Christianity is cheaper.

I laughed inappropriately the other day when I was at the interview of one of the first believers in a Pwo Karen village in the mountains near he border of Thailand and Myanmar. I laughed because they said the main reason why they became Christians was because it was cheaper than being animist. I'd slipped back into a Western mindset and was expecting an answer that revolved somewhere around the guilt/sin paradigm and some deep repentance, so this just caught me off-guard and I giggled.

It makes sense though. Animists have to frequently sacrifice animals to appease the spirits and so when this became too much of a burden for them, they turned to Christianity because it didn't require any animal sacrifices, and instead taught that Jesus was the already completed perfect sacrifice. 

After this, I heard my pastor was recount his experiences in Borneo sharing the gospel with an unreached tribe there. He sat quietly and talked with the headman of the village who was mainly fascinated with the idea that they would no longer have to sacrifice an animal every morning in each corner of the village for protection, as their shamans taught. By the next morning that village had become followers of Jesus. 

So is turning to Jesus out of economic need a bad motivation?

I don't actually think so. In Hebrews 9 the Bible makes a fairly big deal about how Jesus 'offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins' (v14, NLT) and superseded the OT laws of animal sacrifice, where 'the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people's bodies from ritual defilement' (v13, NLT). I think it's just the way the Gospel is preached in the west does not emphasise the sacrifice of Jesus as anything more than a symbol, perhaps dealing with inner conscience, because we don't practice ritual sacrifice as a lifestyle. So we read it as a historical, almost symbolic story and skip over the blood, gore and money that it takes to procure animals. But it was important to people in the time of Jesus who still sacrificed in the temple in Jerusalem. And the Bible is relevant to all people, through all ages, and quite conceivably, God knew there were tribes to whom it was very important to hear that Jesus replaces actual, physical sacrifices even today. 

So can we preach something like this? 

Turn to Jesus, because it will save you all the expense of all those bulls/goats/chickens you sacrifice to spirits who give you lesser protection than the Son of God who died once and for all your sins/curses?

Sure! Why not? As long as we don't leave it just there, I think it's as valid as any other explanation of the Gospel.

How to do an exorcism of a house

I think every missionary in an unreached country, especially those with animistic rituals, needs to know how to do an exorcism. It's not something you're usually taught to do in church, but it'll come in handy when needed, so I will write a plain step-by-step manual later for what has worked for me so far.
But first, some background.

Jesus traveled through all the cities and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And wherever he went, he healed people of every sort of disease and illness. He felt great pity for the crowds that came, because their problems were so great and they didn't know where to go for help. They were like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, "The harvest is so great but the workers are so few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send out more workers for his fields." - Matthew 9:35-38 (NLT)

This was part of our bible study tonight on Matthew 9. It struck me that this was the summary of the ministry of Jesus that Matthew 9 had been giving glimpses of earlier - a ministry that included this:

When they left, some people brought to him a man who couldn't speak because he was possessed by a demon. So Jesus cast out the demon, and instantly the man could talk. - Matthew 9:32-33 (NLT)

It reminded me of something that stood out to me during my last class on spiritual warfare - that Matthew tended to just clump exorcisms as part of the healing ministry of Jesus. It showed how commonplace it was for Jesus to cast out demons, and also that there were probably a lot to be cast out, including ones causing illness. Yet when we read that passage about the harvest being great, normally I think of it as applying to evangelism; that we need more missionaries. But in the whole context, Jesus was sharing the Gospel, healing and casting out demons. He pitied the people because they had spiritual and physical problems, and as one person in my bible study pointed out; when he looked at the fields to be harvested, in that chapter it was not just an unreached village waiting to hear the Gospel, it was the paralyzed, the sinner, the sick, the dead, and the demon possessed.
So now, as we are to be more like Christ and to carry on the ministry of Jesus, then should we not also be sharing the Good News, healing the sick and casting out demons? It was pointed out to me in my class that we are reasonably comfortable with the first two, but usually prefer to ignore the latter. Yet if you make some quick calculations, let's say Jesus only cast out one demon a day (as Matthew seems to be trying to give us a snapshot of Jesus' ministry so it must have been a regular enough part of it); then in his 3 years of ministry, he then may have cast out over 1,000 demons, not to mention possible multiple castings like the legion out of the man at the Gerasene tombs. So why should we ignore it today?

