14 April 2013
Dear Phyllis,
Song khron has hit Thailand again. This
is the biggest holiday of the year. This is the Thai version of
Japans obon matsuri. The big difference is that Japanese obon is when
the dead come back once a year to have a festival with the living,
and Thai song khron is more secular of a Buddhist virtue of younger
showing respect to elders. But both the Japanese obon and the Thai
song khron are the number one events of the year where the entire
nation shuts down for a week. The US equivalent of that would be
Christmas.
Technically song khron is a ceremony
where the younger pour water on the hands of elders to show their
respect. It started out by simply pouring water on the others persons
hands, but it has degenerated into a huge national water fight. I
know of nothing in the western world like it. A natural explanation
for it is, that we are at the end of the annual dry season. We have
just gone through a period of five months where there has been less
than four days of rain. April is by far the hottest month of the
year. Right now it is burning hot and dry every day. Supposedly it
feels good to get doused with water. For five days every child in the
country, and a lot of adults, will stand beside the road throwing
buckets of water on every poor soul passing by. It is extremely
dangerous on a motor bike. It is impossible to go any place in
Thailand more than one kilo without getting drenched with water.
Recently the Lord has given us an
unusual relationship with a high-class couple living in this muban
(living area). Bancha is a PHD professor at Mae Jo University, and
his wife, Boom, is an RN who has a school for Nurses assistants. She
has her school right here about 300 meters from our house. I thought
they were genuine seeker for salvation but it looks more like their
interest is more for what they can get out of us. There are a number
of things they want me to make for them, and and Boom wants me to
teach English in her school.
A week ago they mentioned that they
were going to have a special song khron meeting for Boom's school,
and invited me to come as one of the dignitaries. I was a little
leery as I am not too sure about this pouring water on someones
hands. There certainly is nothing wrong with pouring water and
showing respect, but it does have its roots in Buddhism. It was one
of those gray area things that I am not sure what to do. Most
Christians see nothing wrong with it, but some take a stand because
of its Buddhist origin.
I am one of the extreme hard heads. I
take a hard stand against anything shaded in Japan. One of the basic
things with Japanese funerals is kenka (offering flowers). To me,
that is black and white. The Japanese have a death fear of dead
spirits. Two people can have a squall all their lives. But when one
dies the other person is scared to death that the dead spirit will
come back to bug them. To solve that problem, the surviving person
goes to the funeral, and offers a flower to the dead persons spirit
showing that they are sorry for all the bad things that they did
while the other person was alive. Or in other words, “Please don't
come back and bug me”. Astoundingly, this is commonly practiced at
Christian funerals. I draw a line and refuse to offer a flower.
At New Years, the Japanese have their
kado no matsu (corner pine tree). They put this decoration up for the
dead spirits. The Japanese say, “No, it doesn't mean anything. It
is just a New Years decoration just like your Christmas tree”. But
the Japanese kado no matsu does have a significance for dead spirits.
Because of that, for years I had refuse to allow a Christmas tree in
our house. To me, it was impossible to speak against the Japanese
kado no matsu when I had what they called the same thing standing in
my house.
But song khron had me stumped. I asked
Pastor Kichikun what he would do if he was invited to participate in
a hand washing ceremony. He generally took a soft stand. The only
place he would question it was if the water was special water bought
from a temple that had a special blessing (curse) on it. But
otherwise he saw nothing wrong with pouring water on someone, or
letting them pour water on you. He advised, “If you want to keep
your good relationship with this couple, it would be best not to
insult them by not going”. Thursday afternoon I still hadn't made
up my mind what to do when I got dressed and went to Boom's school.
They had the school fixed up
appropriately, and had some tables with a lot of flowers on them. Of
course all the students were there, and both Boom and her PHD
husband. The only other dignitary that I met was a falang (foreign)
looking elderly lady that was a close friend of Boom'. Her
grandfather was from Denmark, and, because she was mixed blood, she
said she had been a movie star in her younger years. If she had been
a beauty , it had all gone south, and left very little but ashes
behind. I was shocked when she told me that she was 20 years younger
than me. At first she said she spook very little English, but then it
came out that she had gone to school at Kansas University. I had a
good time sharing Christ with her. She professed some leaning towards
Christianity, but said she didn't have a visa for heaven, and didn't
want one. I said, “Fine. Don't worry, you won't have to go to
heaven. But if you want to get in later, they don't hand out visas on
arrival at the gate. If you want to get in heaven you must have one
before you leave here.”
But the water pouring ceremony was
totally different from what I expected. Boom had told me that the
students were going to pour water on my hands to show their respect
to me as their elder – and probably their English teacher. Reality
was the reverse. Shortly after I got there, someone came to me with a
Buddhist necklace that I was supposed to wear. All the dignitaries
had one. It was plain enough, but it looked Buddhist, so I refused to
accept it. The thing that surprised me was that I had all the high
cards. It wasn't a matter of my being concerned about offending them,
but they were concerned that they didn't offend me. They were
almost apologetic that the necklace had been offered.
