Bekkers' July Newsletter

THE BIG EXAM

It sounded as if the voice was coming from underwater. I strained to hear what was being said. Was it even Thai? I could feel the sweat breaking out on my face and my palms getting wet as I felt the panic rising. Four agonising minutes later, the Thai language examiner reached across the desk and switched off the recording. I glanced down at the few illegible words I had scrawled on my notepad and my heart sank. My level 3 language exam had gotten off to a wobbly start! But as the recording played through for the second time, and I was able to keep my panic in check, I realised that it was indeed Thai and I was actually hearing and understanding whole sentences, not just a word here and there. This time when the language examiner switched off the recording my page was full of notes, some of which I could even read and I was able tell her, in some detail, what I had heard.

The next 4 hours were spent listening, reading and speaking Thai – the final verdict: a pass! The following day, after 2 hours of written examination, my level 3 exam was finally over. Although we will always be language students in this country, this marks the end 4 years of formal Thai language study for me and closes one chapter in my life as a career missionary.

THE BIG MOVE

A 1940 model Hino truck pulled up outside the house in a cloud of black smoke and with a loud grinding of gears. The back of the truck looked and smelt as if it had last been used to convey pigs to the market. The rain started pouring. Four Thai guys clambered out of the truck and hoisted a grease-stained tarpaulin over the back and then stood back in horror as they surveyed the pile of furniture and boxes awaiting transportation to the storage house. These foreigners must be crazy!

• “Have you seen the thingymajing that goes on top of the whatchamacallit?” Nick called from upstairs. “I think its been packed in box number 7,” replied Trish.

• “Mommy, my bed’s gone, where am I going to sleep?”
  

• “I’m putting this shirt of yours in the ‘junk’ pile,” declared Trish. “What! Are you crazy? That’s my favourite shirt!” “But you haven’t worn it in 4 years!”

• “Emily, for the 100^th time, stop taking your toys out of that box that we’ve already packed!”

• “No, your train tracks CANNOT go to South Africa with us – there’s no room!”

• “Aaargh! We’ve run out of @#$%* tape again!”

• “Nick, I’m sure that guy carrying our computer is drunk!” “No, he’s just hung-over.”

Fortunately the Thai workers didn’t understand us anyway. We’d been planning our move for a long time, but it still ended in a mad, stressful and frenzied rush in the last two days. And now its all over – the last box is taped shut and the final piece of furniture in storage (pic below).

“So Nick: when are you going to do your preparation for the RUC camp, the missions weekend, Bruce’s wedding, and for your last Thai sermon?”

Nick: “Ummm… tomorrow…?”

Water

Thailand is a country with a lot of water. It has many rivers and dams, a 3200 km coastline and an annual rainfall average of around 200cm (up to 380cm in the south and as low as 140cm in the drier northeast). Water is very important to Thai life, religion and culture. Two of the Thai's most famous religious festivals involve water - Loy Krathong in November, where ornamental floats are released on rivers and dams in reverence of the river gods and Songkraan in April, where sacred statues are ritually washed and the country enjoys the mother of all water fights for 3 days solid (as seen in the pic above).

In days gone by, before tarmac roads and the mass production of motorcars, rivers and canals were the only mode of transport. They were the main arteries along which commerce and hence, development, took place. Not for nothing, Bangkok was known as the "Venice of the East". A remnant of this is to be seen in the famous "floating market" outside Bangkok, a favourite stop for tourists to Thailand. Sadly, many of the canals in Bangkok have been filled in to make room for wider roads and pavements.

Water is also essential to the production of rice, of which Thailand is the world's largest producer.

With all this water, one would think that there is plenty to drink too. Not true. Drinking water in Thailand has to be bought in bottles. In large cities, such as Bangkok, municipal water is piped to homes. In most of the rest of the country, however, there is no municipal water and most folk use borehole water. The water-table is generally very high, so borehole water does not come from deep wells. The result, brown, brackish water that is not fit for consumption.

We use borehole water in our home. We have a large tank in the garden, into which the water is pumped (a float system keeps the tank at a certain level). When we turn on a tap in the house, the water gets pumped from the tank, through a large sand and charcoal filter and into the house. This water is used for all our household purposes, other than drinking.

