Pattani Central Mosque

Quite crazily, we co-incidentally arrived in Pattani on the day that the whole province gathered to pray for the flooding in Thailand, totally ignorant of this fact. As busloads of Muslim children began to unload, we started wondering 'What in the world is going on?'
Al Jazeera and Reuters reporters also put in an appearance, sharing some tips with us and showing of their gigantic camera. Thanks to their presence, we were allowed in to video wherever we wanted.

There is such a thing as a free lunch!

Today, 7:15am we started rolling down the road to the deep south of Thailand. Along the way there were many military checkpoints but I was too sleepy to care as the soldiers peered into the car. Anyway, they always waved us through. When we arrived we met our contact, a Thai Christian. They were very nice, but obviously scared. Our discussion about places that we would like to film went like this:

Me: Main mosque?
Contact: Oh no, they don't allow it. Too dangerous. They don't like foreigners. Not even non-muslim locals are allowed in.
Me: How about just from the street outside?
Contact: Oh they will come out and ask you what you are doing, and catch you.
Me: How about a Muslim village?
Contact: That's the most dangerous area around here.

Then he told us the news was warning about a likely car-bombing this week. Around this time I realized that unless we found another guide, we were going to be very short on footage. So we contacted someone else and they graciously canceled their work for the day to take us around. First stop, the fearsome main mosque.  As for being covert, my student W stood on the barrier in the middle of the busy road in front of it, taking video (which turned out to be mainly a view of the powerlines anyway). Then we went inside and the Imam introduced himself to us and took a photo with W. My other student T walked around to the women's side and terrorized the poor ladies in hijab with her camera, making a couple of them even pose on the stairs for her. Two college girls shared their snacks with us. One asked me if I was a Muslim. I replied that I am interested (in their culture) which seemed to be alright. One of them invited us to go to see their university. She was actually studying to be a teacher in Islamic studies so we interviewed her.
The Imam also wanted to be interviewed but he had to go to a wedding first so we didn't have time.  After prayers, another man just leaving the mosque invited us to lunch, saying 'I will take care of you.' I thought it would be nice to have lunch with him, but actually it turned out that his wife already had lunch for him at home and so he just paid for us all and left! So hospitable!
Next stop, we followed the student to visit her Islamic university, where T's exclamations over the location of the toilet echoed throughout the university mosque. In the library, the librarians showed us around, including posing with books of the local Jawi script. T was surprised to find that she could understand it being read out loud, but not in written form (it's a form of Malay but using Arabic script, whereas the other Malay languages have used Latin alphabets). I had to repeatedly rescue W from walking into gender inappropriate areas while filming. Finally we wrapped up, said good-bye to our new friends and shed our head coverings. I sent W off to practice video at a local market while T took a nap in the car. The Muslim presence is definitely stronger here, it's almost like a different Thailand. The military presence is also quite heavy, with soldiers on quite a few corners and barricades made of barbed wire, sharpened stakes and tyres on the road.
At dinner I made a mistake reading the Thai on the menu and accidentally ordered roast pork. Luckily the waiter just looked weirded out rather than offended and I quickly switched to roast beef. Reflecting on this rather surprising twist of events during the day, I can see that if most Thai believers share the same fear of Muslims as our first contact, then they will never reach out to them or have friendly experiences. No doubt, there has been violence and terrorism in this area, but it seems to be a case of the 10% of fanatics ruining life and relationships for the other 90%.

Last post of outreach

So hilariously, the rest of our filming became so exhausting that I didn't manage to write again.
Here are some photos of the process though:




One of our locations we filmed in...beautiful areas.




The 'older brother' acting out a scene where he explores meditation as a way to relieve his guilt.




On the last day of filming the headman's wife asked if we could pray for the family, the village and the Shan people. They had only 1 son left alive out of 4 children.




Then we had a big dinner with all people involved and they laughed themselves silly watching a trailer we'd made on the fly.
All together it was extremely hard work but extremely fun too. However, i caught some unidentified fever on the last day and am still recovering!

"Have you seen my brother?"

Today we are filming in a Shan village the story of a young man who sets out to find his brother as the dying wish of his mother. The search takes him back into Burma, where his family had originally fled from, and where his brother was last seen trying to revenge their father.







A flashback shot of the brother.

Filming has been fun... Villages and fields, myself running around madly dressed as a Shan woman in a village on fire scene, swordfights and 4 wheel driving late at night.

