Christmas is coming . . . amid epic humidity. Über-hot spices. Unusual plumbing.
Dreamer and I feel like aliens in this small Thai village. They call us farangs: big noses, ghosts, white people. It’s December 2000, and we’re here with a short-term mission team. There’s so much to unlearn!
Culture shock flattens me. Think fallen arches of the soul.
Plus . . . deadly fire ants. Spiders big as hands. And roadside cobras.
I spent my entire 50th birthday getting here, crossing the international date line where time hiccoughs, then replays itself.
“Good thing we’re headed east,” Dreamer said. “Or you’d be 100.”
Friends, GodSpaceLight published this true story of mine last year. Pour yourself a tea or coffee and join me?
Today, wandering the winding, red-dirt village lanes, my feet feel a century old. Everyone else wears flip flops or sandals. Am I the only one wearing socks? Chronic nerve pain afflicts one foot, so I wear tennis shoes for support and micro crews for cushioning warmth. No shoes are allowed indoors, and red dust stains my socks — despite nightly scrubs in the tiny sink.
We’re here to assist the resident missionary. I secretly call her the Advocate. She mediates questions, cultural quagmires, and occasional quarrels, so she’s often unavailable to translate for us.
We all hone our pantomime skills.
Party
An all-day Christmas celebration to honor Jesus — that’s what the Advocate envisions. We have three weeks to prepare. And no budget.
In addition to Western games and prizes and goodies, our event will include an evening performance. For Buddhists. Who don’t speak English.
Will I please oversee the whole shebang, she asks.
I’d rather clear rocks from her field for the games. Then I think of the Virgin Mary’s willingness to shoulder what seemed overwhelming.
“Yes,” I say. Reluctantly.
The Advocate also asks me to mentor an Earnest Young Convert (I’ll call him Eyc). He doesn’t speak much English, but she tells me he wants an open mic session, ceremonial dances, and a children’s sign language choir complete with white gloves and spotlight. He’ll also write a play.
Days go by. Eyc declines to discuss the script with me. Or anything else.
I should not take this personally. But I am (supposedly) in charge. Stateside, I have directed numerous performances. Here, amid impossible circumstances, I feel painfully responsible for the event’s outcome.
But Eyc, independent and buzzing with ideas, keeps dodging me. I probably seem 100 years old to him.
One day, he makes an effort to connect. Or is it a dare? He hands me a stick crowned with a steaming knob of meat. Mmm-Mmm, barbecued rat.
I tell myself it tastes like chicken. Might he trust me now?
I begin to understand the three Wise Men braving foreign cuisine, day after day. Did they endure heartburn? Anxiety? Nausea?
Lord, show me the way forward here. And help me tread gently.
Into the jungle
Mary endured the donkey’s lurching gait. Despite increasing discomfort, she sallied forth.
Today, map-less, I roam the jungle. I’ve been sent to ask a stranger to make traditional costumes for the mystery play. If only I had a translator. How dare I impose? It feels like white entitlement. I dread being misunderstood, resented, judged. The errand gnaws at my pride.
But I keep walking. I’m toting yards of colorful cloth. Once I find the seamstress, I’ll resort to charades. But how does one act out, “Please, you don’t know me but will you make traditional costumes, for free, so that children you don’t know can dramatize a Western story you probably don’t want to hear?”
The wind kicks up. All the palm trees look the same. If I get lost, who will point me back to the village?
I think of Joseph trudging mile after mile among strangers.
Breathe, I tell myself. Pray. And watch for snakes.
The clearing . . .
At last! I find the seamstress. I smile and act out my errand — several times.
She studies the fabric. Then me. A level, assessing gaze, which feels weightier every second. But she nods. I give her all the colors I’m holding. I wish I could pay her.
As if sensing my discomfort she smiles, and it’s dazzling as well as contagious. God has preceded me here, preparing each of us for this exchange. I tent my hands, in grateful respect. She returns the gesture.
Then she points out another red dirt path. I hope it’s a shortcut.
The show must go on
Daily, Eyc rehearses his program. Nightly, I wash his youth choir’s white gloves. Ah, the irony. Leader demoted to laundress: socks and gloves, socks and gloves.
My ego rankles. Chagrined, I ask Dreamer and my friends for prayer.
“We love you,” they say.
“All is grace,” the Advocate adds. “Nothing to earn. Nothing to prove.”
I try to absorb this. Jesus, the ultimate leader, served God by serving others, with love, no matter what. Born in obscurity, he not only survived, he flourished — despite the struggling economy, local politics, and limited resources. Much like this village.
I begin to understand Nazareth.
“Aha!”
I feel less forsaken, but still displaced until . . . an idea arrives. Eyc prefers working on his Christmas play with the Advocate. Fine. I’ll create a life-size creche.