(This photo shows the stainless steel tank on the left, the long, blue filter on the right and the borehole and house pumps in the foreground on the right - Emily in the middle)

For our drinking water we rely on "Uncle Taa". He is our local water-man, who delivers water to our door in large plastic 20 liter bottles. A bottle like this costs 15 Baht (R 3.47 or US$ 0.50). This is municipal water that has been filtered (well, we trust that it has been filtered:-)

"Tyred" of garbage

Garbage, more precisely, what to do with it, is a question that no doubt has plagued man since time immemorial - more so since we started packaging things. Most cities and towns in the world today have garbage disposal services and garbage is either burned, buried, exported to poor countries, dumped in landfills, the sea, forests and other ecologically sensitive areas. Fact is, most of us don't really worry too much about where our garbage goes once it leaves the pavement in front of our homes.

In Thailand, up until not too many years ago, fresh food was packaged in leaves. In fact, today still, some food bought at markets is wrapped in banana, pandanus and other leaves. This makes for hassle-free disposal. You merely drop it wherever you please.

As Thailand has become more developed, however, it has had to deal more and more with plastic and other non-biodegradable packaging. This has not proved to be too much of a hassle to some folk - they merely burn it, thus contributing to the emission of odoriferous and noxious substances in the air. In March this year, the air pollution levels in Chiang Mai exceeded critical levels and the province was declared and environmental disaster area. The main culprits were farmers burning their waste, slash and burn farming and uncontrolled forest fires, but even as visibility was reduced to around 50 meters and tiny sooty particles were falling from the sky, noses running and eyes stinging, my neighbours were happily burning their household and garden refuse.

Thailand is modernising. We have regular, twice-a-week garbage collection (which my neighbours, for reasons unbeknown, prefer not to use) and are required to place our garbage in black bags, which are to be tied up and placed on the road on garbage collection days. This is an improvement but it has resulted in the demise of a unique and quaint Thai fixture...the rubber garbage bin.

As you can see, it is made "entyrely" from a car tyre, which has been cut and turned inside out. A novel way to keep your garbage out of the way and clever use of old car tyres.

Did you know?

Some interesting Thai Buddhist cultural information

• Some Thai proverbs have a corresponding English one. No prizes, but see if you can match these: “Escape from a tiger, and meet a crocodile”; “ When the cow’s gone, surround the cattle-pen” and “ When the water rises, hurry to collect some. (answers at the bottom of this post)

• Nine is an auspicious number and is seen as lucky – in 2003 a minister paid 4 million Baht (R800 000 or US $114 000) for a car number plate with the digits “9999”

• Thai people love uniforms – a society attuned to hierarchy needs clothing that helps people deduce each other’s relative status. Clothing sets the tone from farmers to the silk-clad elite.

• Each of Thailand’s provincial capital cities has its own “city pillar” which is marked by a shrine dedicated to the guardian spirit of that city.

• Some Thai people attach great significance to dreams. The two worst dreams are apparently dreaming of fire (especially of your house burning down), and about back teeth. The latter is usually related to death or sickness.

• The proper name of Bangkok is “City of Angels, great city of immortals, magnificent jewelled city of the god Indra, seat of the King of Ayutthaya, city of gleaming temples, city of the King’s most excellent Palace and Dominions, home of Vishnu and all the gods”. In Thai it is all joined in one 160-letter word.

• In Thailand just about everyone has a nickname. The commonest nicknames mean “small” e.g. Lek, Nit, or Noi.... which were given as terms of endearment when they were babies. Those who were less attractive babies, go by names such as Gob (frog) or Gung (Shrimp)!

• An old Thai superstition says that if you hear a jing-jok’s (gecko) cry just as you’re about to do something – then don’t do it! The cry sounds like “tch! tch!” - the sound you would make to warn someone... possibly the origin of this particular superstition.

• Even in our modern age some Thai children still have a “top knot”: a little tuft of hair with a ponytail in the middle of an otherwise completely shaven head! It is believed to be a cure for persistent sickliness, feverishness, or a tendency towards accidents during babyhood.

• Thailand is not a nation of great readers! According to a 2003 Unesco report, the average Thai person reads a scant 8 lines per year.

• An old Siamese proverb goes like this: To be educated and not be a [government] official is like receiving a Pali (i.e. sacred) education and not becoming a monk.

• At a Thai “housewarming” there should always be an uneven number of monks present – poor people would have 3 monks come to bless the house, richer folk might have 9 or more. Even numbers are considered “bad luck”

• All societies have some form of hierarchical ordering, but in Thai society people cannot really interact except in hierarchical terms.

