June Update

I am now 9 1/2 months into my internship which means that I only have 5 1/2 months left! Time is going by so fast! It's been a long time since I've posted an update of what I've been doing so let me catch you up on the last few months. . .

May marked the half way point of my internship. At this time, we had a two week break from ministry and class so that we could rest and reenergize before going into our second half. I spent my break visiting friends in China! I had a great time exploring the city I was in, biking around a giant lake, and catching up with friends I hadn't seen in months. I also greatly enjoyed the cool weather in China! It was a wonderful break from hot season in Thailand! My trip to China was really fun and relaxing, but after two weeks, I was very excited to return "home" to Chiang Mai.

The scenery in China was BEAUTIFUL!

I got to see one of my best friends!

We went dancing with some local women in the park. So much fun!
 

Once I got back to Thailand, normal life started back at full speed. I returned to HOS to find many changes. While I was gone we had two moms graduate the program and move out. We also had four new moms move in! Two of these moms are pregnant and another just had a baby at the end of May. All of this is very exciting, but it also means that things have been a bit crazy.

 

Most of my time at HOS is still spent taking care of the kids in the nursery, but now that these new moms have moved in, I will hopefully have more chances to be involved with that part of the ministry as well. Lizzy and I were recently asked to teach the moms English every week. Although I'm a bit intimidated to teach, I am so excited to have this opportunity to build relationships with the moms. Please be praying that I actually will be able to teach the moms. We often have things come up (crying babies, meetings, sicknesses, etc.) that prevent the English classes from happening.

 

 

 

Earlier this month I turned 23! My team and I celebrated a few days early by going to a beautiful botanical garden where we had a picnic, walked around, and went swimming. Later in the evening we were even able to have my favorite ice cream cake. Yum! On my actual birthday I went to HOS where I was blessed by the staff and kids. They sang to me, prayed for me, and made me some delicious food. Later that day, I dressed up all fancy and went out with a few of my friends to have high tea. It was sad to be away from friends and family on my birthday, but I'm thankful for my friends here who made sure I had a great day.

High Tea!

At the botanical garden.

 

 

 

The week after my birthday our team took another break from our usual routine to go on our mid-internship retreat. Two Bethany staff came from America and then we all flew down to the beach in Southern Thailand. Throughout retreat we had several meetings, both as a group and individually with our leaders, discussing how internship has been and how we can finish strong. It was a really encouraging time that was much needed!

 

When we weren't in meetings, we had free time to relax and enjoy the beach. We went swimming, explored the beautiful areas nearby, and treated ourselves to a lot of Western food. One day our whole team took a boat trip to Monkey Island, which is literally an island that is only inhabited by monkeys. We also went to another island where we hiked to a beautiful cave. It was so much fun!

Monkey Island!

 

All of the Bethany interns in Asia during retreat.

 

On our way back from retreat, we decided to spend one night in Bangkok since we were already down there. Bangkok is a huge city that can be kind of overwhelming. Thankfully though, one of my teammates had a Thai friend living in Bangkok so we didn't have to figure out the city on our own. This friend acted as our tour guide for the day. She took us to church, on a water taxi, to the Royal Palace, and to a market. It was a great day exploring Bangkok but by the end of it I was so exhausted. It was so nice to fly back to Chiang Mai and get some rest after a very busy week.

Part of the Royal Palace.

 

A very cute market in Bangkok.

 

So now I'm back in Chiang Mai and life should be a bit calmer for a while. Here are some things you can be praying for in the coming weeks. . .

• For ideas and opportunities to get to know the moms at HOS better.
• Lately life has been very busy which has caused me to be somewhat stressed and overwhelmed. Pray that I would know how to manage my time well so that I can get everything done but also have time to rest.
• I'm starting to plan a survey trip in the fall to check out future ministry opportunities. Pray for opportunities and wisdom on where I should go and that the planning would go smoothly.
• If you read my post in March, I mentioned a baby that was sold by his mom. We are still trying to find a long term home for that baby, but it's very complicated because he does not have citizenship so adoption is not possible. Please pray for this sweet little boy and this very complicated situation.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support!

