariously over a polluted canal, where she lies silently weeping and plucking the sparse hair from her scalp. Chaiwait’s grandfather labours every day to the Temple to pick up some free food for his small family, but he is slowly starving himself in mourning for his wife. His thin frame is tattooed over with emblems of death – skulls, crossbones, devouring snakes.

Chaiwat spends all his free time and what pocket change he has escaping into video games with his friends. A troupe of them will wander down to the local hole-in-the-wall internet place and pay about fifty cents to take turns playing and watching one computer screen for an hour. Chaiwat doesn’t care much about school, contrary to the letters he sends to his sponsors, and plans only to finish grade nine.

After that, he’ll follow some of his relatives in becoming a monk, which is a respectable – and more importantly, inexpensive – lifestyle for an impoverished young man with few options. Perhaps he’s intent on leaving home because he knows his grandparents are dying and will leave him first.

The small miracle is: he hasn't left yet.

Not yet.

Som & Yin

“Auntie” Som pulls up a stool in the front stoop of her home. “Sorry about the mosquitoes,” she says. “At night there are so many! They get fat eating while we’re sleeping!” Flashing her tired toothless grin, she wipes her hands on her Pokémon apron and gestures inside. “Last year the roof was full of rats, but it seems they’ve found a better home now!” Again that grin.

Auntie is one of Bangkok’s countless food vendors, and a glance inside makes it plain to see. The small, dark room she rents for herself and her granddaughter is piled high with cooking supplies: oil for deep-frying the battered banana tidbits she sells, sweet and spicy sauces to serve with the satay pork skewers, lifters and strainers and stacks and stacks of dishes… All of which she hauls daily to a busy street-corner just beyond the corrugated tin fence so commonly used to separate slum-dwellings like hers from public space. Out there under the ubiquitous coca-cola umbrellas, the steady scream of passing traffic makes it hard to chat; hence the invite back home.

She has a bit of a limp because she lost a couple toes in an accident not long ago, but the walk isn’t far. It’s here we await the after-school return of her granddaughter, Yin, who is part of the child sponsorship program. But it’s a Friday afternoon, and Yin appears to be having fun somewhere! Nearly finished grade five, she’s an energetic tomboy unafraid to join in on rowdy matches of soccer, handball, even takraaw – an acrobatic no-hands version of something like volleyball. Just as we’re regretfully eyeing the traffic jams, thinking we should start heading off, Yin saunters in off the falling-apart sidewalk, hair in a hurried ponytail, shirt disheveled and untucked from her pleated schoolgirl skirt.

Yin is happy to see Mac, the child sponsorship field worker. She gives him a casual wai, laughing easily like her grandmother as she explains that her marks in science and math aren’t so good, but otherwise she’s doing okay. Her voice is clear and strong, and she comfortably cracks her knuckles while we talk, nodding, “Yeah!” to Mac’s query as to whether or not she’ll be at church on Sunday.

In reality, Yin has walked so much farther than just to and from school. Labeled as a “naughty girl” and foisted on her grandmother by the neglect of her mother, who works as a “contemporary employee” somewhere in Bangkok, she’s come such a long way. She still has a long way to go: odds are, she will be tempted by money and pressured family to quit school and work as a bar girl once she’s done grade nine, if not before. Auntie Som, her sole care-giver, is aging rapidly, and will need her support soon. Yin’s path is indeed a falling-down sidewalk.

Oh God our only path, grant that she continue the daily trek so safely, so confidently…

outside the gate

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever…

[He] suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

Hebrews 13: 8, 12-14


They’re digging up the road outside the gate of my apartment complex. Silty mud dries to a fine rusty dust that coats everything. A snake lies squished near the ditch. Of all the balding dogs that laze and wander, one in particular stuns my heart: such impossibly tiny perfect bones, such wretched, nonchalant eyes. He is lame in one hind leg and limps indifferently through the constant traffic.

The women, too, are indifferent. Swathed against the sun in dark layered clothing and wide-brimmed hats, they squat to rest their backs awhile. Meet my eyes but don’t smile. They are construction labourers, who, along with their husbands, haul the many loads of bricks needed to build high-rise condos like mine. Slap up tin-roofed shanties for their children to sleep in until they move on to a new job-site.

Someone still remembers to water the clutch of orange poppies growing lopsided out of a rubbish heap, and if I follow a rutted path off the road, through a tangle of tall grass and reeds, I will find a swamp profuse with wind-blown water lilies. A tough-skinned palm tree streaming ragged fronds in the sunlight. It’s here I can trace the flight-paths of birds from below.

The window back at my apartment is often even higher than the birds’-eye view. Plumeria trees, bougainvillea shrubs, coconut palms are all religiously manicured, and the only dog I see is a wrinkled pug yapping at me from behind the tinted window of his owner’s air-conditioned SUV. Outside, this SUV shares the same road as a mother pushing her kids to work in a hand-cart.

Some of the dust out here settles into the embroidery of my embarrassingly white brand-name peasant blouse. I step back through the gate, sweating and heavy with the burden of cheap ice cream I’ve bought to share with the other missionaries who live on the inside.