Back to bible study, my friend was sharing about how he had visited a guesthouse in Mae Hong Son where a demon had been banging around in the roof all night and he couldn't sleep. He even had recorded the sound of it on his phone. Previous occupants of that room had also mentioned it to the guesthouse owner. It sounded like metal banging, but the roof was all timber and nothing was up there. He came back to Chaingmai, but the spirit had followed him and was banging in the roof of his home now. Every creak and bang was causing him fear, and he was exhausted from lack of sleep.
When he spoke to his Thai neighbours and landlord, they had a name for that type of spirit. Seems it is a common affliction, but I felt outraged that it dared to bother my friend, who is a Christian.

So we went over to exorcise it. Keep in mind this is only the second time that I have ever done it, but it seems to work, so I'm sharing it with you, because I hate seeing people, especially Christians left captive and afflicted. So finally I come to the steps, here they are:

1. Pray and declare out loud the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. God is the creator of everything on heaven and earth, the seen and the unseen, and He certainly has the power over this spirit.

2. Ask God to bring to mind any sin or thing that needs to be dealt with. If something comes up, repent and deal with it. Everyone in the room should do it, usually on their own, but sometimes people need to confess out loud.

3. Get some oil and anoint the corners of the room, while praying over it declaring that this is now holy ground and part of the Kingdom of God so the enemy has no power in it. I tend to claim that part about everywhere we place our feet becoming part of the Kingdom of God (originally applied to Joshua in Joshua 1:3). Basically, you're consecrating the place to God. No, I don't know if the actual oil is necessary but we as humans also like rituals and visual signs for our faith, so I do it. If you don't have oil, I'm sure God will listen and act just the same.

4. Have communion together. This was taught to me the first time I had to do an exorcism...I was a teenager who knew nothing about it but a friend was in trouble and I had 10 mins on the phone downloading Spiritual Warfare 101 from another friend whose parents were involved in that ministry as I walked to my troubled friends' house. Basically they said exorcism is all about declaring that Christ is Lord, and communion is one of our strongest symbols of that because it is the body and blood of Christ, the ultimate sacrifice that conquered all. So we had communion with chips and ice tea (or last time, coke).  There's often no time to hunt up some grape juice/wine and wafers, but God understands.

5. Clean out the house of items that may have bad spiritual ties. No you do not have to toss out everything. Both times that I've done it, God has brought a very specific newly acquired item to the owner's mind, and it's been confirmed by their significant other. So just toss it out.

6. Command evil spirit to leave in the name of Jesus. This last time, while the others were praying, I addressed it directly saying, "Spirit of fear, or whatever is banging around in my friend's roof, I command you to leave in the name of Jesus. You have no power to be here as he is a child of God, so go now. Take any other minions or whatever you may have brought with you and leave this house immediately." Or something of that sort. As I was speaking, I could feel my tongue turn to lead and I stumbled on my words and my mind blanked temporarily, and then I thought 'oh no you don't!' and kept going. The hairs on my arms stood up and I felt a chilly prickle. As I continued to command it to leave in the name of Jesus, the prickling subsided, and until I could say reasonable confidently, "It is gone."

So that's it, I know the bible mentions some need fasting and prayer, so that may come up. It also is better I think to do this with a group of believers. Also, both times it has been a demon afflicting them from the outside - banging around, and in the first time when I was a teen, holding my friend down physically at night; but they were not manifesting or showing any form of possession. I think with those, it would require some deeper healing perhaps, so these steps are simply for an on-the-spot exorcism of a house. Hope it helps you, and remember - Jesus is Lord and all authority is his (and so indirectly, ours).

Therefore put on the full armor of God,so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. - Ephesians 6:13 (NIV)

Deliverance from Evil Spirits

On the mission field, sooner or later you will encounter evil coming from the spiritual realm. It's a good idea to have an idea of where you stand before you, for example, have to stand before a Muslim shaman doing a trance ritual, as I encountered two years ago.