• Traditionally rice is considered the only true food – one can eat to one’s fill without sinning and it is said to nourish the human “khwan” (soul).

• Gautama Buddha once preached, “I myself have renounced my earthly goods, lustful desires and have been celibate and considered myself a good person for more than 8 infinities multiplied by 10 to the 20^th strength. Add one hundred thousand eternities and 10 lives of the Buddha’s life in length and oh! You all, hear me if you do good this long you will still not be likely to escape or be delivered at all”

• Thai Buddhism regards women as having more worldly attachments than men. Thus, if women sin, it is only to be expected and the consequences of their sin are less. But, they need to make more merit than men do.

• Buddhism views the world as the consequence of ignorance – there is no concept of an original good creation.

• Thai Buddhism regards the King, high royalty and Buddhist monks, irrespective of their behaviour, to be higher moral beings than “ordinary’ humans. They are accorded special respect and special language is used to address them.

• “Phii” is the title used to address a man or a woman older than yourself, but younger than your parents.

• A monk is supposed to follow 227 Buddhist precepts (rules), a novice 10, a nun 9, but a layman only 5.

• The Buddhist concept of Nirvana is likened to a drop of water reaching the ocean – you lose your individual identity and become part of the larger “cosmic soul”.

• Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, never claimed to be God, and even though Buddhism is an atheistic religion, Thai Buddhists worship and revere images of Buddha, believing that they gain merit by doing so.

• The 5 precepts of Buddhism are: do not kill, do not steal. do not practice immorality, do not lie, do not take drugs or alcohol.

• Because the Buddhist people believe the Law of Karma is inescapable, they believe no one is free to choose an alternative way of life.

• Men benefit most from Buddhism – Buddhists believe that a woman can only attain Nirvana if she becomes a man in some future life.

• The three pillars of Thai society are; unity (their nation), continuity (their religion) and identity (their king)

• The fact that Jesus suffered and died on the cross makes him a failure who had bad karma in the eyes of Buddhists.

• Thailand has freedom of religion, but in terms of the Constitution the king is required to be a Buddhist.

• Thailand has 30 000 Buddhist temples and 300 000 monks.

• Thailand has 63 million people - roughly 92% are Buddhist, 1% are Christian.

(from the frying pan into the fire; closing the stable after the horse has bolted; make hay while the sun shines)

Bekkers' Bulletin - January 2007

TRAINING

This newsletter comes to you from Singapore where we have spent the past week attending OMF’s New Leaders’ Introductory course. Its been a great week and we return to Thailand feeling challenged and enthusiastic about applying the things we learned here.

We also had a wonderful opportunity to touch base with Steve and Jenny Murphy, South Africans working and ministering in Singapore. The photo above was taken at the Yacht Club where they took us for a “braai”.

Earlier last month Nick also attended a conference in Chiang Mai on Buddhism. The focus of this conference was using narrative to preach the gospel in oral cultures. Nick was able to put what he had learned into practice by preaching, using stories, two Sundays ago.

IN GRACE CHURCH

The land transfer for In Grace Church has finally gone through, but we were a bit worried to find out afterwards that the previous owner had buried some family members on the land – at a time when it was still legal to bury people on private property. Pastor Isara received assurances that the bones had been removed some time ago, but we found, in the undergrowth, what appeared to be a gravestone on top of a grave that had clearly not been disturbed. So, armed with spades and machetes Nick and Pastor Isara cleared the area and hunted for skeletons – not something that Bible College or the pastorate ever equipped them for. We are relieved to say that there were no dry bones to be found and it turns out that the “gravestone” was merely an old, but elaborate, spirit house.

Thai folk are notoriously superstitious and so we haven’t told too many people that there were graves on the land – not too sure how well that news will go down, even amongst the church members!

On a more spiritual note, two weeks ago, we had a time of prayer on the new site, dedicating it to the Lord (see photo below). Building will not commence in the foreseeable future, and for now we will be renting at the OMF Mekong Centre in an effort to cut costs.

FAMILY NEWS

Trish and baby Bekker 3 are doing well. We still don’t know the sex of our next baby – hopefully the next scan will reveal all.

Coming up, we have a short visit from Andy Sieberhagen, whom many of you know. Nick is optimistic about finding time for a game of golf!

Then, as mentioned in our last newsletter, we have to attend what is known as a Pre-Home Assignment Workshop (PHAW) to prepare us for the shock and horror of returning home. This course runs at the end of this month. After all this training, we are anticipating being very learned and wise!