The Great Thai Flood of 2011: New Perspectives in Hard Times

There was a really profound editorial in the Bangkok post this weekend, about how hardships can make us stronger. I truly believe that. It’s not a new idea, and many world religions subscribe to this thought as well. But I have seen proof of it in the beautiful Thai people as they have faced enormous challenges over the last two months of the country’s worst floods in 50 years. Without fail, the flood victims I talk to respond with “There are many more people who are suffering greater losses and facing far more difficulties than myself.”

Wow.

And sniff.

And shame on me for ever complaining.

With strong affection and great respect I dedicate this blog post to my พี่น้องชาวไทย, my Thai family, and to กรุงเทพมหานคร, the city of Bangkok, that has welcomed our family for the last 20 years and helped us raise global-minded children.

This is a collection of photos that I received in an email. I have translated their captions. I pray I will do justice in representing.

“New Perspectives In Hard Times”

We see… housing projects that promote the cozy atmosphere of a lakeside villa

We see… the beauty of our ancient heritage sights from a brand new perspective

We see… people helping each other where ‘we deliver’ is quite a promise!

We see…how to wrap things: apply generous amounts of tape

We see…a new kind of flood spectator (who packs a gun too)

We see…love without favortism

We see…those who will not be deterred

We see…advertising that really means what they say (‘washing stock’ is a Thai expression for ‘all stock must go’)

We see…those who are ready to make necessary sacrifices and move under the raft so the dog will be safe

We see…that we don’t have to go to the beach to get a tan

We see…stubborn perseverance, and good karma (no one got electrocuted)

We see…new guests taking a peek “Honey, I’m home!”

We see…national animals that do the job better than machines

We see…fashionistas posing in sand “Someone has to keep an eye on things”

We see…sea monsters in the middle of the city. No need to make a trip to the Mekhong.

We see…control-freak home-owners “No water allowed on premises…without permission”

We see… only in Thailand

We see…everyone ready to lend a hand.

We see…how we are undaunted even in the scary conditions

We see…our duty as Buddhists

We see…business as usual

We see…brand new customs

We see…how these (not-so)little piggies get to market

We see…how ‘going to the gym’ takes on a whole different purpose

We see…how frugal we can be. Who needs to waste money driving down to the beach?

We see…what it means to ”be prepared” and how best to analyse the situation

We see…the irony of helmets in a boat even though we don’t wear one when we ride a motorcycle

We see…a sea-side mini mart

We see…that even the smallest space will do

We see…even the tourists can just go with the flow

We see…where we have to take the boat to get the bus, take the bus to get the boat

We see…how much love and concern we have for our King, as we work to keep water away from the Sirirat Hospital (where HM resides)

And finally we see…how much love and concern our King has for us that instead of getting someone else to purchase it and put his name on it, he purchased it on his own, and look at what generous amounts he gives too!

Related articles

• Media News: Matichon, Bangkok Post & TNN “Clash Heads” on Yingluck’s Thai flood management (thaiintelligentnews.wordpress.com)
• Bangkok flooding causes more evacuations (abclocal.go.com)
• More Bangkok residents advised to flee flood threat (ctv.ca)
• Thailand:Bangkok remains on alert for flooding (laaska.wordpress.com)
• Thailand Floods 2011: Ancient Capital Damaged (huffingtonpost.com)
• More Bangkok residents advised to flee floodwaters (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Prefab shells offer makeshift shelter for flooded Thais – CNN International (edition.cnn.com)
• Bangkok:Thai floods cause less damage despite high tides (laaska.wordpress.com)
• Thai PM: Flooding won’t devastate central Bangkok (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Thai PM: Flooding won’t devastate central Bangkok (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Dam Sand

 

Peter and I had been walking through this area near the Prakanaong dam for the last few days. I had to see for myself that the walls were holding the water back. The government had been ‘munjai’ (confident) too many times about other water barriers throughout Bangkok that had since broken under the pressure of an unstoppable flood. This flood was outsmarting everyone and even the designated safety zone for evacuees was lost under almost two meters of water.

We found that there was a community of people living in the low-lying area beside the canal. Shanties that looked like slave’s quarters had been home to these people for a generation, a place where children share play space with the chickens, where the old men drink beer in the morning and clothes-lines hang between rubbish heaps.

We kept meeting the same folk along our path, kept asking the same questions, “Are you worried about the flooding? Do you think the dam will hold?” Each day they answered “No problem, it won’t flood here. The dam will hold”. We drilled every official we saw at the dam, every worker, every sweeper, every fisherman “Are you afraid the walls will break?” Every time we got the same answer,

“No.”

And then Friday happened. It was a normal morning until Peter got a phone call from a friend telling us that the dam had broken. The flood was coming our way. Peter grabbed the car keys; I had to run back upstairs to get my red plaid rubber boots and socks. We took off in the car but stopped a short way from home. Our neighbour’s house was filling with water. “Can we help?”

“No, we’re okay, thanks. All our things are on the second floor. We’ll just pump the water out as it comes in.” These guys were prepared. They’d been watching the news.