Shan people briefing

Today we have a long term worker teaching us about the Shan Burmese people. Here's some of what they face.
They are 5-6 million Shan, persecuted heavily within Burma due to the fighting of the state of Shan against the Burmese military ruling junta. They want independance, and they were promised it years ago... But it hasn't come.
In the name of Burmese buddhism, a chedi was built in the area above Mae Hong Son, and 6 people including one little girl were incarcerated alive inside. Their screams could be heard for ages and the mother of the child has gone insane...
The Burmese army are using rape as a ethnic cleansing weapon against the Shan. Gang rape is so common.
The Shan are seen as even more Buddhist than Thai! Shan monks recieve a lot of respect. Social life revolves around the temple. Festivals are buddhist, becoming Christian means social ostracism.
Funeral rituals are extremely important to the Shan, a church has disintegrated because people left as they thought the church conducted funerals as if they were for animals. Christians need to work out how to do a good honoring funeral. A shan buddhist funeral has a cremation around noon in the forest, the guys have chopped wood, girls have made paper flowers, after the burning the drinking and gambling begins till late into the night. One of the first things a Shan person wants to know is what will happen to their physical body after they die.
They are buddhist fundamentally with an animistic overlay. For monks, the more precepts they follow, the more spiritual power they have. The spirit shamans say they get their power from Buddha.
The majority of people come to Christ after seeing a power confrontation between God and the animistic spirits- such as exorcism or healing. But after it, they still have Buddhist worldview at their core- so they may go to church to make merit now, instead of the temple.
The Shan believe suffering is life, a gospel without dealing with suffering would be of no interest to them.
They believe spirits are dead bad people wanting incarnation...interestingly they fear going out at night when a Shan dies unless they're Christian because they say the Christian has no spirit who will haunt them.
Effective sharing must be relational evangelism, if you argue apologetics and win publicly you have made them lose face and shamed them.
One pillar of Buddhism is detachment, you aim to have a cool heart always. You will become what you worship and if you worship a statue with eyes that can't see, hands that don't feel...the possibility of true relationship available in Christianity is attractive.
Pray for:
Protection for immature church plants
100,000 Shan of Chiang Mai- they are often illegal immigrants

Www.surehope.net
Www.shanland.com

Nupo Bible School

After a bone jarring pothole slamming last stretch of road we skidded to a stop beside a bamboo hut- the Bible School. We slept on the bamboo stage under mozzie nets and it was relatively comfortable even though Jenny had turned into a baby zombie by that time.

In the morning, the village rose with the chickens and we could hear the muslim prayer call echoing from the valley as well as see the orange robed Buddhists monks chanting as they walked in single file. Josh was difficult to wake and I could hear the villagers say to the Thai pastors, 'oh your poor friends must be tired from the travel'.
After breakfast of noodles, we went to pay a visit to the village cheif. He was surprisingly young- the Karen elect their cheifs based on education among other traits- and he was the only born-again Christian in the village he led.

We heard some of his struggles, he invited my church to return and partner in ministry there and we prayed for his family, especially his new baby. Fairly important meeting, I thought.

Indonesia!

So I find myself miles down the road from my last post, although I'm back where I was when I last wrote. I've been to Indonesia for 5 weeks, filmed 3 movies and gotten really really sick.
How do I summarise Indonesia? Let me say the work, the people and the landscapes we went through were amazing, but the spiritual warfare terribly harsh. I don't think I've ever felt more awful on any mission trip, even though I was doing what I love. But maybe that's cause the outcome of these video projects could be amazing.
Jakarta was warm, wild taxi rides to meetings all over, mega malls contrasting horrific slums and we would visit both in a day with the teams. Bandung and Ciwidey were calm rice paddies, villages of excited children, walking along the alleys of the kampoengs saying 'pagi!', sleeping in damp concrete rooms and misty hills everywhere.

Nearly out of Africa...

It's only a couple of sleeps till I fly for London. I've been tidying up and preparing for it. I've also been reflecting on all this time in Africa and what I've learnt.
Most of all I think I have learnt to wrestle with God, rather than not involving him at all and avoiding the hard emotions.
Why did we have to flee a country? I don't know but I do know God is okay with me being angry about it - He's big enough for that.
Why are so many still suffering? I don't know but I do know Christian Africans that have a deep joyful faith regardless.
Does God use ridiculously young and naieve people? Yes.
A lot of our time felt wasted and ineffective- was it? Perhaps, but then most of mission work is long boring 'wasted' work with very few rewards and possibly never seeing the results.
Would I do it all again if I knew what would happen? Definitely. I do not want to let go of the little understanding that I've gained of a people standing among a country in ruins and what the lives are like behind those faces on the world vision ads.
I have made many great friends who are now scattered around the world, which makes me exceedingly grateful for the giant re-union heaven will be. I will miss the children here at Beautiful Gate, I have watched some of them grow from whimpering babies to having developed vibrant little personalities even though they are only just talking. It will be strange not waking to their chatter.
See you in London.

Last Night in Joburg

So while the strike was going on we didn't really have any schoolkids coming to Joseph Project so we began working with one of the Lambano baby house, which has very small children and toddlers. Most of the time we just held them and played with them. For one day I went to the park with them which they loved.



Thankfully this isn't me getting nibbled on. But they were right next to our van.


Tonight is our last night at Joseph Project. We reunite with the other teams on saturday and begin debriefing next week. Outreach has been challenging, rewarding and downright dangerous at times. But I have learnt and experienced a lot even though our team did not end up working where we thought we would. Definitely I want to be back in africa someday.

