There is a saying in the Geography world and imparted on me by my professors that goes something like this… “If you go native, you get an A.” Last weekend, my dear friends, Team Manistry got an A. One of the great people we’ve met in Chiang Mai agreed to take us to his home village. He is from the Karen tribe and his Rummit village home is outside of Chiang Rai, about a 4 hour drive. The blessings began early as we realized it would be cheaper to take his car after getting the tires fixed than it would be to rent a car. Us men decided it would be amazing to bless Alex (the English-friendly version of his name) with some work to his car, so off we went with a grateful Alex behind the wheel. The rural mountain areas of Thailand are unbelievable. Just traveling through these ancient lands was worth the trip; the jungle is so lush and the streams cascade over boulders and the valleys harbor agriculture and towns that enhance the environment, not deface it. But getting to the village was the goal; to look and see how God is moving in the faraway places. Most of the ~600 people in the village are Christians and we were amazingly blessed by their hospitality. I must also say that they treated us like their own. We received no special treatment, no soft beds or private meals or nice bathrooms. None of those things exist in the village, but that’s not exactly where I’m going with this.
We spent nearly 3 days living like the villagers live. We saw tourists on safari and wandering through the market, but we saw them from the other side. They looked at us funny when they noticed 4 farangs (foreigners) with the villagers… sitting on porches talking, playing batchi ball and football (soccer), drinking tea, working side by side building a church, and eating meals. It’s an entirely different mindset, and a good one at that.
We took bucket showers, used squatty potties, ate rice every meal, napped on bamboo porches, rode elephants at the neighbor‘s house, joined the bucket line to take fill sand from the creek, got a free jungle tour from a (seemingly) old friend, plucked our own chicken for supper, slept under mosquito nets with no fans, you name it. But it’s so much more than just a great time in the jungle; Manistry was able to see this village with God’s eyes and heart. I said earlier we were going to see how God is moving… He moved in us as well.
The internet here hasn’t been very receptive to photo uploading recently, which is terrible because I would really like to share some great pictures. I hope Going Native 2.0 will contain some media.