I had to move fast and started running up the road, stopping from house to house, asking if they needed help. Once I was sure they were okay I knew I had to get to the homes beside the canal, beside the dam. The main street was filling rapidly with water. I kept running and splashing filthy water onto myself, hearing the Thai people calling out ‘farang glua’ meaning ‘the foreigner’s afraid.’ I wanted to shout ‘I’m not afraid for me, I’m afraid for the people living near the dam!’

Farang glua!

As I approached the homes near the dam I was shocked to find everyone going about business as usual, drying chilies in the sun, rolling cigarettes, and my new friend, Prem, was fishing behind his house. Fishing! Then I saw one lady whom I was sure was aware of what was happening right that minute out on the main street. She was hammering boards together. She’s building a boat, I thought, not unlike the make-shift boats we’d seen in the already flooded streets. Finally, I thought, someone was getting ready for the flood. She smiled at me as she looked up from her work, ’I’m building a table. I have too much stuff on the ground over there.’

Not wanting to start a panic as I passed through, I calmly explained that the dam had broken, that the streets nearby were flooding, all the while still walking toward the dam, looking for some sort of rushing water coming toward us, silently wondering ‘Am I in danger? Could I swim with these boots on much less rescue anyone?’

Then, sweat dripping, heart beating, boots sloshing, I saw it with my own eyes. The people were right to be ‘munjai’. It wasn’t the cement dam beside their community that had broken, as I had feared.

No broken walls here

It was a sand barrier that is situated a little further down the  road, a little farther down the canal from where they live.

Sand.

I should have known.

That same sand barrier was repaired that day, only to break again every day after. The water still rises, and then subsides. The lady on the corner still sells noodles while she is standing in eight inches of water. I still go out to the streets everyday, asking if everyone is okay, trying to encourage them to ‘suu suu’, hang in there. And then something beautiful and divine and supernatural happens. They encourage me, saying ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s actually kind of fun. Here, sit down with us and have a coffee while we see how deep the water rises today. By the way, where did you get those boots?’

Thai boys have fun even during the worst floods in 50 years

Who Wouldn’t Like Joel?

Who Wouldn’t Like Joel?

Josiah is our firstborn son. He had come home to Bangkok for the weekend. Last May he moved to the south where he took a job teaching high-school English. It had been four months since we’d seen him face to face. After we’d all hugged and helloed we found ourselves around the dining-room table. Noticing that he hadn’t had a haircut for a long while, Peter said, “Your hair is quite long, son. I could take you to a good place if you want.”

“Thanks, but I’m letting it grow.”

“Oh”.

We went on to talk about everything, about his work, his trips around the south, his house and his cooking. He answered our questions and he asked some of his own. Then it dawned on me… there was nothing in his life that worried me. So I told him.

“Josiah, it’s really nice that nothing about your life feels worrying to me.”

He looked at me with understanding. He was well aware of turbulent family moments, remembering, I’m sure, the deep conflicts and stress we’d all gone through over the 27 years of his life. Then he asked me a question.

“What about Joel? Do you worry about him?” I smiled on the inside at this subtle gesture of brotherly affection, an older brother, maybe worried himself, wanting to know about his younger brother.

I thought for a moment and I could honestly say, “No. I don’t worry about Joel. Joel’s doing well. His job is now fulltime so he won’t go hungry. He has moved out of that sketchy Jane and Finch neighborhood and loves living downtown. He’s in a great school. He had some challenges at work for a while, thought that maybe his boss didn’t like him, but he feels that his boss likes him now.”

“Well who wouldn’t like Joel?” Josiah said.

It’s true. Everyone who knows him can’t help but love him, despite his imperfections.

As a child Joel was a writer. Mostly he wrote short, sweet love notes to me and Peter. One morning I woke up and saw my expensive Yves St. Laurent lipstick opened on my dresser. It had been turned up all the way and the waxy part obviously had not survived the pressure. My eyes fell on the folded piece of paper that had been torn from the spiral notebook. Tell-tale stains in Yves St. Laurent-pink bled through. My face became red with the beginnings of anger. I unfolded the page and saw the words written in a child’s careful but uneven penmanship, words that doused the heat of my anger as I read, “You are the most beautiful mom. I love you so much, from Jojo.” There was a little smile drawn under the curve of the j so that his name actually looked like a smiley face with a big nose.

From the time he was a baby in Quebec we called him Jojo. ‘Jojo’ translated well intoThai.He had this fine blond hair that was soft and floaty like ostrich feathers; playfully we’d turn him upside down and pretend to sweep the floor with this human ‘feather duster’.

Because of that hair and his white baby skin, he caught the attention of strangers in the northeastern town ofNong Khai. It wasn’t long before many knew him by name. Most Sunday afternoons we’d make the 50 kilometers trip to Udonthani to hang out at the mall and escape the heat. One Sunday we were walking along the street and two young girls drove by on their scooter, waving and shouting, “Jojo! Jojo!” as though he was a celebrity. Peter and I just looked at each other and shook our heads in awe. At the mall the vendors in the food court loved to give him freebies. He’d wander off a little ways and return with an ice-cream cone, or a cocktail sausage or a plate of ‘kicky rice and kicken’.

