So what am I doing here?

Its 11:11 right now according to the clock, that special time of night when the ones align according to their twelve hour orbits. I should be in bed. I’ll be the first tomorrow morning in Thai language school to give directions to a fictional Tuk Tuk driver, and I am anything but ready. But here I sit on the steps outside our room, with Brandan’s laptop on my lap. I’m here to finally answer an irksome question I was always asked back in the States—the question that would always show up like a bad penny. “So um… what are you doing in Thailand?” If I had a penny for every time I was asked that. The problem was that I didn’t really know. Eventually I kind of ended up with a script to not answer, but at least respond to it.
“Yeah, I’m gonna be doing some media work on health and drug awareness in Bangkok … but actually every SM I’ve ever talked to said that they went expecting to do one thing and ended up doing something entirely different… so you know… I’m just keeping an open mind I’m not sure what exactly I’ll be doing.”
What was really exasperating was the fact that no one would remember what I said. Members of my immediate family would ask the question at least once a week each.
“So I’m still not really sure… what will you be doing in Thailand?”
When I met Brandan in LAX to fly to Thailand we laughed as we realized both of us had been going through the same thing--not really knowing what we would be doing, but being asked over and over again. We were sure that when we finally arrived in Thailand we would know.
Upon arrival in Bangkok I started asking the other SMs what we would be doing. They didn’t know. Our boss, Pastor Doug Venn was gone on vacation and we would need to talk to him to figure out exactly what was going on. “So what have you been doing?” I asked Kelly since she had been at the church plant I would be at (Thonburi) for five months or so. “Oh you know… just hanging out,” she joked. But it was one of those jokes you say that are half true. My last two weeks I’ve been realizing that full truth of that half truth.
Being in a new culture has been a little bit like going back in time. Brandan, Cory and I are all eight years old again, and Kelly’s been babysitting us. We tell her what we want and she orders. We follow her around the city clueless of where we are. We ask her what we’re going to do today. Everything is new, everything is a discovery. I didn’t even know how to use the toilet in our house. (It’s of the crouch and spray variety, as Brandan put it.) It’s fun to experience this foreign culture, but a little hard function as an adult. However I am growing up to the challenge of Bangkok. I can get to school and back again by myself. I can order khaawphat phak say khay (fried rice with vegetables and egg). And if you dropped me somewhere in the middle of Bangkok I’d say there’s a 20% chance that I could find my way back home as compared to 0% chance when I first got here.
I met Pastor Doug and liked him immediately. He’s full of enthusiasm and I feel that I can talk to him and he will understand (there are more types of communication barriers than language barriers). That day it was outlined what Cory and I would be doing. In a nutshell we’ll be shooting and editing short documentary films on mission work. In addition to that, Cory had the idea of painting a three story mural on an vacant wall down our street. But Pastor Doug made it clear that the official job we have in Thailand isn’t the point. Anything we undertake in Thailand will stop the moment we leave; so as short term missionaries we will have accomplished pretty much a bunch of nothing. That is why everything we do must be done with the Thai people. We are not the ones who will convert Thai people, Thai people are the ones. Our role here is to encourage and empower the Thais--to teach them and let them go out among their countrymen. A Thai can reach a Thai much more effectively than any farang (Thai word for white foreigner).
So any project we undertake must be with the help of Thai people. It’s through relationships and example that people are converted. As farang we are emissaries of Christianity, whether we like it our not. And as farang we kinda stick out in Bangkok. So it’s also our job to lead exemplary lives, reflecting Jesus through our daily actions.
So what am I doing in Thailand? You know… just hanging out.

PS. I most sincere and heartfelt apologies to anyone who made it all the way through this post. I promise from here on out that there will be a higher concentration of pictures and less bothersome text.