"Gola" Part 3 - Of Mothers and Fathers

I am awake but disoriented and that is why I stare in un-alarmed confusion at the netting at the top of my tent for what seems like a long time.   With an ultra slow fade in, I remember.  Why yes!  I am up in the mountains of Thailand in the middle of nowhere, with aching calves, failing miserably at cultural nuances, sleeping in a tent on the second floor of a shack with people I love enough to have traveled insanely to get here.

And I have to go to the bathroom.

It's that last realization that actually wakes me all the way.  I stumble in the dawn's feeble light down the precarious stairs and across the packed dirt yard.  I realize with some amusement that I have added a new spiritual habit in my life.  Similar to saying grace before a meal, this is the prayer asking for safety and well being just before using the unfacilitated facilities. 

It's on my way back that I catch the sunrise, and am instantly transported from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Perhaps it is the stark contrasts that bring everything into such sharp focus.  Poverty against riches on so many planes.

Soon everyone is up, and we head over to the church again, for a 6 a.m. sunrise service that reminds me of what my Plymouth Brethren brothers and sisters describe from their childhoods.  It's an open kind of thing.  No Communion, but after the Pastor has opened with a Scripture reading and a prayer, the people are invited to share a testimony, a Scripture or request a hymn.  There's no interpretation for me on this, and that actually has the strange effect - and I've felt it before here in Thailand - of enhancing the undertones of the spirituality that's being expressed.  I don't have to concentrate so much on what's being said as on how it's being said, and somehow I find that speaks to my soul.

Me and Pastor Yabaw, a quiet man with a strong voice.

There is a slight distraction, however.  These strong, hard working, respectful people also seem to have a lot of sinus problems.  And - how shall I say this discretely? - they don't really take care of matters privately.  As one man from the left of me shares something he's experienced just this week, another man to the right is, well, hoarking out the window.  He does this loudly.  He does this not once, but several times over for perhaps ten full minutes.  No one seems to be noticing, and maybe it's just because I'm tired, but I actually begin to find this quite hilarious in a completely grossed out kind of way.   Culturally speaking he is not being disgusting at all.  In fact, generally in Thailand people find it completely unthinkable that anyone would blow that stuff into a kleenex and keep it in their pocket?!  Yuck!

There's a final prayer, and then the early morning meeting is over.   I am almost swarmed with greetings.  It's all shaking hands and "Tablut!" and they seem so delighted when I say it.  And yes, the hoarking man comes forward, hand extended, huge smile on a glowing-with-Jesus face, and yes, I shake his hand.  And with apologies to anyone who's reading this over breakfast and now just can't finish, I am only happy to do so.  The stares and whispered chatter from last evening's village stroll have turned into a gladder welcome, although I have no idea what I did to convince them I was okay.

I can't help but wonder, though, as I walk back to our house, what it would have meant for the missionaries who first came here, before this church was established.  For me, here now with Thai's I know and a 'Gar-i-en' interpreter, and Yupa to help make sure I'm fed and comfortable, this is still significantly weird.  Even with my intentions these past three months, to come and make myself as Thai as possible for the duration, I wonder how far I would really be willing to go to do the 'incarnational' thing in a place like this.  To live here, and be here, and earn the trust of these people, like, from scratch.  What would that take?

But I can't think of it much longer because now it's time to eat breakfast and then get ready for the real church service.  And I am suddenly much more focused on the fact that I really need to take a shower but there's no shower here.  Let's just spare the details and suffice it to say that two large pails in the same risky shack as the squatty potty will do the trick in a pinch.  I've even brought my hair dryer and there's even an outlet in our room so, pretty much, I'm all set.

Before I can really get dressed, however, I have another 'gola' moment.  Again, without warning, there is suddenly two women I do not know plus a little girl all sitting on the floor in the room where we're staying.  They talk to one another, and it's clear that they are talking about me, but no one actually addresses me.  One of the women has that same red, sloppy thing in her mouth.  Suradet's mother joins us, and I'm conscious of wanting very much to connect, but feel helpless to do so.

Yupa arrives from downstairs and greets the women.  Then there's a pause, and she smiles and tells me, "They've come to see the "gola".   And that's exactly what they do.  See me.  I mean, just, look at me.  And I'm there, trying to be friendly, but once I've gone through 'Tablut' and 'You-a chogay', I'm done with the small talk ladies. 

I decide to show them the pictures I've taken of their beautiful mountain.  They are politely interested for a while, but after talking among themselves and spitting out the window occasionally, they quietly leave, just like they arrived.  And I'm sorry again that somehow I've lost another opportunity with Suradet's Mom.

But time to get dressed.  I've already decided I want to wear my Karen shirt.  It's part of the way I hope to honour Suradet's parents, to demonstrate my own tribal allegiances, knowing that Karen Christians even in the city, save their traditional clothing for Sunday morning best.  And I was thinking I would just wear my black capris, because any other Sunday skirt I had brought with me from home was way too cosmopolitan for this crowd, I was guessing.  However.

Suradet's mother appears again quite suddenly (how do they do that?) and I have just found out that Yupa has brought a traditional Karen wrap skirt to wear.  So I do something shameful.  I ever so slightly hint.  And that's all it takes.  Within a matter of minutes I am presented with my own skirt, and the undertaking of helping this 'gola' get dressed takes no less than a three-woman task force, involving family members and a neighbour.  When it is all done I feel like a princess, although in the pictures it is clear to anyone with a Western sense of fashion that Karen's are not really into clothes that are 'slimming'.  Square and straight are lines of beauty here.  And yes, I can do square and straight.  I opt out of the head towel thingy though, because it's one of my personal phobias that one day I'm going to end up on 'What Not To Wear' and I didn't want to push it.

