Throughout the history of the
Christian Church, priests, missionaries, and pastors have devised a myriad of methods
to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, all tailored around a theological opinion
of how God wants us to carry on the Messiah’s mission. Whether its fire and
brimstone preaching, salvation and love messages, massive charismatic crusades,
or letting one’s actions speak louder than words, sharing the good news can
come to the unreached in many forms today. I bring up this topic because I
believe our contacts last month in Thailand, Arun and Pang, do it in the most
effective way for the societies of today’s world. As Arun puts it, their
mission in their small cassava farming village of western Thailand is to spread
the Gospel through relationships with their neighbors. A simple concept, right?
Sometimes we miss the timeless value of simple schemes in the complexity of our
modern minds.
Although we didn’t get to accompany
Arun and Pang on much relational ministry, hearing about their focused passion
and providing them with more time to pursue it because we did most of their
cassava farming, some of their goat farming, and helped their neighbors with
their cassava fields, was more than enough. While I was impassioned for humbleness
in hard work and faith in God to provide bountiful harvests through it, I knew
that this simple service was paving the way for this couple to walk obediently
on the path upon which God has placed them. Here’s a brief depiction of what
that path looks like for them.
After coming in to this community
focusing on ministry full-time, Arun quickly saw that if he wanted to be
embraced as an equal by his neighbors, he needed to become a farmer just like
them. Some of the people thought he was a drug dealer because they didn’t understand
how he had no “work” yet had a house and truck. Support raising is an alien
concept to them. So, not only did he become a farmer like them, but he learned
and implemented techniques that enable his fields to yield almost double the
tapioca (cassava) crop of his friends, which he now teaches them as part of his
community development efforts. As he works alongside them in love, even
bringing in foreigners like us to help as well, the relationships that are
being built communicate more about the character and heart of God than any
crusade or church service he could put on for them. When he and Pang meet with
them in their houses now, the ears of their friends are open in a way only made
possible through their honest and selfless endeavor to achieve solidarity with
their community. In the 8 years they have been there, they have built strong-enough
relationships with a handful of families there to share the Gospel definitively
with them. Most of them have responded with joy and are excited to have a
relationship with the One, true God who inspires them to see and feel His/Her
divine comfort and purpose in the struggles of their agricultural lives. I
smile softly as I write this, because I’m convinced that God is greatly pleased
with the work Arun and Pang are doing. Just like Jesus exemplified with his
concentration on the 12 disciples, I believe God is first concerned with the
quality over the quantity of His/Her people.
To go along with this theme, here’s
just a little look into Thai life and culture, and into the fun God gave us as
20 guys living it up without women for a month. This month was the Thai New
Year, also known commonly as Water Festival (in English). As the kids are out
of school for the summer, and its dang hot in this tropical place, it’s a
perfect time for them to take a week off work and everything else to have a nationwide
water fight! Most of the houses along the street through our area had big
barrels of water out, with hoses to refill, and plenty of people to fire away
with buckets and anything that could throw water at passing cars and
motorcycles. But if like to be mobile, like us, its much better to load barrels
onto the backs of your 3 trucks and ride around doing water drive-bys at
everyone and everything you see. It was a blast, especially hitting the poor
motorcycle riders that had no protection or way to get us back, haha. You also
can get colored rice flour and mix it in with your water to paint people up as
they go by too, making it a little more interesting. If youre still wondering
how this relates to relationship ministry, we rode around with a number of Arun
and Pang’s friends and some kids from the community, making us a 4 or 5 car
convoy of death-by-water. I think everyone was “baptized by water,” at least
100 times, and because we stood alongside them in water-battle, I can pray they
will someday experience the baptism of the Spirit through their
now-strengthened relationships with Arun and Pang.