There was no such thing as a stranger for Jojo. Everyone was more like a friend he still needed to meet. At a stop-light he’d lean out the back window of the car and call to the person –any person- who happened to be standing at the corner, “Pii kin khaow rue yang krap?” which was the common greeting in Thai, asking, ‘Hey big brother, have you eaten yet?’ They’d smile, far too delighted to be greeted like that, and they’d look around to see if anyone else happened to witness what just happened.

He brought so much attention to us in public and his older brothers got tired of it. Once when we stopped at a country gas station to fill up, the girls at the pumps kept looking at all of us, putting their faces against the glass and cupping their hands over their eyes to see beyond the tinted glass. Josiah was in the front with his widow down. One of the girls boldly asked him, as she pointed to Joel in the back seat, “Wass eess hees name?” Turning slowly so that he was face-to-face with the girl, he answered, exaggerating each syllable, “Rum-ple-STILT-skin.”

We often traveled by train in those days. Jojo loved being among so many potential new friends. I’ll never forget the day he opened up a conversation with a British couple just across the isle from us. He walked up to them, pointing over at me while declaring proudly, “That’s my mom. She can do the biggest burps of our whole family!”

He was always proud of me.

As a teen he never had that I’m-so-embarrassed-of-my-parents issue. He would come into our room, hardly ever knocking, and he’d plop right down between us on the bed, filling us in on his life. He’d stay late and we would have to tell him we were tired and it was time to go to sleep and he could bring a mat and sleep in the room if he wanted to stay. We loved having him there.

Having said that, I must tell you, there was a short period of time when he became reserved and withdrawn. He’d come home from school and rush up to his room, only coming out for meals. I noticed the change immediately. One day I took him aside and asked him if there was anything wrong. He’d had a few difficult teachers in the past and I worried there might be another one. He shook his head ‘no’ and blurted out, “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’ve been treating you badly. I’ve always heard about teens going through rebellion so I wanted to try it and see what it was like. I decided to stay in my room and act unhappy just to see what it felt like to rebel. But I can’t do it any more. I see it’s hurting you, so I won’t rebel anymore. I’m so sorry. Will you forgive me?”

Who wouldn’t like Joel?

Well, I can think of many. Public transit drivers have refused to stop for him on a cold winter’s night. Young punks on the subway frequently make rude remarks to him. A church member was upset that he went forward for communion. Teachers and schools allowed bullying, and they often participated in it and emboldened other students to continue to bully. And to be brutally honest with you, I can’t sit here and write and feel like I am somehow better than them. Until six years ago, I would have done the same and I probably did treat someone else’s son or daughter like that.

You are probably wondering ‘But Pat, why on earth would you have been like that? What happened?’

Until six years ago I didn’t know that my son, the little Jojo with a love note always in his fingertips waiting to be written, the feathery-haired, gentle-hearted Joel… was gay.

Who wouldn’t like Joel?

It’s quite clear now isn’t it? We can all think of people who wouldn’t like Joel.

Guest Post: Summer Reflections (By Peter DeWit)

This is my husband, Peter DeWit.

He wrote a note on fb and I wanted to re-post it here. He had asked me to write about our summer, but I didn’t get around to it. He is a great writer and I loved reading about our summer from his perspective.

Peter Writes…

I am usually very reluctant to go back to my home country. It means hours of tedious travel, public speaking, raising funds, and often poor mattresses for my bad back. And I could say that all was pretty well true for much of my time in Canada. Nonetheless something happened in me to strengthen my heart and to return my lost love for Canada.

If you love surprises, so do we, and the surprises began and kept coming…

The beauty of early summer.  I have always had a love for ancient cultures and inspiring landscapes. While visiting England I have experienced the silent awe of walking the ground that was trod by kings and queens of antiquity. The very soil exhales history. While in France the narrow roads winding through fields of green and quaint villages whispered and tickled my soul. The centuries of cow paths now turned  into roads and soldiers’ foot battles must have happened mere inches from our presence. How I want to also boast of my native Holland and it’s windmills and brick roads reminding me of a heritage of hard-working people who knew how to tame nature’s fury; not to metion the ancient cheeze and the salted licorice! Seriously, everywhere one would glance one would be greeted with a monument of man or nature that said, “We have been here way before you, yes, for countless generations.”

But my ‘Oh Canada’, so young, never gave me the sense of majesty and history like my birth continent. As I drove the back roads I saw uneven highway being gobbled up by unhappy growth and the wildness surrounded by sad-sack fences that needed human mending. The major highways were tedious with weeds and uninspiring landscapes. And yet this summer the boredom was replaced by a pulling-in of the beauty of the Maples and Spruce and the wild untamed. I found the green of the grass thick with splendor. The hours on rivers warmed by summer’s heat invigorated my body with nature’s wild and dark-watery embrace. The cool evenings blessed me consistently, giving relief to hot days. The evening fireflies showing off their incandescent wonder delighting our eyes and inspiring a kiss or two by the Sacred Pond.