By the time we arrive at the church, the singing has already begun and the room is basically full.  We enter and are shown up to the front via the centre aisle, heads turning as we go.   Suradet and I are asked to sit on the platform facing the congregation.  So much for trying to downplay the 'gola'-being-noticed thing.

The service begins and I remember the t-shirt I saw in the market when I first got here.  "I smile because I have absolutely no idea what's going on."  It's like that.  Which is a little unnerving at the best of times, let alone when you've been invited to speak. What's coming next?  I have no idea.

I'm not sure how I could tell, but when the Pastor began the Bible reading, I realized that he had been given the list of five texts I was using and was now having the congregation read them together from their Bibles.  Only one Karen translation to deal with, so it makes it easy.  Such a great idea!  Only problem was that I had planned to have the congregation read through each passage during my sermon.  This was a strategy I had employed before to compensate for the fact that I can't directly read the passages myself, and to keep people engaged in a more-difficult-to-stay-with-it-because-of-the-interpretation-interruption thing.  I have about 4 seconds to rethink my plan because the readings are done and I'm now being introduced.

Winging it is not my strength.  I have friends who demonstrate this ability in spades.  Suradet himself tends to lean this way.  And I have great respect for those who like to fly by the seat of their pants and just let the moment unfold.  But it's not how I'm wired.  I'm not totally winging it, I guess, because I do have prepared notes and have even rehearsed this sermon with Suradet, for both our benefits.  But problem-solving while preaching isn't high on my list of best practices, and as I begin I still have no idea what to do when it comes time to read the Scriptures.  I find this somewhat distracting.

Other things distract me as well.  There's a large flower arrangement blocking my view of one third of the congregation.  I go to move it and then suddenly wonder if that's okay, so I take my hand away and preach the rest of the sermon peering around it from time to time.  I'm hot already, of course I am.  A little girl is picking nits out of her friend's hair in the children's choir section.  A different man is hoarking out a different window now.   

But we manage, Suradet and I.  And when it comes to one of the texts that have already been read, I go way out on a limb and show off that I've memorized 2 Corinthians 5:17 in Thai, and they all seem pleased even though it's Thai and not Karen.

The biggest distraction comes at the end, however.  It's a preaching first for me.  Just as I'm wrapping up, a man jumps up from the youth choir section and starts whacking something with his Bible.  Everything stops and we all watch with fascination.  I can't really see what's going on, so when it's all over Suradet turns back to me and says matter of factly "Gnu."  That's Thai for snake.  So yes, a snake was making it's way up to the platform and was taken out by the Word of God.   Whoever is praying for me this weekend, thank you!  It was a small snake, but still.

At the end of the service there's more hand-shaking, and all with big smiles.  And then everyone walks home, kind of like an end of service parade that trickles off as people reach their front door.  And all the while I'm realizing that in just about an hour or so we'll be climbing back into the truck to begin the crazy ride home, and I have barely seen Suradet's parents.  His mother a little more, but his father practically not at all since he first startled me by the truck when we arrived. 

And just as I'm feeling sad about that, something unexpected happens, (as I've come to expect these past three months).  Suradet, who has walked on a little ahead of us, is calling me up another set of impossible wooden stairs into his parent's house. "Can you come visit for a minute?" he asks.  And both his mother and father are there, standing at the door with him, all hopeful looking.  So, of course!

There's no furniture, not a stick.  Just a rich polished wood floor, dark and deep, with a fire pit off to one side and that's about it.  We don't even go that far in before we're sitting on the floor, me all awkward in my Karen skirt and  locked up hip flexers.  But the awkward is brief.  I see my chance.  I ask Suradet to translate.  With a low voice that shows respect and honours what I am sensing is about to become a holy moment, I begin.

How glad I am to come visit them.  How beautiful their mountain is.  What a joy in my life to be allowed to serve in God's good work alongside their son.  What a wonderful job they did in raising such a strong and compassionate and humble man. (Suradet hesitates but I make him say it).  I am honoured by their hospitality.  I am so very, very glad to meet them. 

And their response pours out, and Suradet translates back to me, with the same quiet respect.  They apologize for how old their house is, but this is the place where Suradet was born.  They are so glad to meet me because Suradet has told them about this Canadian pastor and her church whom God sent to help in the ministry to the children.  And Suradet's Mom has a present for me, a traditional bag she wove herself because she knew I was coming.  And I tell her I will treasure it, because I will so treasure it.

And we're sitting very close in all of this.  And strangely, all of a sudden I feel that same joy as comes when one is close to well-loved, even long-loved friends.  And it takes me off guard for a moment.  And we fall silent, but....it's not awkward anymore.

And if I still doubt my acceptance into this extra-extended family I've just met, I will have photographic evidence for later.  I won't see it until we're already on our way, after the first hour of lurching is over, and I pull out my phone to look through all the pictures.  But it will be there.  It will be in the winsome glance of Suradet's Dad, and the arm pulling me tight of Suradet's Mom.  And it will be the best gift in the gift-laden weekend to have found a way, somehow, to push through the language and culture and gola-ness, to make the connection I had come hoping for.   

And then later than that again, eleven days to be precise, it will be even more bitter sweet.  Because Moms are an unspeakable wonder.  And half a world a way, mine will fall deeply into the arms of the Father who figured all this out, for her, and for me.