I scavenge scrap lumber for a stable. A teammate builds walls and roof line, guy-wires them to the Advocate’s house.
I raid her Lost and Found. A pillowcase crammed with straw and mounted atop upended bricks makes a fine swine. “Marry a man who owns a pig,” the village grandmothers advise.
Orphaned tube socks become winsome doves, with stray-button eyes.
If I can find black gloves, I’ll stuff them with sand, whisker them with dental floss: voila, two worshipful rats.
My creche will be amazing. Culturally relevant. Or I’ll eat my socks.
I LOVE repurposing castoffs. Surrounded by palm fronds, stick-figures with coconut heads stand in for the holy family. They wear traditional Thai costumes, sewn by the woman I met in the clearing.
Finally, something I can control!
Curious, bedazzled, the village kids handle everything. In their delight, they topple my birds and beasts and figures. Best to zip-tie and guy-wire all of them to the stable. The props, not the children.
Christmas Showtime
Party food and games enliven the day. At dusk, our makeshift stage glows beneath a rented light tree. Open mic begins. The temperature drops. A shivering kid lights a nest of gathered twigs — too close to the crowd. Pals bring armloads of straw; the blaze ignites. What are they thinking? I corral two youngsters, steer them toward safety.
More little arsonists take their place.
Why don’t my teammates intervene? Smoke billows. Flames crackle and leap.
Meanwhile, the gloved sign language choir captivates the crowd. Rapt, they applaud, oblivious to encroaching fire . . .
Luckily, nobody’s hair or clothing goes up in flames. No one suffers burns. The brief inferno peters out when the rascally kids abandon it, to watch Eyc’s play.
And what an opening act! Child actors stagger, feigning drug highs and drunkenness. A sham fight ensues. Good Lord. Is that a hooker, crooking her finger, stage left?
I can’t watch. I escape to the Advocate’s kitchen, toe off my shoes, then stand at the sink in my wretched socks, washing dishes. A teammate enters, her face troubled.
“I think you should know the kids are dismantling —”
Oh no. The creche? My creche? I fling my dishtowel and hurry outside.
They’re tossing my cherished sock doves back and forth. Fighting over the holy family’s attire.
Turns out my teammate cut the guy wires for them.
I have no words. Choked by hurt and fury, I turn away.
An hour later, only a few guests remain. As our team debriefs, a Thai woman seeks out the Advocate. The villager wants the farangs to come to her house and explain Christmas to her husband.
We are amazed. The sole car in the village, the Advocate’s station wagon, can hold nine people.
“Who wants to come?” she asks.
I just want to go home. Instead, I’m stranded among jubilant friends, unable to shag a ride to the place I sleep. Call me the prodigal’s elder brother, but I want no part in the Christmas celebration.
Nor do I want to examine why.
Christmas Eve, an hour later
The team returns, all talking at once. When they’d arrived at the woman’s home, villagers crammed her front room, curious about Jesus. Eyc’s play must have presented the gospel, after all. The Advocate retold the Christmas story and led them in prayer.
Each person there had pledged to follow Jesus.
Luminous now, my teammates turn to me. Isn’t it awesome? How do I feel, they want to know.
Well, for starters, bewildered by news beyond my imagining. And something darker I can’t name. I nod and smile, but I’m saving face. I want out. Dreamer and I head for our nightly commute to the place we live. As if sensing my angst, he gives me space.
Creche, sounds like crush
Dreamer falls asleep smiling. I lie awake, confused. Offended. Which makes me feel guilty and even more left out. I should be ecstatic. But after weeks of feeling dismissed and mistrusted, now I’m ashamed about my fury over the ruined creche.
I groan, place the cool side of the pillow over my face. I begin to understand Herod. Jealous for my private kingdom — and wanting adulation for what I built — I have blinded myself to the reason behind it all: Christmas. God with us.
In my mind’s eye, I kneel, grasp the imagined hem of his robe, picturing traditional Thai cloth in vivid colors. And somewhere in the background, the Buddhist who’d sewn it. For free. Simply because I’d asked.
Lord, forgive me.
And something like relief flows in, leaving my soul “sore amazed.” I begin to understand the shepherds.
Then, I taste Mary’s hushed bliss.
I am 50. I could be 100. I feel newly reborn, broken open by grace. By Story. By Christmas in Asia. Tenderly. Thoroughly. What a strange and wondrous world, where we can briefly take steps in the shoes of others.
All is adventure.
All is grace.
Friends, which character in the Christmas story resonates with you this year?
Poet Mary Oliver asks:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash
You might also enjoy this Christmas post from the archives
Sally Mowbray says
Thank you, Laurie, for your honesty – inspiring and challenging. I am blessed!
Laurie Klein says
Sally, hello, and thank you for your thoughts today. They mean a lot to me.