Then there was the joy of reconnecting with my church life.  This was one place I wanted to ignore, the church stage of pressure of performance , it seemed to kill the natural bent of the land and my heart. How could I avoid putting on a good show in these big buildings built explicitly for the show? Standing in front of hungry-for-validation-ears I wanted to validate myself, to justify my presence and their support of my ministry, or my mission. I asked the Lord to bless me with  Jabez-like provision. I also told the Lord to free me from the worry, the need to ask for money, even if the iron was hot and the shirt needing pressing. I had booked every possible weekend but one. It too got booked in the city of Ottawa on the very day we celebrate our country. It was like Jabez’s prayer was stretching the centuries over and upon us as we gawked with the tens of thousands for a sight of English royalty and being rewarded with a fleeting glimpse. My adopted daughter, who had spent all of 17 months of her 14 year-old life on Canadian soil, squealed with delight on the shoulders of her mother, “I am so glad I am Canadian!”

And there were the unlikely friendships that were conceived unnaturally in Thailand by unknown Canadians who had come to experience first-hand our lives. Instead of fading like the dandelion they took on a new shoot like the bamboo. Barbecues, boat rides, Wonderland, and horseback riding filled and thrilled our days. My family was blessed to live in the heart of Toronto the good for almost a month because of an unlikely friendship. And financial pressures were relieved when a Pastor asked his church near the beginning of our time to bless us so we could have fun without continually thinking about expenses.

Surprised by the response to our message. This could be really the better part of it all. After twenty years of spiritual and physical and mental labour in Thailand we had nothing really to boast about, save the grace of God. We spoke of our trials and failures and the dangers of entitlement. We shared of our changing perspective of what defines the good life. And then we closed the thirty minute presentation raising our Ebenezer to the sufficiency of God’s grace.  Our scars speak not of shame, but of faith’s survival and renewal. So many words of encouragement afterwards left us thinking that the time spent in trials and testings may have had a deeper purpose than we thought possible.

I told my family that I was sad that we could not stay longer and see the snow fall and the air explode from our lungs on a frosty day. I was falling in love not only with the rugged beauty but with the Canadian way. It was all so wonderful and the stories and memories of the summer of 2011 will keep us riding the wave for a while still. Thank you Canada for your land nd freedom. And thank you to the Pentecostal Assemblies, you have blessed me so much and remained my spiritual family for a long time.

Our Summer on the Streets

Have you ever wished you could fold the corner on a day, a day so richly illustrated in what you recognize as future memories, knowing that you’ll want to turn back to it easily? Or have you left markings along the way like Hansel and Gretel so that you could get back to that place with no trouble at all? Summer took us far away… From Bangkok to London and Roserrow and St. Ives in the UK, then off to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Moncton and other magnificent places in between. Here are a very few of the pages whose corners I’ve turned…

After visiting England for a wonderful Cornish holiday (photos to come in a future blog) we landed in Toronto. Prior to the holiday there was a year-long search for a house-swap, ‘our Bangkok for your downtown Toronto’, and we were ecstatic when friends saw our search and let us have their College and Yonge condo for a month while they were out of the country.

Then to Ottawa for Canada Day

Where we managed this quick and hazy photo of the beautiful face of the Duchess of Cambridge, more commonly known as Kate

Along with a photo of Will’s hand waving out the partially opened window.

We spent some time in the country with campfires, bullfrogs, fireflies and friends

And we had lots of fun doing things that you can do only in The Great Big City, like getting on TV when the City TV news crew arrives and sets up right in front of you. That’s my daughter wearing the yellow t-shirt and very visible red shorts. She made it on the news! She also took the liberty to run through the water in the fountains.

My daughter was born in Bangkok, so she lives and breathes and thrives on The Great Big City life and is always game for any urban interaction. She especially enjoyed this urban art at the St. Lawrence Market…

There was a very interesting man who stood on the north-west corner of Yonge and Dundas, everyday, in an attention-grabbing t-shirt. If you are from Toronto you know exactly who I am talking about. We called him ‘the beLIEVE guy’. This photo was taken from inside the Forever XXl shop. He stood there with his Bible and handed out pamphlets, and intermittently he would shout ‘ beLIEVE!’ , not necessarily to anyone in particular as much as directed at everyone. Once we saw a tiny white particle that looked like a tooth fly out of his mouth as the ‘be’ syllable exploded and landed on the sidewalk.

We loved visiting Walking On A Cloud where our son worked. This was our last visit just a day before we left for London.

When we left Toronto on Augsut 7th we enjoyed a 10 hour stopover in London.

Again, our daughter isn’t afraid to engage with the city

And here we are home again, on the balcony in our room, back under this familiar sky that kidnaps our shadows for days and weeks at a time. The Big Mango, Bangkok. Sigh…

Pat Answers #1 The Bah Ram Ewe Effect!

“Bah ram ewe, bah ram ewe, to your breed your fleece your clan be true! Sheep be true! Bah ram ewe.”

