A Semester in Review: What I've Learned and Where I Hope to Be.

Here I sit, physically in the United States, while every other part of me longs to be elsewhere. It’s hard to be back. But one of my largest takeaways from the past 4 months is the way God showed me to pay attention to what’s in front of me. I think it’s time to put that into practice. As I do, I also reflect on the goals I set for myself at the semester’s beginning. In the next couple of posts, I’ll describe the experiences that helped me grow in them.

PART ONE

Nearly every week, I visited a different church with the other members of my group, which made it easy to see the differences between churches in Thailand. While the most obvious thing they had in common was their length (wow, they could go for a long time), I noticed another commonality within the village churches, particularly. Hospitality colored every interaction our group had with various church members in Thailand, and in Myanmar. At some of the larger church communities, hospitality was a smile, a handshake, a “wai”: the Thai greeting made by pressing hands together and holding them up to the level of your mouth, higher if the person you’re greeting demands greater respect.

At one church, the members tried to assure us that we could keep our shoes on when we entered their building. That may sound strange if you don’t know that anywhere you go in Thailand, you’ll likely be required to take your shoes off. Feet fittingly symbolize impurity, and with everywhere you travel in your shoes, you would only bring dirtiness into any building you walk into. Really, it makes sense. But at this church, the people told us to keep our shoes on. They knew we were Westerners, and so compromised their own customs to let us keep our own tradition of wearing our shoes wherever we please. At the smaller communities we visited, often Lahu hill tribes, hospitality was a woman handing you her hymnal, an invitation to sing though none in our group sounded better than a hoarse cow, opportunities to stay and have a meal that had been poured over graciously. At one village, we did not even stay long enough to experience a church service, but the way the people worked together demonstrated an interwoven tightness that had me leaving with the thought that this was what the Church should strive for.

We shared a campus with a vocational, seminary-like school, and a Lahu church also occupied the property. There, we had our first ever experience of church in Thailand, and it set a theme for many of the other hill tribe churches we would visit. We’d been warned that during our first visit to many churches, we’d be required to sing a song. So, when the time came, we shuffled our way up and released our pitiful voices to the crowd. We couldn't imagine how much worse it would get when we had to sing a capella during our visit to Myanmar. The result was dire. At every point through the song, we were always at on the verge of losing momentum altogether as our voices butchered notes and assaulted keys. As the chorus rose to a particularly dangerous note, we dropped off one by one until only two of us remained, trying desperately to keep a sinking ship afloat. The memory still scars, but even with perpetual humiliation, I’m actually kind of grateful we got to sing because we stopped being spectators and receivers and gave something in return. It was the equivalent of a dingy, poorly-wrapped, ran-over-at-least-three-times-by-a-car kind of package. But hey, it was something.

I got a glimpse of something beautiful during each visit to church in Thailand. I don’t think I always appreciated it – not when services crept into their 3rd hour or a giant spider crawled out from beneath a pew – but when I look back, I can see how special that time was to meet family in Christ. And one thing I’ll probably always find awe-inspiring is to be able to learn the name of God in another language. Now, having been to both Lahu and Thai churches, I have two more words with which to address the Creator of the world.

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