Village life is slow. Sometimes painfully slow. The people in little Nai Soi are up-and-at-‘em even before the first rooster crows. As the sun’s rays begin to peek over the horizon, songs of worship to the Father come to life as two dozen little voices blend together and echo from the bamboo assembly building perched atop the hill. As the children make their way to the school resting at the foot of the hill, we assume our respective positions for the classes we teach. Throughout the day, our team teaches English in six separate class periods for six different age groups. A few of us teach other classes like math, geography, and even chemistry. In our free time we stroll throughout Nai Soi exchanging smiles with the villagers and snacking on Oreo wannabes we’ve snagged at a roadside shop for ten cents.
Every day looks almost the same as the last, and my free time is almost always spent laughing with my team, reading a book, or trudging through the jungle with Kyle to watch some of the men locate and incinerate a beehive (and celebrate victory by eating raw bee larvae). I’ve found myself wondering how well the rest of our squad is doing in Thailand. When we gather together in about a week to travel to Cambodia, we’ll sit together and laugh as we compare our experiences in Thailand — except our team has one small problem:
We never made it to Thailand.
Geographically we find ourselves within the borders of Thailand, but we have experienced Burmese culture in its entirety. Almost every person we’ve met this month is Burmese and most of them speak Burmese as their primary language. Through patience-building broken English conversations with our ministry partners, we have learned a little bit about the horrible conditions in the nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar).
One of the leaders in our village is a missionary named Sai Ree. He is from Burma, but he travels around the Mae Hong Son province in northwestern Thailand sharing about Jesus and living out the Great Commission. He has taken a liking to Kyle and myself so he sat me down a few nights ago to tell me about the hardships his people were facing in Burma. He says that the government workers have been rolling through rural villages looting them dry and burning them down. There has been an internal conflict raging for nearly 70 years making it the longest-running civil war in the world. Because of the violence between the Burmese government and some independent rebel groups, people have been fleeing to their bordering nations. Thailand allows some of the refugees to enter because the long neck people bring tourism to the country.
One of my new friends here in Nai Soi is named Lai Kee (pictured below). He is 22 years old, and he came to this village as a missionary through the influence and encouragement of Sai Ree. He grew up in Burma and his family fled to Thailand when he was around 9 years old. He originally lived in Chiang Mai when they entered the country, but he moved to the border near this village to study in a Burmese school. Several years ago, the missionary Sai Ree came to his village and shared the gospel with him. Lai Kee gave his life to Christ and never looked back. He began studying the Bible and following the will of the Lord into the challenges of village life.
This week my team and I celebrated two birthdays (shoutout to Kim and Carmen), and the cake and candles prompted me to inquire about Lai Kee’s birthday in one of our broken English conversations.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Uh. I don’t think he understood my question.
“You don’t know?” I said in disbelief.
I learned that his parents were illiterate and they had no idea how to record his birthday. He told me that his parents remember that he was born during the time when they clear the side of the mountains to plant crops, so he was probably born around May.
Lai Kee has never celebrated his birthday. Nobody ever got him a cake and candles. He has never been to a local Mexican restaurant and had a mariachi band put a sombrero on his head while singing “Feliz cumpleaños!”
In my 22 years of life, I have never been without a cake and candles. I’ve been to Mi Casita in Laurel, Mississippi for just about every birthday I can remember. In my 22 years of life, I have never lacked anything. I have never been without food or access to countless restaurants. In fact my problem is usually trying to decide which ridiculously sized meal I want. If it didn’t rain for a few weeks, our water faucets have never run dry. I have never had to purify my drinking water. I have never had to sleep under a bug net for fear of contracting malaria or dengue fever (until now, of course). I have never been persecuted for my faith, and I have never laid awake at night hoping my siblings in my war-torn home country were safe.
Through our American lenses, we may look at this man and say, “Poor guy. He’s got it rough.” He sleeps on a mat in a tiny bamboo hut with three other men (five include Kyle and myself). He has to forage for food and take turns with his roommates cooking meals over a fire. He wakes up at 5:30am to start his day preparing food for his 5 little piglets that Bekah and Emmy have fallen in love with.
But he knows joy. And joy has a name.
Jesus picked up Lai Kee 5 years ago, and he made him new. He gave him purpose and hope. He set him free from the bondage of sin and he has never been the same. Lai Kee knows joy. Lai Kee knows Jesus.
We spent 22 years living completely different lives that could have led us in two very different directions. We were born into two completely different families with completely different backgrounds. I have been blessed with a family and culture that knows the Lord and has taught me His ways. Lai Kee has been blessed with a family as well, but his parents and three younger siblings are still following the god of this world and are trapped in Animism. Please join me in praying for them!
22 years. 8,030 days. 175,857,000 minutes of life lived on the same earth.
We were created by the same God in His own image. We were given freedom to choose our own paths, and we were both radically changed by the gospel 5 years ago at the age of 17. The last 5 years have been filled with discipleship and pursuit of the Lord for both of us. We struggled through some hard times and celebrated the good times, too. By the simple game of chance and circumstance, we should have never met, but by following the Father’s plan for our lives we have found ourselves serving in the same tiny village on the Thai-Burma border, teaching the same ninth grade geography class, and sharing the gospel with the same people group for the glory of God.
Isn’t God good? We’re two long-lost brothers who were separated by 9,000 miles of earth until this predetermined moment in God’s story.
I’m so glad we never made it to Thailand.
I’m glad God brought me to this little piece of Burma so I could cross paths with Lai Kee and the others here in Nai Soi.
With only a few days left here, we are preparing to leave another little piece of our hearts in this country as well. I’m not sure if this process gets easier as time goes on, but one thing is for sure: the Father takes us deeper and reveals His love more fully than we ever imagined with every piece of ourselves we sacrifice for His Name’s sake.
For that I am forever grateful.