Coming to Thailand 20 years ago, I was sort of like Babe the Pig. I was a farang (westerner) in the far east. I really thought I had to become Thai in order to be effective. Problem was… just like Babe would never be a sheep, I could never become Thai. I didn’t even have the slightest clue about how exactly to ‘be Thai’. I thought that if I learned the language I could at least get started. I went to language school 4 hours a day for a year and a half. I learned all the consonants….

And I learned all the vowels…

And I learned how to put them together with the 5 tones so that I could read and write…

Oink.

I still didn’t know how to be Thai.

I ate the food (reluctantly at first, and always with a glass of iced water). I would attempt nonchalance as I ate some really weird foods, hoping to blend in with the locals. Sometimes I knew what I was eating. Sometimes I didn’t. Once a guy gave me a bowl of soup at church, and as I started to swish my spoon around I found little tiny heads… of pig foetuses. I didn’t eat that soup.

I could be a Canadian trying to be Thai, but I couldn’t be Thai.

Oink.

Then I swung the other direction and that’s where Babe and I differed. He persevered patiently, just being his own pig self among the sheep. Me on the other hand, I felt that if these people were going to keep laughing at my best efforts to be Thai, and if this culture was so impenetrable, then I would stubbornly dig my pig-headed Canadian heels in and all you Thai people, well, you could just fuggeddaboudit.

What did digging Canadian heels look like? Well… I started to make comparisons.

Canadian police

Royal Canadian Mounted Police, thank-you very much!

And Thai police…

Whenever I could I made a point to tell everybody how it was done in Canada… in Canada we sit on toilets, not squat. In Canada you don’t drive your motorbike on the sidewalk. You don’t drive down the wrong side of the street. In Canada we this and we that and blah blah blah.

But again, this was a futile exercise. We weren’t in Canada. We were in Thailand.

Oink.

Then, a shamefully long time later, and with a little help from my friends, I learned the Bah Ram Ewe effect; it’s a very good idea to be true to myself. It’s not photoshop or cutting certain parts of Thai culture  pasting them onto me.

Photoshopped & cut-and-pasted

It’s being myself within Thai culture.

Who was I? I was a (slightly angry -okay, very angry, and cinical) Canadian-born, tri-lingual, kartwheeler, who happened to live in Thailand.

Bah.

Living in any foreign city will contribute to the fabric of who you are. I’ve often described a cross-cultural experience like a French kiss; you can’t wipe it off, you can’t spit it out and you can’t pretend it never happened.

I guess I’ve tried to apply the Bah Ram Ewe to everything I do here too. I can share core values and principles of an organization, and I can follow certain people I respect, learn from mentors and leadership, however, if I mimic their methods then maybe it’s just cut-and-pasting. As I write it all out it sounds so simple and I feel embarrassed that it took me so long to learn this. But this is what I learned. What I do needs to come from who I am, not trying to do it like someone else. Just like my trying to be Thai, I found that trying methods of other successful leaders takes so much energy; you have to think about it all the time, like, is this what a sheep would do? is this what a sheep would say? and you have to keep going back to the book. It doesn’t come from within.

For the couple of years I got to hang out with Dave and Rebecca Gibbons in NewSong Bangkok I learned a lot. I watched the movies they had watched. I read the books they had read. I didn’t want to miss a single gathering.

Hanging out with Dave and Beka Gibbons

When they left I knew I couldn’t do things like Dave did. But I did work at allowing the core values of NewSong to be expressed from my own Bah Ram Ewe, from my own DNA.

Bah!

My Bah Ram Ewe is maternal, it’s urban, it comes from the French kiss of cross-cultural experiences in Bangkok, Paris, London, Toronto and Montreal. And the anger, well it’s still a part of it too only now I am consciously trying to direct it at injustice (and sometimes, in weak moments, my patient husband).

I’m still learning, humbly, and I don’t have all the answers down pat… tee hee… and that’s the part where I wrap this up with a clever conclusion that brings us back around to the top.

Bah Ram Ewe! To your DNA be true!

Too Many Crasy People!

“There’s a city inside the city, the city at the center of the map.” Robert Charles Wilson, The Inner Inner City.

Walking through the park behind our building, it was obvious that the two older Asian men were quite drunk, and they were harassing an elderly woman who was trying hard to hold her own. Her dress hung from her full hips like a faded tent, thick hands flew out menacingly at her oppressors; hands ready to slap someone if needed. I approached and asked the woman, “ Are you okay? Do you live near here?” thinking that maybe I could walk her home. She gave one last heavy stomp of her foot on the ground toward the men, shooing them like pigeons. The men laughed and yelled and wobbled over to the empty park bench.

“Thees ees my buildink,” she declared, and then she pointed to the apartments in front of us, “Crasy people,” she stated as a fact, not just an opinion. “Too much drink. Too much druck. Police comink to my buildink every day. Every day! Too many crasy people.”

I guess a lot of people would agree with the lady. The city just has too many crasy people! We, on the other hand, think the city is the best place to live because of the many ‘crasy people’. Hey, I am a crasy people too.

