Firstly, Kara is coming here in exactly one week from today! We are so excited and can't wait. Currently we are airing out her room (its smells really weird) and looking for ways to decorate for her. When she gets here she will jump right in with what we are doing and substitute for Amanda's English class while she is gone in America for her sister's wedding.
Secondly, we had a crazy awesome time this weekend getting our visas renewed in Laos. We went with our friend Steve from New Zealand who needed his visa renewed too and we met up with our friend Haley in Phayao. We made pizza, lit and sent off lanterns, ate crickets, ran into a cow, talked to some really funny ladies at a temple, waited in line forever in Laos immigration, had a prostitute in our guesthouse, befriended the Thai owner of a Mexican restaurant, and generally had an adventure.
Lanterns in Phayao
Crossing the Mekong River to Laos
On the bus home from Chiang Rai Amanda and I were talking about how we are becoming more aware of how lost the majority of Thai people really are. When we first arrived, it was easy to just see how new and exciting everything was but now we can look around more critically and see how much their society needs God. Please pray with us about these things and pray that we can continue to show God to the people here.
Idolatry is very rampant here. There are temples on every high place and in every city with several statues of Buddha in each. It is almost painful to watch the people bow down and offer sacrifices to these golden images. It is so easy to relate this to the people in the Bible always being tempted to bow down to a statue. Recently Amanda said she felt like Shadrach, Meschac and Abednego when we went to a temple and were the only ones not bowing down. One of our students said that Thai people ask for things from Buddha like we ask for things from our god. It is hard to explain the difference and so easy to just nod in agreeance. We strive daily to be lights in a lost world.
This weekend there were only 4 rooms at our guesthouse and we had two of them and one man was in the other. We realized that night that he had a Thai prostitute in his room and we struggled with what to do. Do we say something or simply try to ignore it? It is a common issue here where many farang (white) men come to Thailand for the express purpose to find prostitutes. There are so many young girls here who know nothing else and think that prostitution is the only way they can ever make money. We must help girls understand their value and worth to their heavenly father.
Thai family structure is also changing where parents will leave their children with the rest of the family and move to a bigger city to find work. This puts so much pressure on the rest of the family and is not generally a healthy life for the child, never knowing their parents. And it is very normal in Thai families to have infidelity when they are in these different cities but to simply ignore it to save face. I know it happens in America too but it definitely feels more real to me here. One friend told us a story of a Thai man who had two wives, not legally, and brought them both to his father's funeral and everyone joked about it.
Ladyboys are men that act and dress like women. They are literally everywhere. Buddhism is very accepting and open to new things and this has allowed ladyboys to really be accepted into everyday Thai culture. There is no sense of this being wrong and it is so clear in the Bible that homosexuality is wrong and that God made us the way that he wants us to be. It is important for us to love the person and know that God loves them and wants them to know him.
Thinking of all of these things about the lack of God's will in Thailand makes us more ready and willing than ever to try to share Him with the people around us. We want to be light and hope to the people here and we are excited and encouraged by what we see happening around us.