Here's some salient points from my class on Spiritual Warfare

• The word 'demon-possession' is not an accurate translation of the original text. A better one may be demonized, or simply 'to have a demon'. The demons may not always completely possess, as in control, a person, but they may have influence. As seen in the NT encounters of Jesus with demonized people, sometimes they may seem fine but then may occasionally exhibit strange behaviors as the demon ramps up bothering them.
• A Christian can not be fully inhabited by a demon as our spirit is now the Lord's. However, in the same way that you can sin after becoming a Christian, you can also yield ground (say via sin) to allow demonic influence even after becoming a Christian. Sometimes this gets to the point where they are doing things they would not normally do or acting very strangely.
• Demonic influence can come from sin, curses, family spiritual inheritance (like children being dedicated to other spirits), trauma done to you (as in the case of abuse victims), and dealing with the occult. When dealing with occult spirits it is good to fast and pray to prepare yourself first.
• Casting out demons is actually a part of healing the person. So it should be in the overall scope of discipleship etc.
• When casting demons out, you don't have to shout, they are not deaf. Also do not get angry, remember you are battling a spiritual power, not the person. There is no need to be dramatic and you can also just tell them to be silent and leave quietly so they don't make a scene.
• There is no magic formula to casting them out, but saying something like this generally works. "In the name of Jesus, get out of here and do not return. This person belongs to Jesus and you have no control here. We cut off any ties and any influence from Satan."

Evangelisation in Thailand

People in Thailand come to Christ only 6% through missionaries. The other 24 % is through pastors and the other 70% through church members.
However only 4% of the church members are involved in further discipleship, leaving church growth slow.
- Ajarn Yuttasak Sirikul, call2all 2013

Location:ถนนห้วยแก้ว,Chiang Mai,Thailand

Life cycle rituals

Life cycle rituals in all cultures 

• Birth ceremonies - acknowledge new member of society
• Initiation ceremonies - prepare people for new role and responsibilities in society e.g quests to prepare young warriors to see if they can endure pain, (Jesus visiting Jerusalem was probably part of his Bar Mitzvah)
• Marriage ceremony- defines sexual access and the transfer of reproductive potential, as well as the responsibility for care of that woman. There is no natural culture in the world where promiscuous sex is allowed with no rules, though there are some that allow polyandry (multiple brothers marrying one woman) etc. In PNG, you make a little payment to get to sleep with your bride, but you are only officially married once the first child has been born and they make the final payment. 
• Funerals - most complicated because the ceremony tries to give a fuller understanding about death - causes, attitudes towards death, beliefs of afterlife, relationship between living and dead, grieving, treatment of corpse, adjusting to living with the absence of the dead.

Social justice

Social justice is a really hot topic right now in pop culture. It's now cool to have fair trade items, eat organic, join Facebook groups for a cause, buy the rubber bracelet/badge/tshirt and maybe even occupy wall street etc. Living in Thailand where human trafficking and poverty are daily realities, I feel that it is good that people are being made more aware that there is a world that suffers. The key for us as Christians is to not just superficially band-aid it and instead realize two things:
1) There will be no lasting change without God. I have seen so much of the dependency created by aid handouts. You can feed people immediately and that is good, but the long term problems leading to their poverty and hunger are not going to go away until there is real heart change in individuals. There will always be victims until the hearts of predators are transformed. And when enough hearts are changed, then a whole culture can change to be more like the Kingdom of God on earth. And the only power big enough to effect this kind of change is the transforming love of Jesus Christ, doing His thing in peoples lives.
2) Sometimes when we look at the world's problems, we might get overwhelmed and want to throw up our hands and say 'it's too big, too difficult to fix' and retreat into the sanctuary of our comfortable daily life. We need to remember that it is God in control. We are not responsible for fixing the whole world, we are simply going to be held responsible for doing what God has asked of us. I like to think of it as a little garden plot in the world that he gives us to tend. My garden plot is here in Chiangmai, Thailand, although it has recently expanded to include Asia and that is a little unnerving, but he also gives the gardening tools. I would encourage you all to open your hearts to just ask God what garden plot he has set for you to tend, whether it be supporting or even going into missions overseas, helping out at the homeless shelter or even just reaching out to a lonely neighbour in your community.
I think this is how we effect real lasting change in the world, and we don't do it primarily because the world needs it (because you'll get burnt out if that's your main motivation), we do it because we serve a loving God and He is worth it.

