During my second week of language school in Bangkok, Thailand, a small Buddha statue sat decorated in the lobby of my school.
For Songkran, the Thai New Year that is celebrated from April 13th to 15th, people pour water over a Buddha statue's head as a gesture of honor to cool the Buddha off from the brutal Bangkok heat. All of the students milling around in the lobby during class break lined up to do it.
I stood there, smiling politely, but something in my spirit said, not you.
My turn came, and a teacher tried to usher me to the Buddha and gestured that I should pour water over its head, but I shook my head politely and stepped backward. So many people continued to line up to pour water over the head of the Buddha as if they were in line for something else, like filling up their water bottles. Like it was completely normal.
One of my classmates poured water over the head of the Buddha, and she came to stand next to me. She gestured that I should try. I shook my head again and she said, “That’s okay, it can take time to get used to doing things like this,” as if one day I could be persuaded to do participate.
I only give this kind of respect to one God, I realized as I watched others smile and celebrate and pour and the office ladies and teachers snap photos of the farangs (foreigners) honoring a statue.
These people don’t know Jesus. Someone should come tell them about Him, I thought.
Then I looked around.
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” - Romans 10:14
That’s me, I thought. That’s why I’m here. So these people have a way to hear about Jesus. But in this moment, it feels so impossible. I frowned as I looked around the room at all the smiling people.
If only they could hear about Jesus and how much he loves them, I thought, a sudden wave of frustration rushing through my heart. How real he is, unlike a Buddha that needs water sprinkled on its head to relieve the hot Bangkok heat. I don’t have to nourish my God to give him honor; he gives me shade and water in a hot land so that I can honor him by sharing his great love with people who have never known it.
How impossible it seems that God created everything in this warm, strange land, yet the bird outside my window has a better idea of who his maker is than the people walking on the street. Even still, I am here because of a God that provides for me, and that while less than 1% of people in Thailand are Christians, God is still making opportunities for the Gospel to be proclaimed.
Learn more about opportunities to share God's love with women and kids in Bangkok, Thailand.