Hey God, Maybe You Should Use Me This Way Instead...

Do you ever feel the need to give God a copy of your resume? To remind Him what your skills and “areas of expertise” are? To say, “God I just want to gently remind you that I am best qualified to do 'a', 'b' and 'c'. Sometimes during my day to day grind here in Bangkok, I feel like printing out a crisp copy of my resume, writing up a snappy cover letter and requesting an audience with “the Boss,” if you will.

I have been realizing that I had certain expectations about what my life would be like here in Thailand; I felt I knew, at least partially, how God would use me. My expectations weren't necessarily bad, they were mostly drawn from how God has consistently used me in the past, but it seems that He is doing a new thing with me here in Thailand, and while I am all for new things, it takes some getting used to.

People getting on and off busses in
downtown Bangkok (Picture by
Oo Piyamary)

I have been living back in Bangkok for about one month now. It was very difficult for me to leave Pattaya. I heard someone describe Pattaya before I came to Thailand as “hell on earth,” and I can absolutely understand why. However, the ultimate sin city captured my heart, it was an honor in the deepest sense of the word to be allowed to be a part of what God is doing in that city – even for a short time. Bangkok is a different story. Bangkok is really, really big. It is loud and the traffic deserves every bit of its legendary reputation. Bangkok is not like Portland, with well planned streets, large forested parks, and unique and fun neighborhoods which all work together to make you feel truly invited into her culture, to be absorbed into her pulse. Bangkok is characterized by mega malls the likes of which America has none, large apartment buildings lining the streets, and occasionally an ornate Buddhist temple. Bangkok is really, really hot. But the truth is, I don't think any of these things are what have actually dampened my affection for this city. I expected that God would use me to build community here, because He has used me to build community in nearly every home I have ever had. I expected that I would quickly find my niche in this city and understand what my purpose is here. This has not been the case. I still spend quite a bit of time alone here, however, I wouldn't really describe myself as lonely anymore. I have a few precious friends that I am able to grab dinner with here and there, or go downtown with on a saturday, things like that. I have grown to really appreciate the quietness, listening to God, even when it is scary and painful, because when there is no roommate to leave the quietness behind with, God is able to speak things that I once was able to run away from hearing.

I am learning to allow God to do whatever He wants with me, which is probably something a missionary should already know how to do, but I guess you could call me a missionary in training. My time in Pattaya was challenging because I didn't feel I was capable of doing what I was there to do, but God provided for me everyday and worked through me despite myself. My time in Bangkok is challenging because I don't know what I should do. I am still writing for the website (I will include a link to my latest article), and I have other writing assignments that are not articles for the website. I am also going to start doing more photography for the website, which is pretty exciting. However, I feel I need a balance of communications and volunteering in another way. I need to be with people, but I am still unsure of what that should look like. I was praying a few weeks ago that I wanted God to make me a blessing, whatever that means, whatever that looks like, I just wanted Him to use me to bless whoever He wants to bless. I suppose that prayer might have been the catalyst for my recent trip to North Eastern Thailand.

A friend of mine that I don't know extremely well, but that I have felt a good connection with, invited me to come home with her, to her village in Isaan (NE Thailand). I was very excited and honored by the invitation. Isaan is where the vast majority of the girls working in Pattaya are from, and from what I can tell, this region's culture flavors the rest of Thai culture – this region is the birth place of unspoiled Thai culture. After expressing excitement at the prospect of joining my friend she said, “Katie, I have never brought anyone home with me, not even a Thai person, and especially not a farang (white person). My village is like a “village village,” it will not be convenient, are you sure you want to come?” I laughed and said, “Pii Kwan, I am so honored that you would ask me, and I have lived in 'village villages' in Africa, I can handle it.” She laughed uneasily and said, “okay, you check with Adrian (my boss), to see if you can come and I will call my parents to make sure it's okay.”