Reasons for furlough

As I came through customs into the US, the usual suspicious officer asked, "What kind of job do you have that let's you have 3 months off?"

"It's my furlough", I said. 

"What is that?"

"I'm a missionary and they give us a long break so that we don't burn out."

While that was a very succinct was of putting it, it is part of the truth. As I write this I am on a mini-furlough in the US, road-tripping around it. I already miss Thailand terribly, and in some ways wish to be back constantly, even though it is incredibly hot and smoggy there right now. I guess the first realisation I had then, was that Thailand has truly become home in the last 4 years, as I am homesick.

So I am reminding myself of my reasons for furlough. The Dahlfreds have a great article written up on their blog if you would like to read the overall reasons for furlough, but I'll just process through my own reasons here since so many people have asked me what I am doing in the US.

Reasons for this furlough:

• Reconnecting with friends. Over the years in study and in missions, my friendships have spread all over the world and now I have deep friends I have not seen for years in the US, so I thought it was time. Being in Thailand can occasionally leave me feeling isolated because so many people come and go, but very few stay for the long term, so I average losing at least 5 good friends per year.
• Renewal. While I do take breaks in Thailand, I have come to slowly realize that being out of the Thai context is leaving me time to reflect on experiences and think through bigger picture issues that I just don't even get around to considering usually. Hopefully at the end of this process my head is in better shape to return to Thailand. I am also doing my version of resting, which is just having plain 'ol fun and adventures. On the other hand, being in America is somewhat stressful because I don't know how to do things here (it took me half an hour to figure out how to pump gas the first time) and I have to drive on the right. And it is cold.
• Deputation. As I prepare to step into a new role setting up a field co-ordination team with Project Video, I have been travelling thanking churches for their support, connecting with new churches and people, networking with other mission agencies, and trying to raise the profile of the field co-ordination team. 
• Training. In Thailand, I will the first and currently, the only Field Co-ordinator for Asia. My boss is US based and has been travelling back and forth to pioneer this ministry. When I begin, I will assume some of his Asia-side responsibilities so I will b spending time training with him.

So the overall goal is always longevity. While I don't feel like I'm burning out, I have had very stressful times in the last four years (think of when the car was breaking down in the middle of the Bangkok floods and it looked like my team could be stranded!).  I am there to stay in Thailand and if coming away means that I don't burn out or have a break down further down the track, then I have to keep reminding myself, it is worth it.

Missionary mistakes in changing cultures

Among the Doni tribe, in Irian Jaya, men sleep in a long house and then each wife and little or unmarried children would have their own house. The men would plan their activities all together in the long house. Also men would not sleep with their wives during pregnancies or while the baby was breast-feeding. That's about 3 years of abstinence. Basically this was a form of community birth control.
Then some missionaries (not all) believed that the nuclear family was important, so they convinced the man to move in with their families. Then it all got awkward. There was not enough space, so there would be full grown daughters having to work out how to get changed while their father was in the house. The men did not get enough time to plan their activities so the communication in the village broke down. Women started having too many babies too closely together because the men couldn't help it when they had to be in the same house every night, and then the babies would die of starvation because there was not enough milk to go around... In the end, the men gave up and moved back into the long house.

10 traits that make cultures change

Taken from James Harrison's Culture Development Project - an analysis of cultures around the world and how they develop. He came up with 10 characteristics that were seen over and over again in cultures that developed faster.

• A culture that emphasizes the future and progress (time-oriented cultures) will progress faster than static cultures that focus on the present.
• Work ethic - cultures where work is central to living and rewards develop faster.
• Finances - cultures that save and invest for the future rather than spend and consume immediately (or try to distribute it to everybody immediately) will change faster.
• Education - when it is valued and viewed as a key to progress the culture will progress, if it is seen as of no value except to the elite, the culture will stagnate.
• Advancement - when people are advanced based on merit rather than connections.
• Community - where trust and identification extends beyond family (if you only trust in family and exploit everyone else you will not develop).
• Ethical code- progressive cultures have rigorous moral codes, static cultures have corruption as a way of life. 
• Justice and fair play- progressive cultures will have justice for all, static cultures only extend justice to intimate connections of friends and connections. Think of Paul under the Roman Empire claiming his citizenship after the beating from his jailor, giving immunity - what about all the other people who were beaten?
• Authority - in progressive cultures it is dispersed and horizontal vs static cultures have strong vertical authority and is hierarchical.
• Religion - Progressive cultures have less religious influence on civic life. (Personally I would debate that this depends on which religion since Christianity promotes all the other progressive traits).