Apartheid Museum

The group that went to visit the apartheid museum - Ren, Kari, TJ, Matt and I.


Nooses for those who died fighting apartheid.


A Casspir vehicle that patrolled the streets during the riots.


Dis-armed weapons from the fighting. There were a lot of AK-47's.
The fighting had even come down Commissioner street in Johannesburg, which is where we were staying. Even though I remember seeing the news about Soweto during the 90's, I hadn't realised that a lot of the fighters were children - until I saw video footage of them being beaten up by police. It is really amazing that there is peace between the races in South Africa today after the terrible atrocities that line their past. I think Nelson Mandela did a pretty good job against the odds. It was incredibly moving.

Day at the Park

This is the park we went to on Saturday. We had a picnic lunch.


I lay on the grass and took photos.






This is Ryan, the ninja, jumping off the horsy ride.

Joseph Project

So now we're safe and sound doing sleeping, eating and working in a community centre called Joseph Project. The whole concept of it is to teach the inner city kids of Joburg to dream again. It's based in Troyeville, once a rich gold baron's residential area, now turned into a slum controlled by 'slumlords'.
So here's what my schedule looks like...
Monday mornings I'm helping build a website
Tuesdays I help out in the preschool for kids too poor to go to normal preschool. They are incredibly cute but their little toes stick out from their shoes and they still arrive in shorts even when it's freezing. Here's some photos of them.

This is Josua who quite prefers the pink bike.

This is Noella. I think she's from the Congo.

Here is the extremely rickety swingset that rocks off it's feet everytime the three of them get on and start swinging.

Mawimpizo, who is the smallest boy in the class, also managed to build a tower bigger than he was. I was so impressed.

Esther is a Malaysian Australian who is the preschool teacher. We have 'circle time' every morning which includes singing. People keep asking us if we're sisters e.t.c


Everyday Lungile, the girl, dresses up like a princess.


We're trying out a new thing, which is teaching them to clean their own dishes. It's very slow, but they did do it. The kids here have to take on a lot more responsibility around the house than kids in Australia. They already fold their own blankets, wipe down tables and help me butter the bread.



Then on Weds there's a meeting and I plan (which usually means shooting a few hoops at the local basketball court while I'm thinking)
On Thursdays I do building work, which so far has been bricklaying or like today, shopping for cement, timber and fittings.
On Fridays it's the website again.
This is only for the mornings. Every afternoon kids from the local primary schools arrive from 2pm onward. We play cricket, pingpong or this dodgy American version of handball called 'foursquare' which turns the kids really vicious as they slam the ball at each other. Then they sit down at tables and get fed lunch. You can tell the ones that are really poor cause they eat everything.
Then we do homework with them for an hour, which usually forces me to go into teacher mode to make them all sit and concentrate. Their level of education is pretty bad considering the ones I tutor are in Yr 7 and they ask me questions like "what's 6 x 2?". I've been trying to give them extra work to help them catch up because a lot of the time their teachers aren't giving them homework (or the teachers simply aren't turning up to class). Surprisingly they like maths a lot better than English.
Finally it's playtime then clean up at 5pm. By this time I am usually exhausted because I have the rowdiest class. I don't know how teachers do it everyday.
The girl on the left, Princess, makes me play pick up sticks with her every day. I hate that game now. She always wins...until yesterday!


This is the dining situation. That's my team leader, CarrieAnne in the red cardigan.

This is cricket in the garage. It's extremely scary if you're fielding up close. I have bruises on my legs from it.

This is that evil foursquare game. Did I mention it was played with a basketball?

Although at first I really missed the open fields, skies and plain living of Zimbabwe, I'm finally adjusting to life here and not feeling so cooped up. Since this is Johannesburg we can't be outside after 6pm at night so the only time I get to be under the blue sky is if I sneak away to do planning on a weds or on 5 min walks at lunchtime. It was driving me crazy at first but I realised a lot of their regular staff are away so they do really need our team here so I had better stop 'kicking against the goads' and just come to accept it was in God's plan.

We have fled Zimbabwe!

So after being robbed on Monday, during which our car keys were stolen and I was stabbed at while trying to get them back, we were forced to leave the country due to police pressure. The police began accusing us of 'working with the opposition' and since the elections are in January, political opposition in Zimbabwe has been beaten up, imprisoned or simply 'disappeared'. Tehy were also taking in people for interrogation. So it was time for us to leave.
Still God protected us during this time, and gave us an incredibly smooth flight as we ran for it, leaving quite a bit of our stuff behind. I just pray he protects the people we left behind. But we are safe in Johannesburg, South Africa, oxymoron though that sounds.

In Botswana

It's red dust and random animals everywhere. We've just run an exhausting conference, and had our day of rest yesterday round a campfire with smores.
People here are lovely, although I'm still undure how much some of them understand, but I think a lot of the time it's more than less.