Yesu

I almost skipped church this morning. I know that church in other countries is usually a full day commitment and I needed sleep and might want to do some more exploring. Before I went to bed, I had decided that I wouldn't make an effort for church and so shortly after hitting the pillow at 1:54 a.m., my phone rings at 7:48. I know that picking up the phone would be tantamount to an agreement to attend church, and so I had an instantaneous internal discussion before groggily agreeing to meet Jarun for church in five minutes. ugh... i hate mornings.

We get to church and I realize I don't need to be there for another hour and a half and I try to hide my extreme frustration and fatigue. Well, I needed to be there today and I needed to be there then. I've been asking God to reveal things to me and he met me this morning. God is about community, He teaches us through our covenant family and calls us to bring others along with us as we seek to do community and die to others that they might live. My favorite picture of community was during communion. I was a bit confused because the A/V was malfunctioning and there was no English translation, so that after the pastor prayed over the cup, I was caught off guard when members traded cups and then again and passed them around several times before finally consuming the represenation of Christ's blood. How cool, I've never seen a way to make communion such a personal yet communal acknowledgement of God's reign over all. I think we should start to do that.

Before church stared, J and I sat in the dining area talking to pass the time while we waited for the service. I asked him about his background and listening to his story was the perfect capstone to my first trip to Asia. A shade under 95% of Thai's are buddhist, the national emblem is a Hindu/Buddhist symbol and so it follows that J grew up in a buddhist family. His father passed away when he was an infant and he grew up being very devout in disciplined in his devotion to his buddhist faith. He said it was very peaceful, but that he was alone and unhappy. He met Ajun (Pastor) A from Bangkok Liberty Church, and the pastor shared the story of Jesus with him. J told me how he learned that God could be his father, his joy, his community and looked at me and told me, "Pete, Jesus is my everything." I felt his heart and see it with his life, his hospitality, it was very emotional I choked up a bit as I stammered, "Me too J, me too." Is Jesus my everything? I am easily distracted and focus on other things all too often. J challenged me and convicted me in his simple testimony.

We finally moved into the sanctuary for the service and began singing shortly as things started. They posted the English translations for songs beneath the Thai characters, which I still marvel at the detail and complexity of all the letters, diacritical marks and such. The only words I could identify were "Hallelujah" and "Yesu" At the core of worship, those are the only two words we really need to praise and so God needs to strip things down to simple terms for me sometimes because I'm so dense.

The first song spoke about the name of God being proclaimed from the mountains to the valleys and the spirit of God filling the air for the people to breathe in. Having experienced a few of the gorgeous mountains and valleys in Thailand, I thought about the 65 million people that live here. The indigenous hill people are pretty receptive to the gospel, as 12% of the 4 million tribal people are Christians, and the majority of mission energy and resources are geared to them, even though they are such a small percentage. I say that to emphasize that if the entire nation is .4-.5% Christian and a decent percentage of the hill people are Christians, the number of urban and mainstream Thai's that are Christian are infintesimally small. Fifteen people or so, including J's cousin went forward after the service to receive Christ, most of them wearing the red VIP name tag that I embarrassingly removed almost as soon as I received it.

I read along to the worship songs and meditated upon the simple words that spoke to me. I love worshipping with my brothers and sisters around the world to see how they praise God. Repeatedly I am struck by God's voice to me in foreign lands to recognize his magnitude, his greatness and how he calls me far beyond myself and my issues to focus on Him, praise Him, give myself to Him and love others. I get so wrapped up in my little world and quickly make God about me and Him and then just me. This morning God said to me, Pete, you just need me, let go of those things that you are holding onto and fear and give yourself completely to me, worship me, follow me and you will walk in true freedom. Most of the songs this morning spoke about freedom. My favorite one said that we have a song of freedom in our hearts, a song of joy in our souls and that we are called to liberty through worship and devotion to Jesus. Simple things, yet I am stubborn.