I am wishing you a glorious new year, my friend!
Love,
Laurie
Deborah hesler says
My precious Laurie ❤️This is deborah duke… now hesler! I was so very drawn into your journey… remember I couldn’t go… too ill😢but I was there!!! Thru your always beautiful expressions of words… I walked those roads… I carried some of your cloths… I helped you build the manger… I am so grateful you shared this… I love you ❤️
Laurie Klein says
Dear Deborah,
Can you hear my heartfelt exhale? Your tender armchair presence of spirit, imagination, and solidarity — on those red dirt lanes and paths through village and jungle (as well as in the making of the creche) — fills my heart. Thank you!
May your holidays be holy days, dear friend. Love you!
Cris Mudd says
Thanks for re-sharing this memory. Having been to Thailand twice (once to study human trafficking and once to work in an orphanage) I could relate to so much.. Most startling for me was the night I was staying in someone’s home (sleeping Thai style on a mat on the floor) and having to visit the outdoor privy in the night. There in the light of my flashlight I had a stand-off encounter with the largest bull frog I had ever seen. As I used the Thai style hole in the floor toilet, I kept constant eye contact with that frog. He never moved, but I was certain that had he jumped my direction in my squatted position, I would have woken the entire village with my screams. Surely they would have said I was a very strange American woman.
Laurie Klein says
Yikes, a major, midnight Frog Encounter! Glad it wasn’t a scorpion.
The world’s homeliest lizard lived in the window well alongside our, er, plumbing space. :>) We actually had a screen, but a flimsy one. So, eye contact, yes!
Thank you for the work and study you invested in the Land of Smiles. And thanks for reading the post! Merry Christmas to you, friend!
Rick Mills says
“God has preceded me here.”
Oh, such truth for us all.
“I begin to understand Nazareth.”
~Laurie
“And in all your getting, get understanding.”
~Solomon
“The props, not the children.”
The was funny.
“More little arsonists take their place.”
This too.
“where we can briefly take steps in the shoes of others.”
Thank you for leaving a trail.
I read this in an Advent devotional I’m using this year, “What if our limits are NOT obstacles to overcome, but invitations to embarace?”
Thank you for the echo.
Merry Christmas to you AND yours.
Laurie Klein says
Rick, thank you. That Advent thought you’ve shared bears tender, trusting contemplation. I’m grateful to read it today.
Merry Christmas to you and your dear ones, friend!
Nancy Ruegg says
Such a well-told story, Laurie, in your delightfully distinctive style. And God bless you for your honesty and humility. Isn’t it amazing how God can take distress and disappointment as well as other negative emotions, and turn them around in an instant, filling our spirits to overflowing with light and joy and contentment? Such a compassionate, gracious God He is!
Laurie Klein says
Nancy, thank you for taking time to read this l-o-n-g post and for celebrating God’s redemptive transformations in our lives with me today!
May you and your family experience lively hours of mercy, marvel, and merriment this season.
Susan says
You are the quintessential story teller. The turn of the story is where it breathes life. In you. And us.
I cannot guess what I will do with the rest of my life. One foot in front of the other, I shall sallie forth, glad to be alive. Making that, rather than accomplishments, my journey.
I relate to the donkey in the Christmas story. Not given any detail or inside story–he does what is needed and is cared for in the usual ways. Yet, the donkey carries the mother if Jesus. Ordinary and extraordinary.
Laurie Klein says
Susan, your life (and your work) continues to nudge me toward the deep pause, in thanks, for being alive. And double wow, YES, to bearing good news and being the means of carrying grace . . . I am thinking with great affection now of that donkey . . .
Michele says
Dearest Laurie, you bring it back in all its painful, ugly and beautiful glory. Thank you for showing the meaning behind the chaos. It was definitely a life changing time for us. God knew what he was doing even though we didn’t at the time. Love you! And the character that resonates with me in your story is YOU. I had those exact moments about other things.
Laurie Klein says
Michele, my beloved friend, thank you for reliving it with me! You two were one of the bright spots during that crazy time and I will always be grateful. Thank you for your solidarity and encouragement! Wishing you two a beautiful Christmas! Love, Laurie
Pacia Dixon says
Laurie, I read this quickly, when you initially shared it, as I was in the midst of our packing and moving, chaos and mayhem. And it blessed me then.
This morning, in a more relaxed atmosphere, I read it again, this time slowly, and once again, my heart was just filled to the brim with appreciation for the way you spin gold from memories and events to bless anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Thank you, Scribe of the Lord Most High, for the story, the soul nudge, the love that pours through you.❤️
Laurie Klein says
Dear Pacia, what a gift just now to read that you’ve revisited the story and, again, found sustenance for the soul. Friend, you made my day!
I pray life is settling into peaceable new rhythms around you and that the New Year will be filled with marvels!