Toronto would be a great city to call home. And so would Paris. And so would London… or New York. Or any great big crowded noisy city. You see, the city is a place where you just can’t avoid people. You are forced to face the ‘crasy people’. That’s what Jesus did. Regardless of where we live, all of us must pursue the rhythms of life, the things that keep us alive and functioning; like eating, sleeping, shaving, doctor’s appointments and exams. In all of those pursuits we come in contact with… crasy people. If completing those daily routines becomes our main goal in life, then what happens is that we begin to see the people in the path as mere obstacles to get around, frustrations to avoid, just something in our peripheral space. When people unexpectedly jump into our path and shout ‘boo!’ we don’t like it. They are nothing more than crasy people.

The fact is, as we put time and energy into our home, our business, our food, our work, our studies, our relationships and communities we are actually giving our cities a narrative through the conversations and interactions we have with people along the way. Throughout all those planned moments that tend to become mundane, we actually find unmapped terrain within those oh-so-well-worn paths between the grocery store and the kitchen door. Each time we talk to a stranger or participate in an exchange with those crasy people, we inhale life and exhale the story.

All the while this is happening there is also another narrative being written: it’s The Divine Narrative, the narrative of the inner inner city. There is no map to the inner inner city. The inner inner city is being mapped as we walk it. It’s as we seek the voice of The Divine Narrative in the city that we start to really live, to really love and to really make the city our home. We’ll start experiencing those things that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard. Our lives and The Divine Narrative will contour a city as well as its response to the most pressing issues the urban dwellers are working on; racism, greed, poverty, homophobia and violence as well as asylum, health, human rights, education, the arts and tolerance.

And that’s why we can move from city to city and enjoy each place as home. There’s a purpose for us being here, in Downtown Toronto (even if it’s just for 2 months) just as there is a purpose for us when we are living in Bangkok. We go through the rhythms of life and survival, and at the same time we can encourage the business of Anna, a Surb from Turkey, who sells us our hotdogs in front of Nathan Philip’s Square, or we can encourage Khun Deng who sells us orange juice in front of Siam Square, Bangkok. We can sit with Ali, an Afghani from the TD bank, and hear him tell his story of being a child soldier before fleeing to a refugee camp in Pakistan, or we can listen as Shanta telIs how he and his family fled for their lives from Sri Lanka’s war to find asylum in Bangkok, then Holland. I call it a ‘Location Independent Life’, a place where missions doesn’t require a degree or a visa, where all we need are some neighbours (or even a few crasy people) and a glimpse of the Divine Narrative, and where The Divine Narrative gives us purpose no matter where we are.

Love Thy Stranger

Alycia

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Having lived in Bangkok all their lives, my girls are very much aware of the real world. They see it up-close every time we go out. The prostitutes. The red-light districts. The hustlers. The bag-snatchers. The bribery and corruption. There are no illusions for them. They get the good, the bad and the ugly. Some people worry that our girls see too much. Can they really process it well? Or are they being over-exposed at a young age? Won’t it scar them?

Well, read this and you tell me…

Not that long ago, Peter and I had to attend an event that was not interesting at all to Amanda or Alycia. Amanda stayed home, but Alycia wanted to come along because we would be going to Newsong after the event and she didn’t want to miss it. We dropped her off at the Emporium mall with plans to meet up in 2 hours or so. She had a cell phone and some money to get a meal and do something fun. She wasn’t as excited to be going on her own to the mall as I would have been at her age. I, on the other hand, was feeling a bit nervous about it.

After the event, we met where we had planned. She gave me the change that was left over. With a few quick calculations I realized that there was not as much change as I had expected. I needed to find out, trying not to sound like I doubted her yet trying to see where the rest of the money went. I don’t know why I was so worried about it, it wasn’t a huge amount.

“Hey you got here right on time! Did any strangers bother you?” I asked.

With a very patient sigh she answered, “No mom. No one bothered me.”

“What did you eat?” She loves Burger King, so I thought she’d have gone there.

“I didn’t go to Burger King,” she answered, reading my mind like she often does. ” Instead I got corn in a cup. I’ve always wanted to try that. And then I got a cream puff at Beard Papa’s.”

I am mentally adding it all up.

“Nice. I love that corn. Is that all you ate? Were you still hungry?”

“Ya, that was all. It was fine.”

“What did you do for all that time?”

“I went to play a couple of games, in that arcade over by the golf store,” she answered as the irony was not wasted on me; the irony of her being old enough to go to the mall alone yet young enough to still enjoy the kid’s arcade.

“Did you run into anyone you know?”

“No.”

“So…” and I dropped the bomb, ” Is that all the money you spent? There’s not much change here.”

“No.”

Aha! I knew it. I looked at her, grinning, waiting for the rest of it.

“I stopped at the 7-11 across the street.”

We usually get a purple Fruitare Popsicle when we stop in there.

“Did you get a purple Popsicle?”

“No. I got 2 bottles of milk.”

“Well that’s a healthy thing to have,” I reasoned, and who could fault a child for wanting to buy milk, of all things?

“Did you finish it all?”

“I didn’t drink it.”

“You’re saving it?” I was getting curious about this milk purchase.

“No. It wasn’t for me. I bought it for the man with no arms on the sidewalk.”

