#spinterns

it’s T-minus 48 hours until i leave Thailand and i don’t want it to be real. having to say goodbye to so many friends is always hard. i did it before coming to Thailand a year and a half ago and i’m doing it again as i prepare to leave. i once heard someone say “being an adult just means that all your friends now live in different cities and you’re in a state of perpetually missing someone.” it’s been on my mind more and more these past few weeks. 

i never thought that i’d be in this place of not wanting to leave Thailand. growing up i never really had any love for Thailand or its people, and it wasn’t until roughly three years ago when God sent me on this journey specifically to remedy that heart-attitude of mine that things would begin to change. it only took three years of crossing the same ocean six times and spending a year and seven months in a land that wasn’t my home in order to find that it was. 

it was three years ago, as i sat in a small, cement house beside a paralytic, old man in a bangkok slum community, that God showed me the story of Elijah and the Sidonian widow with new eyes. ones that saw the transformation of Elijah and ones that saw the place that God wanted me to be as well. if i was to love God fully, i needed to learn to also love Thai people. if i was to sing of God’s love for me, i needed to also learn of His love for Thai people as well. there was no room for animosity in my heart if i wanted God to have a place there. and so i returned to bangkok. it was difficult. but my Jesus carried a cross for me to die for my sins, setting the prime example that obedience to a holy God trumps my own desire for safety and comfort. my struggles seemed small in comparison.

in the past year and a half i’ve learned so much about how much God loves Thai people. in the past six months especially, i was able to experience the ways in which He taught them to love, and in that i was able to understand a side of God’s love that i’d been missing for so long. 

yesterday i spent some time with one of the first people we met in the community, Aunty Cake. as she made me breakfast, we reminisced about how she’d helped us so much when we first moved in. when i tried to pay her for the meal she refused saying she couldn’t possibly charge me for the last meal she’d probably be able to cook for me. she told me to remember it and come back to visit her again.

earlier this week we went on a retreat at a homestay in one of the southern provinces. the family was so kind and welcoming it felt like i was staying at a friend’s house visiting and helping them around the farm. as we prepared to leave, Mom (because that’s what we called her), cried as she hugged us and kissed our cheeks telling us to return to see her again soon. i dwelt on that moment the whole trip back to the city. it was as if Thailand itself had said goodbye, reminding me to not take too long in coming back to see her.

last week our church small group sang us not only one song, but three songs in order to encourage us and show how much we’d be missed. they kept demanding that we come back to visit again so they could take us to their favorite provinces and places to see.

two weeks ago one of my guitar students said to me, “But by the time you come back i’ll be all grown up and you won’t recognize me anymore!”

“but you haven’t even been to Chiangmai yet! please, try to make it to Yexusfest this summer!” was what the aunties said on my final visit to the Hmong church by my community.

this has been on the back burner of my mind since even before i entered the field and i feel like this blog post is long overdue. when i had first had thoughts about doing the internship with Servant Partners as a Senior in college three years ago, it felt like two years was an enormous amount of time. at the same time, with the experience of the Global Trek under my belt, i had a small understanding of just how long it could take to adjust to a new culture and learn how to exist in it, not even considering trying to share the gospel within that context as well. But as things began to get more real after getting accepted to the program a over a year ago, i began to feel the pressure of expectations for what missions work looked like by people around me. i would hear things like, “Oh, i can’t wait to hear about all the people that come to know Christ!’ or “It’s so exciting to know that you’ll be going to Thailand to help plant churches there!” 

after over a year abroad among the urban poor of Bangkok, i have helped to plant zero churches, had spiritual-ish conversations with maybe eight people, and invited a whopping zero people to receive the gospel of Jesus. if ministry was all about numbers, then mine would clearly be failing miserably. with that in mind, how do i present my ministry to all the friends and family back in the States who’re anxious to hear about my successes when all i seem to have are failures? it’s been a constant battle to maintain a hopeful and optimistic outlook when it seems like everything we’ve been involved with so far has been fruitless. what was the point of learning to speak a new language if i haven’t shared the gospel with anyone? what was the point of building relationships in the community if none of them have started believing in Jesus? what was the point of even coming to Thailand if by the end of the two years i still haven’t seen anyone become a christian? why am i even doing this if i’m clearly not effective in it? after returning from my short trip to the US in August and into September as we neared our 1 year mark, these questions and insecurities continued to grow louder and louder, threatening to consume me. 