Harrison concludes that culture is indeed either a hindrance or an asset for progress, but having shown that correlation he then proposes that responsible leadership by a country’s political representations must assume the duties of saving people from their own limitations.

Anxiety and Uncertainty Management Theory

Gudykunst' Anxiety and Uncertainty Management Theory (AUM). The greater the anxiety and unpredictability in meeting strangers, the worse your communication and cultural adaptation is. But too little anxiety (carelessness) or too much predictability (staying in your own bubble) also is bad. As missionaries in a foreign culture you need to find the happy middle between being overwhelmed and not risking enough.

An example of communication breaking down as anxiety rises.

Myths

Here's a Doni myth to explain why men and women have different jobs. This was an illustration for the point that cultures develop divisions of labour based on gender, physicality or necessity.

In the begin the 4 first people (two men, two women) saw the light of the sun from the inside of a hollow tree. They crawled out, saw the earth was good and so brought two dogs and two pigs up. Then they heard more people coming up the tree, but they decided they wanted to keep the earth to themselves so they plugged the hole with a rock.
At first, the men kept pigs and the women had the bows and arrows. Then the women met their first prey but when they went to pull back the bow, they were not strong enough,so their arrows did not fly far enough. So the men took the bow and arrows and they did hit their prey, so from then on, men hunted and women tended livestock.

Language fun

In looking at culture and language in missions, there have been some fun examples.
In the Doni language of Papua New Guinea, they greet people with scatological phrases.
Here's the literal translations and the meaning translations:

Literal: 'Let me eat your faeces'
Meaning: There is nothing bad about you, I will accept it all (isn't that sweet?)

Literal Male form: 'Let me grab you by the testicles' and Female form: 'Let me touch your vulva'
Meaning: You are safe with me even your most intimate parts.

If the World Were a Village of 100 People

If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

The village would have 61 Asians, 13 Africans, 13 people from the Western Hemisphere (North & South America), 12 Europeans, and 1 from the South Pacific
51 would be male, 49 would be female
70 would be non-white; 30 white
67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian

As to their ages:
30 would be 0-14 years old
63 would be 15-64 years old
7 would be 65 years old and older

20 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
18 would be without access to a safe water supply
39 would lack access to improved sanitation
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
7 people would have access to the Internet
1 would have a college education
1 would have HIV
2 would be near birth; 1 near death
6 would control 59% of the entire world’s wealth; all 6 would be US citizens

Sources: The Global Citizen, May 31, 1990, Donella H. Meadows (unless otherwise noted below), The CIA World Factbook
2001 (age, birth, death, internet), 2001 World Development Indicators, World Bank (HIV), Adherents 2001 (religion) Bread for the World (malnourishment), United Nations Population Fund (food security) The Global Supply and Sanitation
Assessment 2000 Report (improved water, improved sanitation)


I reposted this from the Family Care Foundation. It's a sadly accurate view of our world and the continued need all around it.

Praying over Thai Missionaries

Quite hilariously, I went up to pray for one girl during a time of blessing the ethnically Thai Ywam staff, and before I knew what was happening, someone began praying over me!

Location:Soi Suk Samer,Cha-am,Thailand

Inheritance- Ywam conference

Ywam Thailand is increasing by 40% every 2 years. To deal with these Phil Porter has proposed 4 directions based on the style the Israelites took the promised land.
1. Develop many leaders, especially Thai leaders.
2. Release the new generation
3. Increase the sense of family
4. Remain connected and fight for each other.






I'm proud that Ywam Thailand staff is at least 50% Indigenous staff.