I think my face softened visibly, maybe something like the Grinch when his heart grew and his smile changed and his eyes became warm. I think my face did that exact same thing at that moment.

I tried to picture it. Alycia will almost always want to buy something for the street beggars, and she takes time to kneel down, to talk to them, and leave some food or drink beside them. But the man with no arms? That had me baffled. I was having a hard time picturing it.

“So how could he drink the milk with no arms.”

“I put a straw in it.” she told me, as if that answered everything.

I was quiet for a while. Then I had to ask. “But I don’t understand. Did he lean over and drink from the milk bottle on the ground?”

” I sat beside him. I held it for him while he drank from the straw. Till he had enough. Then I put it down and I left.”

I had no more questions. But she had one.

“Why?”

Why indeed! I guess I’m the one who still needs help processing the real life on the streets of Bangkok. And what better person to help me do that than Alycia, as she shows me over and over what it means to love thy neighbour as well as thy stranger.

In Honor of International Women’s Day:A Cure For the Blues

 

“…to learn that the line I called the horizon

does not exist and sky and water,

so long apart, are the same state of being…”

Lisel Mueller

I found the cure for the blues and it was in a very unlikely, yet now that I think of it, very appropriate, place.

To find it I had to walk up a dark flight of stairs, into a building whose corridors have no lights, and into a little gray room where windows with no glass are toothless grins. I found it where piles of meager belongings tattled accusingly, as if catching someone with their pants down, on the displaced who are between the worlds of Temporary and Permanent; a world where days and weeks dig their heels in and stretch stubbornly into long, thin strands of pulled-taffy. Year after year after year of permanent temporariness.

I found it in the home of three refugee women.

My bare ankles absorbed the print of the mat where I sat cross-legged. Three small women let me into their circle. Two preschoolers ran worry-free, one wore a shirt and no pants,  the other wore pants and no shirt, curious about the bag of goodies I’d brought. Freshly-baked raisin bread. One for each of them.

I told them my name and listened as they tried to wrap it in their language. I wrote theirs down in my notebook, trying to wrap them in memory because there is an unmistakable sense of value in being remembered by your name.

Together they worked and I joined the task, stuffing cotton into teeny holes of miniature terry-cloth animals that would become, I guessed, soft attachments to baby hats or baby shoes or baby mobiles that belong in another world.

I spoke in Thai, adding gestures and actions to make certain words understandable. One woman had learned enough Thai in her short three years in Bangkok and she translated for us. It didn’t take very long for words to turn into stories, and as stories were told, hearts were revealed.

“The soldiers ran into our village. They captured my husband, took his pants off, tied his legs together and bound his hands. They shot him in the arm,” and she unconsciously grabbed her arm as if it was in pain, ” He bled and bled, there was blood everywhere.”

Silence.

“Then they beat his legs with a stick. They just kept beating his legs until they were all broken.”

I reached over and put my hand on her back. Tears began to fall down the quilted skin of her aged cheeks. She kept talking.

“I watched until he died. They took four of my children, my adult children, tied them up, and now I suppose they are dead, I’m not sure. We just ran. We ran and ran, for five days, across the border, and we didn’t eat or drink for five days, we just ran. We didn’t sleep.”

I moved closer still, put both arms around her and held her. She put her work down and put both arms around me. We cried. I asked the younger woman, the translator, how do you say ‘I’m so sorry’ in your language? She told me and I repeated it. Over and over.

The third woman wept silently. She tried to wipe tears away but she couldn’t keep up with them. Tears have a mind of their own. She was looking at me, then at her work, then at me again.

What is she thinking right now?

I learned, if I understood correctly, that the man who was tied up, shot and beaten to death was her father.

She asked me a question. I see her eyes as I remember it. “Can you help to get my husband out of prison?”

Oh God, help me... Yet all I had was, “I don’t know anyone in authority, I don’t know the police or the officials, I wouldn’t know where to begin.” I hated my limitations in that moment. All I had to bring was a few loaves of raisin bread! No connections. No authority. No answers.

I prayed desperately for something to say that would not dismiss her question or her suffering. In the most simple words I could find I said, “I don’t have connections or legal authority, but I will make sure you don’t go hungry, I will make sure you won’t be alone.”

Such as I have…

We kept working and talking, tears kept coming. The young woman put her work down, took a deep breath and said, “I can’t believe you came to see us. Iknow God loves us because he sent you here today.”

Oh God, something as simple as my being there was some sort of testament to God’s love for them… Oh God, help me.

She asked me if I would pray with them.

It felt backwards for me to pray for them. I know I sound like a little child when I pray in Thai, but I didn’t care. In that moment I hated all the religious cliches. I hated the state of Privilege that warps our mindset of who God is and what He wills or doesn’t will. I refused to say a nice little prayer and feel good about myself for having ‘ministered‘ to them. I prayed for God to help me to know how to pray.