The house we stayed in

Two weeks later after both of us went through some short lived, yet violent sicknesses, we were on a bus embarking on a nine hour journey to her home. Our bus drove through the night, we arrived at about six a.m.. We got off the bus on the side of a country rode. There was a small shop across the street that we bought bottled water at and sat waiting for Pii Kwan's father to pick us up in his truck. Before long we were climbing a 

wooden staircase up to a traditional thai house, where we slept that week. The village was much nicer than I had imagined after Pii Kwan's warning. The streets were mostly paved, there was electricity and running water, and although the toilets were “squatty potties” they were made of porcelain, not a hole in the ground, like I was expecting. It was such an amazing experience to spend the week in the village. I was the only westerner for miles, so every time I walked down the street, I could hear people whisper, (or sometimes not whisper) “Farang! Farang!”

My thai language is not very good, and the people in the village speak a different dialect of thai, so I was not really able to communicate at all, but God worked despite this obstacle. The second day of our trip Pii Kwan's father told her he wanted his best friend to meet me. I was a little bit shocked by this, but I went with the flow. We went to his house and sat in his front yard for what must have been at least two hours. He asked me many questions about America (Pii Kwan translated), and about how I was liking Thailand.

“Does America have rice?”

“Well, we import rice, but we don't grow it.”

“What do people grow in America?”

“Oh, lots of things, wheat, potatoes, vegetables, cotton...”

“Does America have chickens?”

...and many more such questions.

After this we spent a fair amount of time meeting people, asking and answering questions, and just visiting.

Pii Kwan cooking in her parent's kitchen 

On our last day in the village we went to Pii Kwan's sister's house in a nearby city for a small family reunion dinner. Everyone seemed a little bit stressed out about this dinner, and afterwards I was able to thank God for the language barrier which allowed me to attest to the saying “ignorance is bliss.” Pii Kwan's sister does not like foreigners, and it turns out that her parents used to not like foreigners too. They didn't really want me to come visit, and her sister didn't want me to come to dinner. This isn't because they are racist – they aren't – this is because the only foreigners they have met have been rude, loud, and offensive. I didn't know any of this until the bus ride back to Bangkok when Pii Kwan explained it all. I really didn't do anything special when I was in the village, or at her sister's house. I simply ate the food (which was good), smiled, laughed and tried to be friendly.

Pii Kwan's Family

Pii Kwan told me on the bus on the way home that she had been praying about bringing someone home for a long time. She felt like God was saying she should bring me home, and now she knew why. Her parents started to really like me, and her sister enjoyed having me over to their house as well. She told me that her family has really struggled with her being a missionary. They are a very Buddhist family, and even more than that, they are deeply engrained in an honor/shame society. They don't understand why their daughter isn't making money. Pii Kwan told me that she had never seen her parents warm up to someone like this before, and that they were even more open towards her than they usually are. They told me before we left that they would miss me, and they want me to come visit again whenever I have free time. Pii Kwan has been praying for her family, and for their hearts to be softened, for ways and opportunities to share who Jesus is with them. I am so honored that God decided to use me to possibly start opening their hearts towards what their daughter is doing, and who she is living for. I am hoping to return to the village again in October for my next 'visa run' (I have to cross a border every three months for my thai visa), because her village is very close to Laos.

I have been back from the village for four days now. It's hard for me to expect Jesus to use me to bless people here, like he does when he takes me outside of Bangkok. It's a strange battle, one that makes me want to tell God to re-write my Bangkok 'job description,' instead of holding onto hope and pressing into God, waiting for Him to do what He wants with me. Please be praying for God's will be to be done here in Bangkok. Pray for Him to speak to me, and for me to be obedient. I don't think God is going to give me the 'Working with God in Bangkok Orientation Handbook,' but I know that as long as I am obedient when He speaks, He will be using me for His purposes – what more could I want? Please also pray for Pii Kwan's family, that they would come to know Jesus and that they would become missionaries in their village.  

Here is a link to my most recent article:  http://www.ywamthai.org/news/updates/3132-shining-light-into-darkness.html

If you want to see more pictures of my time in the village, you can check out my facebook album by following this link https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.618430323940.2110313.42904569