the first half of the internship has been a struggle. struggle for sanity. struggle for peace. struggle for joy. struggle to progress. struggle to communicate. struggle to sleep. struggle to stay cool. struggle to afford guitar strings. struggle to keep struggling. it’s only by God’s grace that i’m even still breathing. i remember the lowest point i’d reached in this past April, just weeks after Liz left, journaling at 3 in the morning because i couldn’t sleep. i cried as i asked God how the hell was i going to survive this internship if i hadn’t slept more than 6 hours a night in over 2 years and i wasn’t going to get more than 3 hours of sleep this night, or the next, or the next--it was Songkhran week and then right after we’d be heading to lead a camp for our Youth program. i remember freaking out over the fact that i might have to return from the internship early because i just couldn’t physically handle being in Thailand. i remember writing in my journal, “God, i don’t want to say no to You, but what if i have to?” that was about 6 months into the internship, and since then it hasn’t gotten much easier to sleep despite how i’ve adjusted my personal schedule to make up for the sleep i don’t get each night. after that emotional breakdown, i didn’t feel better, but i was able to press on hoping for some miracle on God’s part to sustain me now that my heart had been laid bare before Him, and He has. 

in so many ways, despite the loneliness, despite the insomnia, despite the feeling of failure, despite the sluggish progress, God has kept me. by His mighty hand alone, i was able to make it to Manila, our halfway point. As we prepared for our two week trip to Manila, we could all feel our motivation waning. it was hard to want to spend time in the community. we had grown so weary from trying so hard to make connections that just getting through language class was a struggle hard enough to expend all our energy for the day. personally, my soul was crying out for rest, and although i had no idea what we could fully expect from our time in Manila, i hoped i would find it there. 

Manila, to say the least, was everything i needed to return hopeful once again in the work we were doing in Thailand. although the house i stayed in for the duration of our stay was surrounded on all sides by roosters that crowed every 5 minutes starting as early as 9.30pm, God provided me rest in other ways and He restored my soul just by allowing me to breathe in the air that wasn’t filled with the spiritual tensions of Thailand. the whole team returned from the Philippines ready to enter the second half of our internship.

it was around this halfway point however, where the team was given the option of ending early as the internship had ended up panning out in ways unplanned and not ideal, and as we all reflected upon how mentally, physically, and emotionally taxing the year had been for each of us, we each came to our own decisions to remain for the next year or to return early. not long after returning from Manila, our intern team went from three to two as Alex ended early and returned to the US. 

As Alex prepared to leave and the rest of us pressed forward into year two, we began seeing fruit from our previous year of struggle come to bear. for some reason, it was easier to spend time with neighbors. almost as if out of nowhere, we now had many friends with which we could share life with regularly. opportunities arose in the community to start a music and english program. neighbors volunteered to help us with these programs. one friend in particular, a non-christian neighbor, began asking us questions regarding our faith and why we prayed before meals as she spent more time with us. 

it’s completely ridiculous how much has happened in this past month alone. the king passed away, giving us opportunities to have deeper conversations with our neighbors. Alex returned to the States, suddenly revealing fruitful relationships due to his labor and commitment to the community. we discovered a Hmong church located just outside of Suwan Prasit, opening up more church partnership opportunities. in this month alone we’ve had more opportunities to have spiritual conversations with friends and neighbors than the last year in its entirety and for that i praise God. 

if you were to ask any longtime christian about their “life verse” just about every person you asked would immediately be able to point to a bible passage that inspires or encourages them most; likely from a Psalm or one of Paul’s letters–if you’re lucky you might even get a direct quote from the lips of Jesus Himself. i never quite understood the need to have such things like a “life verse” or a favorite passage, and for years i lived with slight anxiety over the off-chance that someone would ask me what mine was and i’d have to make something up on the spot. but like most things i ask for half-joking, i reluctantly discovered what my “life verse” was and now i’m stuck with it.

it had to have been at least 9 years ago when my good friend, MaiNhia, and i were sitting in our high school cafeteria discussing scripture like the bible nerds we were (we’re still bible nerds). she was confused over a passage she had come across the night before and wanted to know what i thought about it. something like, “Dude, i found this bible verse last night, and i sorta understand it…but i also kinda don’t.” she pulled out her bible and flipped to the second-to-last page of Ecclesiastes and pointed to the verse, “whadyou think?”