Location:Soi Suk Samer,Cha-am,Thailand

Anti-trafficking Concert

A while ago I went to my first Thai concert in the 700 stadium in Chiangmai. It was a last minute free ticket, thanks to my house-mate Heather, in return for driving her and the kids from her ministry, Taw Saeng, to the concert. The concert was co-sponsored by the Australian Government to increase aware of human trafficking and there were some pretty disconcerting videos interspersed throughout.

The line up included pretty big names from Thailand and Korea, and was very random in musical genre. They had even imported Katie Miller-Heide and we rocked out to her singing John Farnham's song 'You're the voice.' Here's some samples of the other bands.

Lounge/Jazzy ETC

Hip Hop band Thaitanium, which I've decided I like.

And of course, Superstar Korean band 'SuperJunior'

It was quite surreal to be at an anti-trafficking concert with kids who were at high risk of being traffiked. The concert was similar to any that I may have gone to in Australia to raise awareness about this issue, but as we stood there in the rain together, I realised that it was now so much more than just an abstract cause.

Partnership for the Northern Thai

Thai/English Christmas Cards! And the back story...

A while ago I realized there was an imbalance on the mission field - between people who had money (or 'good support') and people who did not. Typically, missionaries from nations with a large proportion of Christians in the population and a history of mission sending such as America, Britain, Australia and Korea tend to have stable fund-raising and the ability to accomplish the work they set out to do without too many financial limitations. I know I am one of these fortunate ones and am eternally grateful that I could leave my country and financial self-reliance, and still receive training and work uninterrupted for the last three years.
But I also realized there were so many who did not make it or could not continue despite the callings/passions/gifts that they had. People with a missions heart from countries with few churches (1/3rd of the world) and a history of being the mission field often find themselves with inadequate support if they want to do ministry full time. Put another way, when you're from an unreached country, where will you find the churches to support you? And churches that do exist may be more used to being on the receiving end rather than giving.
Yet the huge irony is that it is exactly these local missionaries who will be the most effective - because they do not need to overcome a language and cultural barrier before they can reach their own people.
So what to do about this? Something about about the Aussie in me doesn't live well with unfairness, so I couldn't ignore it and pretend I was more deserving of receiving support than these guys - it's none of my credit that I come from a relatively wealthy nation with a generous church family background.
Yet I could give away all that I get and I would still only have enough to help maybe one other person and soon that would run out. On top of that, inevitably money is power and I've seen first-hand that a pattern of relating where one person or nationality is always giving and the other is always receiving ends up with dependancy, distrust and manipulation - in the end if one side is always relying on the other, than one side must always obey the other while probably resenting it.
Basically to break this pattern, balance out the power and restore dignity, the poorer side needs to find an independent source of funding. So I began to look around for a simple, tent-making source of income - perhaps a minimum effort business that I could set up an hand over to a Thai missionary once it was running smoothly (thanks to Dad and Mr. Beasly for all that background in business).
So the first step in setting up a business is working out what the market wants and after deciding that the world probably doesn't need more Thai fisherman pants, I soon found an empty niche - in Chiangmai there are very few quality, decently designed Thai/English Christmas cards and the ones that do exist are expensive and focus on Santa (or are made out of elephant dung paper which can't be posted though customs).
While this idea was floating around in my mind, I found out that our current training courses were very short on funding and yet had the most Thai students we've ever had. So I proposed that we try to design and sell Christmas cards as a fund-raiser. If this goes well, perhaps it something we could continue doing to support our Thai staff who struggle with funds. After a rocky start there was finally acceptance of the idea, then we ran a mini-design competition, voted in our office and online and sent the results off to print!
So here are the results.



We're selling them for 35 baht (A$1.25) a card or a mixed pack of 6 cards for 200 baht (A$7) and they can be ordered by going to www.createthailand.com/christmas
Unfortunately, it's difficult for us to post internationally unless you order more than 30 cards (5 packs). Still, perhaps you have 30 friends?

