It’s the end of a long day of teaching kids at an English camp. There’s a part of me that wants to be resting at home, or Skyping with family and friends, but that’s not what I’m doing. As usual, God has better plans for my evening. My teammate and I are over at the other ministry house hanging out with three of the YWAM volunteers who have come through the prison Discipleship Training School. We can’t have complete conversations with them since we don’t speak Thai, but that hasn’t stopped them from blessing us and connecting in different ways. One of them is teaching me to cook delicious Thai food, one is working on my teammate’s tattoo, and the other is playing praise songs on his guitar. My teammate and I are singing in English, our friends are singing in Thai. You don’t need a shared language when you’re seeking the same things.
Worship in Spirit and truth.
Nights like this one are becoming the norm in my life. Honestly, I wish they’d always been the norm in my life. Sitting around playing music with these guys, learning to cook and hearing how their lives have been changed, has filled me up this month. When I started this blog I thought it was going to be about living in a culture of worship. Then I thought I wanted to talk more about making relationships and letting God form connections when language fails us. Now I’m realizing that for me this month, they’re the same thing.
I came to Thailand with two specific personal goals. The first was brought to me by my team in month 3, and that was to be bolder in singing and being involved with worship. Although I’ve always enjoyed singing, it’s never been in my comfort zone to participate in any kind of leadership role with worship. Of course, worship is much more than singing, but worship through music is definitely an area God is developing in me.
So it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that we have been asked to participate in praise and worship time in nearly every church service we’ve attended in Thailand. We also performed praise songs at a local radio station. One of my favorite experiences this month was when we didn’t realize we’d be leading worship time (5 or 6 songs) until we got to the Burmese refugee camp. All 7 of us made our way on-stage, coordinated quickly with the worship band that would be playing for us, and started praising God. I’m not going to pretend it was the smoothest worship session I’ve ever heard, but we were laughing and praising God with joyful hearts, and that was so much better than a seamless performance. I looked up partway through and just had to laugh, because the verse on the back wall of the church was Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might nor power, but by my Spirit.” We may not have had the might or power for that morning, but God provided the Spirit!
I’ve been reminded a lot this month of the story in the Gospel where, as Jesus approached, “the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices” (Luke 19:37). Praise Him joyfully, whatever that looks like.
My second goal coming into Thailand was to not limit the relationships I make here just because people don’t speak Spanish. I’ll be honest, I had no idea how I was going to connect with the language barrier. It’s funny to me now that I was so worried about it. I never expected that connection to be through music, but that has been a huge part in shaping my interactions with our Thai YWAM staff here. I may not be able to speak Thai, but when someone starts playing a guitar and instructs me to sing, I can do that. Some of my favorite nights have been spent sitting on the floor for hours with my new friends, figuring out what songs we all know so that we can worship in two languages. I may not have been able to spend the long car rides to the refugee village in conversation with them, but I could use the time to write out praise song lyrics and help one of the guys sound them out so that he can learn them in English.
I love the atmosphere of worship we’ve been blessed to live in here. It’s not about the music, because eventually that stops. It’s not about the words, which is fortunate since we don’t have many in common. I think that when it comes to both worship and making connections, maybe it’s time to stop complicating things and let our words be few.