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days (Ecc 11:1)

that was the first time i’d ever heard the verse in my life (granted, i was only in high school), but as we discussed it we came to the conclusion that it had something to do with entrusting things to God’s will and left it at that. it’s come up here and there since that first discovery, but i won’t sweat the details…yet. 

recently i’ve been thinking about Ecclesiastes 11:1 a lot, and i feel like i’ve been able to gain a much more intimate understanding of what the writer is trying to tell us when he tells us to “cast our bread upon the waters.” to start, bread is important to many middle eastern peoples. it is a staple food. it’s a necessity for sustaining life, which is likely why Jesus’s interactions dealing with bread hold such significance. and although “Man does not live on bread alone,” for most Israelites hearing what the writer is saying, it would feel foolish to disregard the importance of bread in one’s diet and, therefore, the weight of what is really being asked. bread is life.

i remember having a conversation with one of my mentors, Alice, a while back about what it would be like to have Scripture translated culturally as well as linguistically. how would that affect our understanding of what Jesus does and says? what if Jesus said, “I am the rice of life” instead of bread? how would my attitude towards Jesus shift? i’m going to let you in on a little secret: Hmong people don’t waste rice. i’ve never personally experienced what life in the old country was like, but from what i’ve heard, it was hard. often times Hmong farmers would only eat vegetables and rice because meat was reserved for special occasions. sometimes you wouldn’t even be able to afford to eat vegetables so you’d grab some chili peppers and mix it in with your plate of rice and eat that instead. but you always ate rice.

when i was young, i recall spending time at my grandparent’s house watching my uncle sifting through bowls of uncooked rice because maggots had found their way into the 100 lb bag they had. there were no thoughts of ever throwing out the rice. it just meant more work to do before being able to cook the rice for meals. my uncle would scoop rice out of the bag and then meticulously search for and remove any maggots before finally pouring it into the rice cooker to be rinsed and cooked. it sometimes took him nearly an hour to cook rice because of this, but he still did it anyway. because rice is life.

now imagine someone asking you to cast your uncooked rice upon the waters. if you grew up in an asian home like me, you may have felt a slight tugging in the pit of your stomach. that’s the feeling. that’s the feeling the Israelites felt when they heard “cast your bread upon the waters…” 

when God says, “cast your bread upon the waters,” he’s not just asking us to toss away a bit of food, he’s asking us to entrust something to him that’ll hurt to give up. it is a request to be allowed into the room in our heart where we keep our most delicate and fragile treasures–to touch us where we are most raw. if bread is life, then to cast it upon the waters is to willingly risk need, to willingly risk pain, to willingly risk death. what God asks of us is no small sacrifice. it is the same sacrifice he asked of Abraham when he asked for Abraham’s son.

will you lift your knife to the thing you love most for My sake?

when i think about it like this, realizing the magnitude of what God is asking for, i immediately want to say “no.” it’s unreasonable. i need this. why should i? but even as i begin to try to talk myself around it, it’s that very mentality that tells me i must open my grasping hand and allow the thing that gives me life–my friends, my hopes, my family–to fall upon the waters. it was painful to not be able to be present with my family when God took away our Zekie. it hurts to know that some friendships are likely nearing the end of their season. it hurts to think that if God continues to call me into a life of ministry as He has been, i’ll likely never be able to have a family of my own. and i know that none of these things are life threatening, but God knows they are the treasures i cling to most. the treasures He Himself gave to me and the ones i defend with my life. and He asks me to cast them upon the waters. He asks me to come and die.

but just as God stopped Abraham at the precise moment to give Isaac back to him, God promises “that you might find it after many days.” it is not a promise that we might think it is, however. it’s a promise of life, of joy, of hope…but not necessarily of the thing we’ve given up. not everyone gets to be Abraham. not everyone gets to have their Isaac back. but we know that God is good, and we are well aware of his promise-keeping track record, but that doesn’t make it suck any less nor does it make it any easier. it’s hard to trust God to answer and fulfill these promises when he keeps asking us to give things up, but it’s important to consider whether we love the good things God gives to us or if we love the good Giver that God is to us. sometimes it isn’t always clear.