 

-Emily

Faithful to Scripture. Relevant to the Culture.

A few weeks ago I had a class called Evangelism and Discipleship in Context. The class was about how to take the gospel into different cultures without mixing our own culture into it. Maybe it sounds simple, but this is actually an incredibly hard thing to do. There are often things that we consider biblical- such as the way that we do church- which are actually cultural things. One specific example is prayer. We are commanded in the bible to pray. That is absolutely biblical and universal. But there's no mandate in scripture about whether we should pray with our eyes open or closed. That's cultural. Sometimes it's very hard to distinguish the difference.

It's very common for missionaries to enter other cultures with great intentions to spread the gospel, but in reality they end up spreading their culture instead. This is bad because the local people start believing that they have to give up their culture and traditions in order to become like the missionary. Most people don't want to do this, so it ends up hindering the gospel instead of advancing it.

In Thailand this is a big problem. There have been missionaries in Thailand for about 200 years, yet less than 1% of the population knows the Lord. Something is wrong with this picture. I'm sure there are many factors contributing to this problem, but I think a big one is a lack of contextualization. Most Thai people think that Christianity is a farang (foreigner) religion. I can understand why. Nearly everything I have seen in Thai Christianity is done in a Western way. They sing worship songs that were translated from English into Thai. The style of their sermons and church services are exactly like America. It's even common for them to use pictures of white people, rather than Asians, on power points in church. Through all of these things, churches are unintentionally communicating that Thai people must adopt Western culture in order to be saved. It should not be this way!

So why is this happening? I often hear the phrase "To be Thai is to be Buddhist." Buddhism is deeply rooted and intertwined with Thai culture. It's nearly impossible to distinguish what is Buddhist and what is Thai in the culture because they are so mixed together. Many Thai Christians want to be very careful not to do anything that appears to be Buddhist, but because there's no clear separation, they end up rejecting their entire culture.

However, one beautiful thing about the gospel is that it was designed to work in every culture, even in Thailand. Many things in Thai culture, and even in Buddhism, are not actually bad or sinful. What if we could redeem and transform some of these practices to be used to glorify the Lord? For example, a common way for Thai Buddhists to worship and pray is to burn incense. Incense is not inherently bad. For us Western Christians it may seem weird because we're not used to it, but it's not necessarily a sin to burn incense. So what if Thai Christians were able to take that cultural practice and use it to worship the Lord instead of idols? Personally, I think it could be a wonderful and beautiful thing. Maybe more people would be open to the Lord because they could worship Him in a way that they already know. Maybe it could start changing the mindset that Christianity is only for farangs.

Obviously things like this need to be approached very carefully. We never, ever, want to compromise biblical truth in order to be relevant to a culture. So there are certainly some practices in Thai culture and Buddhism that we should not attempt to adapt to Christianity. However, like I explained before, I think there is often more flexibility than we realize in how we can worship and express our faith. We should not be quick to assume that something is wrong or bad simply because it is different than what we are used to. Different cultures should have the freedom to worship the Lord in different ways. In the bible, Gentiles were not forced to be circumcised and become Jewish in order to be saved. In the same way, other cultures should not be forced to become Western as a requirement for salvation.

There is definitely a problem in how the gospel has been presented in Thai society, but it is encouraging to realize that missionaries and churches all over the country are starting to recognize and change this. Little by little, adjustments are being made to try to make Thai churches truly Thai. For example, in April there was a major Thai holiday called Songkran. Although this holiday has a lot of ties to Buddhism, I know of a few churches who decided to have simple Songkran ceremonies during their service. The ceremony itself was not Buddhist. It was about young people honoring their elders and the older people blessing the younger. These churches performed the ceremony in a way that honored the Lord as well as their culture. It was wonderful. I am hopeful that more things like this will happen in future years. I pray that Christian workers in Thailand will have wisdom on how to present the gospel in a way that stays faithful to scripture yet relevant to the culture.

Songkran ceremony at my church . . .