It was getting late and I had to leave. As I was bending over to put my shoes on, one woman started to sing. I’ve heard this song a bazillion times and the way songs are when you’ve heard them too many times it becomes sort of blah. But in that moment the words of the song overtook me, I slumped back down to the floor, a weeping mess, and joined her song. We sang it once, just the two of us, then on the second time the two other women joined as well …

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases

His mercies never come to an end

they are new every morning

new every morning

great is thy faithfulness, Oh Lord,

great is thy faithfulness.

If these refugee women could sing about God’s faithfulness when everything around them at the top of the dark stairs looks like abandonment, then I was determined that I would never complain again. As I traveled back in the taxi I vowed that I would not sit down in life and enjoy the privilege to which I was born as if it was my right. If I had a right to a privileged life, then why didn’t these women? I would not complain about little things… no… I would not complain about anything… (except people who complain).

I admit it. I need grace for people who complain, and worse, I need patience when they call it praying.

“I’m praying for God to show me his will because I can’t decide whether I want to live my privileged life-full-of-choices-and-good-health in this city or in that city. I need to know God’s will.”

Oh brother.

“I want God to show me his perfect will for my life, whether I should marry this really good person or wait till I meet another really great person.”

Why don’t you just be honest and say, ‘Oh God, this privileged life you’ve given me is really hard!’

“But how can you say that, Pat? God cares for even the little things in my life. It’s his way of showing us he’s there. Surely God wants to touch us when we suffer.”

In honour of the women in many countries who have no choice, please, go sit with these women at the top of the dark stair case for a few hours. They live in every city, every country. I guarantee you that the view from there will lead you to embrace a new perspective, which will ultimately be the cure for what ever ails you!

Until then, if you ask me to pray for God to touch you, heal you, because you have a cold or any other curable illness, or because your good life is just too full of good choices, don’t hold your breath.

(These are my opinions and not necessarily the opinions of my husband Peter, nor the PAOC or Newsong. If you read this and find that you share these opinions, then feel free to comment. If you don’t agree, go ahead and comment too. Just be nice about it.)

A Letter to a 30-Year-Old Me

 

Twenty years ago we moved to Thailand. Here is my hindsight letter to a 30-year-old me. I am almost 50 now.

Dear Me at 30,

One day, believe it or not, you will love the city of Bangkok. Right now all you do is tolerate it one stinking, sweating, 35*-Celsius day at a time. No. Days are too large a measure at this time. You survive it one hesitant lonely breath at a time. There will come a day when you genuinely love that city. Instead of looking for ways to leave, your enthusiasm will be instrumental in convincing others to stay.

I want you to know that there is life after Quebec, but only after you learn (the hard way) that you must redefine your idea of real life. You see, you will witness first-hand that not everyone has the choice of where to live. You will keep living like a sad victim of the imperfect system, the imperfect marriage, the Thunderous Perfect God, until you meet a desperate Chinese refugee mom, standing on the other side of a cage-like cell, separated from her husband and son, waiting to get somewhere beyond Bangkok’s immigration detention center. She doesn’t have choices, and as you witness her heartbreaking reality it will change yours.

Oh 30-year-old Me, right now you want to fall asleep and wake up on the other side of this city, but one day you will stare the city down and defy it to just try to send you away. You will feel protective and maternal, even patriotic. You’ll learn that you don’t have to become Thai in order to belong, you just have to have purpose. With that new-found sense of purpose you will be shocked that nothing -not your accent, not your white freckled skin, not your hazely-green eyes- can tell you that you don’t belong.

That's me in the back row, center

As lonely as you are – no, as alone as you are- hold on! I promise you there will be friends. And just when you start to flat-line there will be people who will resuscitate you back to life. They will pound your chest or reach in and massage your heart if they have to. Word by gentle word they will community you back to life and reassure you that you would be missed if, for some reason, you were not there anymore.

That Bible you angrily threw into the very, very back of your bottom drawer? It will talk to you again and it will have good news. You will see how you have  misunderstood the Heart of those words. Your eyes will get baptized, and gradually you will see things clearer, where people around you will no longer look like walking trees, but they will become living, breathing, interesting individuals who are on your path for a reason.

At thirty your husband travels to remote parts of Asia, having the adventure of a lifetime, and you are alone with your three sons on the border town of Nong Khai. Right now your greatest comfort on those alone nights, your sense of escaping away from Thailand and back to Quebec, comes from your cassettes of Celine Dion. You put your earphones in, lie flat on your back and memorize all the lyrics in French. Tears pour down your face and into your ears but you don’t care. You love those songs. You love Celine Dion. And while you will always love Celine Dion for being such a good friend all those nights, I can promise you that you will find a NewSong and you will love it with all your heart and it will be an even better friend for the rest of your days.

And lastly, dear 30-year-old Me, you will be loved passionately by a man and you will fall in love again. No, there won’t be a divorce and remarriage. There will be a restoring of your first love. You got married to him when you were 20, but the day is coming when you will finally be his bride. Your differences -which are, and always will be, many- will make both of you laugh instead of scream. Your five children will thank you for staying together. You will lie down at the end of each day and be glad to see him there with you.

And for the record, even though in Thai shops you have to buy XL, you are NOT  and never will be a ‘farang somboon bep’! (tranlates: a fat foreigner.)