The raksang of Singsatsid

Recently, through books, websites and visiting teachers, it's like I've fallen down the rabbit hole of contextualising for Buddhism and like Alice, have no idea where it will end. One contextual church planter shared some of his experiences in contextualising (if you read this, forgive me, I'm writing from memory).
"I used to go to villages and pray for people. I would put my hand on their shoulder and just began to say "Oh Lord would you please..." but they would turn to speak to the person next to them! Or keep sweeping their floors or yelling at their kids! It was annoying! Next time, I watched what they did when they prayed, and they would end by saying 'Saatu'. So I tried that, and the person carried on whatever they were doing until I said 'Saatu' and then they turned to me like 'Hey, you were praying?!' Finally I went into a temple to watch what the monks did. They put their hands palms together in front of their chests and chanted prayers in a monotone. I tried this next time in the village and the whole family stopped what they were doing and knelt down with me in prayer!"
"One day I went into a village and prayed for healing for some people. Right then and there they decided that made me a 'raksang' - a medium or spirit guide. So I said 'Yes, I have the Spirit of Singsatsid (the God of the universe)'. So then they took me to meet their village raksang. She was in the middle of a trance, channelling the spirit of the local mountain. I eavesdropped on the woman making her appeal to the spirit in front of me.
The petitioner said 'I've lost my mobile phone.'
The raksang said 'When was the last time you saw it?'
'When we went to eat at this restaurant.'
'Well, have you gone back to that restaurant to look for it?'
'No.'
'Well maybe you should go back there and ask the owners if they've seen it.'
And for this amazing advice from the mountain spirit, the raksang was paid. When it came to my turn to meet the raksang, she said 'put some money in and I'll channel the spirit.' Instead, I looked at her and said 'No, I want to talk to you.' The look in her eyes was the same as when someone speaks to a prostitute properly, instead of for her body. No one had wanted to talk to her, just to the spirit. We became friends."
"One time I asked her 'Why don't you want my spirit - Singsatsid, the God of the universe, instead of the local mountain spirit?'
She looked at me back and said 'He is too big. I would explode!'"

Interesting Buddhist Scripture

“When Buddha was traveling and living in this world, there was an old Brahman priest who wore white robes who asked the Buddha, “How will all men and all Brahman continue in their merit-making so as to escape the results of sin?” The Buddha answered, “Even though all of you give alms according to the 5 precepts, the 8 precepts, the 10 precepts or the 227 precepts for 9 trillion years and you raise your hands and offer yourselves as a burnt offering, or you pray 5 times a day, you will still not escape the results of your sins. If you do this every day, your merit gained will only be equal to the smallest strand of hair of an unborn infant extremely small. You shall not enter heaven’s doors.”
The old Brahman priest asked further, “What are we going to do to be saved?” The Buddha answered the old Brahman priest, “The results of sins and Karma are very great, heavier than the sky, thicker than the earth; and so high that it would be like an angel dusting the corner-posts at the temple compound with a cloth-post that are worn down, that’s how long it would take to end your sins.” The Buddha said further, “I have given up my high position and entered the priesthood. I considered that even though I am good, I would have only a very small amount of merit at the end of the year. If I was given this same amount of merit for 100,000 epochs and live 10 more lifetimes, I would not be saved from sin’s results even once.”
The old Brahman priest asked further. “So what should we all do?” The Buddha answered, “Keep on making merit and looking for another Holy One who will come and help the world and all of you in the future.”
Then the old Brahman priest asked. “What will the characteristics of the Holy One be like?” The Buddha answered him, “The Holy One who will keep the world in the future will be like this: in the palm of his hands and in the flat of his feet will be the design of a disk, in his side will be a stab wound; and his forehead will have many marks like scars. This Holy One will be the golden boat who will carry you over the cycle of rebirths all the way to the highest heaven (Nirvana). Do not look for salvation in the old way; there is no salvation in it for sure. Quit the old way. And there will be a new spirit like the light of a lightning bug which will come down from the sky above to live in all of your hearts and you will be victorious over all your enemies. Nobody will be able to destroy you. If you die, you will not come back to be born in this world again. You will go to the highest heaven (Nirvana).” *

* Permission was granted to copy these Buddhist Scriptures from Wat Phra Sing in Chiang Mai Province. The person who gave permission was Phra Sriwisutthiwong in Bangkok. It is guaranteed that this copy is accurate according to the original, that there is no error in transmission, which is in the book of the district headman, the religious encyclopedia volume 23, book #29. This inquiry was made on October 13, 1954 A.D. (Buddhist era 2497).

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