When the ceremony started the movie
star lady and I were seated at the dignitaries table. Bancha stood
before me with a Buddhist tin bowl of water with herbs and a branch
in it. Then there was a small cup of water from the bowl. Bancha
instructed me to take the branch, dip it in the cup, and sprinkle it
on his hands shoulder and head, and bless him. I was surprised that
the whole point of it was I was supposed to bless him. When I figured
out what I was supposed to do, I asked, “You want me to bless you?”
“Yes please.” I replied, “I will be glad to bless you,
but not with this branch. Let me bless you with the blessing of God.”
Then I raise my hands and prayed over him, pleading that the Lord
would indeed bless him in a way that he would know the true God and
write his name in heaven. From there on, the Holy Spirit was in
charge of the ceremony. I saw there was no need for me to be
intimidated by Thai custom. I had the high card and could do what I
wanted. They were intimidated by me.
As the ceremony went on, I was seated
at the front of the line at the head table. Everyone passed before me
expecting that I would bless them. Once I got established, it was
very clear. I drew a clear line between sprinkling water; and
pronouncing the blessing of Jesus on each one. There were about six
or seven of us sitting at the dignitaries table. The obaa chan
(grandmother) movie star was sitting next to me. Then Bancha, Boom,
and one or two others on the other side of them. As everyone passed
down the line all the other celebrities took the branch and sprinkled
the lesser ones as they passed by. When the entire student body stood
in front of me, I raised both arms to pray, but the Holy Spirit came
upon me on an unusual way. At first words would not come out. And
then when I did pray, it was like at a revival meting. I raised my
voice and pleaded with the Father for the blessing of Jesus, and the
salvation of Jesus, on each one. I don't know what they thought. It
certainly was a significant departure from a staged
sprinkle-the-water ceremony. I meant business, and I am sure everyone
in the room knew I was serious about the Lord hearing prayer, and
doing something that they would know was of Him.
Several years ago I heard the amazing
testimony of a Baptist missionary in Kenya. He had been there for 12
years, and couldn't draw flies. His best efforts at dendo
(evangelism) had proved fruitless. In desperation he finally gave up
and said, “If I can't see anyone saved, at least, I want to be a
blessing to this community.” And he started a crazy program of
going all over town blessing everything in sight. He blessed the
traffic lights, children's playgrounds, water fountains, etc. One day
the inman from the local mosque came to him and asked him to his mosque. The missionary asked why he wanted the mosque
blessed. The inman told him that everyone was getting backslid and
offerings were down. They needed something to pick it up a little.
Shortly after that, one night at prayer time, the inman came running
to get him. He grabbed the missionary and dragged him down the street
at high speed. He took him inside and straight up the platform to
standing him up in front of the entire crowd. Then the inman asked,
“Can your Jesus heal people?” “Well, yes...”. Then a man
brought up a 12 year old girl that looked like a pretzel. She was
born badly deformed. “Heal her.” Komatta (BIG problem). This
poor man isn't Bennie Hinn. He is Baptist, not Pentecostal. There
were 5,000 set of eyes staring at him. In desperation, he cried to
the Lord pleading that the Lord would do something to protect His own
Name. The missionary opened his eyes, and the little girl still
looked like a pretzel. He said that was the most crushing moment of
his life. But the father was a marvelous, gracious man. He thanked
the missionary for trying, and turned to walk away. He walked about
10 meters and then turned around and requested, “Sir, I would still
like the blessing of Jesus. Would you pronounce the blessing of Jesus
on my family?” Suddenly the little girl stood straight up totally
healed. The place exploded screaming, “Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus!
A few days later the inman came to the
missionary asking if Jesus had any writings. “Yes, of course, He
does.' “Sir, I would like to study them. Could you get me a copy
of the teaching of Jesus?” The missionary got him a Bible, but
the imman protested, “No I don't want that. I am not interested in
the Bible. I want to study the teaching of Jesus.” “Gomen
nasai, I'm sorry.” So the missionary took the Bible home, ripped
the cover off, and pasted a cardboard cover on it with the writing
“The Teachings of Jesus”. “Oh thank you very much. This is
what I want.” The inman began to study the teachings of Jesus, and
within a short time was born-again of the Spirit of God.
A few months later the inman told the
missionary, “I must go back to Tehran to tell the professors at my
seminary about this truth. The missionary warned that he would get
killed, but the man was insistent that he must go. One day the
missionary visited the man's home, and the eldest son came to the
door. “Excuse me, but is your father here?” “No, I'm sorry
he is gone.” He thought, “You dirty rascals! You have killed
your father.” Then the boy went on to say, “Our father has been
acting very strange lately, and we have been concerned about him. We
didn't have much money but we sold a small piece of land so he could
go to Terran for a vacation.” So they financed the 1st
missionary trip to Tehran
That is the best story I have ever
heard of the blessing of Jesus. I don't know what will become of my
song khron last Thursday, but I had a wonderful time pronouncing the
blessing of Jesus on Boom's school. May everyone be truly blessed by
Jesus.
bill
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