Pictures

The Chicken Temple. Cockfighting leads to freedom for Thai from Myanmar overlord. Temple built in Chicken's honor.














The magnificent Golden Buddha at the Golden Triangle where the Heroin trade is the real gold. Look at the boats in the foreground for perspective.














These statues are spirit warriors based on ancient Thai fighters engaging cobras as assistants.
These warriors who were the inspiration for these statues were active during the time when Siam ruled this part of the world, including several other modern nations.














No matter where you look, you're going to find a Buddhist temple.















They are very beautiful.














And the people are very devout and very warm.














It's a spiritual culture here. Lots of mixtures of things like Hinduism, which had a real foothold on Siam for many years.














This lady is reading palms for cash at the market. Another example of the hunger for truth that these people have.














Here are some of the most gentle people you'll ever meet. They're friendly and they're working a lot harder on finding the truth than most anyone you'll ever meet. What an amazing force for eternal life they could be. Someone has to tell them, though.














When there is a spiritual vacuum, greed comes in and takes advantage of the weakest first and foremost. Here many girls are bought from hill tribe families as early as 11 years old and sold on the open market. Even in a city such as this, the red light district is always busy.















However, God has quietly been moving families here for about a decade now. They're from all over the world. Our class has been working on a presentation for the Family Learning Center which serves as school and community center for the mission families. Their work is critical.















The kids are pretty sharp. Most speak several languages and have a pretty sure idea of what they want to do when they get older.
















Like most Christian schools, there's a time of worship and praise. About 10 Buddhist children go here. Many have come through the doors and have become Christians from this natural setting. We're told that most of them become followers of Jesus.















But they're still kids and they like to play. Come to think of it, so do I. That slide looks wide enough even for me.















Speaking of play, here's Aim. He's one of our students here and he's a local guy who has become Christian recently. He's also well known on the Chiang Rai hip-hop dance circuit and here he's showing off some of his... uhhh... def... ummm... moves...? I'm too square for this - but enjoy watching his enthusiasm and witness.



Not bad for people who have been shooting for about 5 weeks. I'm enjoying watching them take up the challenges of production and am really trying to get them to tell stories. I keep comparing them all to Luke, the grand storyteller of the early church, and from what I've seen, they really seem to have taken that mantle on and want to change the world. That's the way they should feel at this age.

HOT

It's getting hotter here.
Not just the temperature either.

Yesterday I ate at the tarp covered market where you can buy a shrimp, fish and Thai chili (the small hot peppers I enjoy so very much) lunch with a couple of heaping spoonfuls of fried rice for about a dollar. I also had a chance to get a piece of corn on the cob for about a dime at this same market. We sat at wooden tables on worn concrete floors and waved off the flies and enjoyed our meal watching the Thai news which featured the NBA slam dunk contest from America. It's the Thailand that is, but it's not the Thailand that soon will be.

The Thailand that will be is right there next to that market. Just walk out from under the tarp, turn left and take 10 steps and there is a shiny, white 7/11 with everything in cellophane and plastic and sparkling like coins at the bottom of a fountain.

There's another 7/11 less than 200 yards from that one - across the street.

Oh, they're coming. The Starbuckses and the McDonaldses and the Pizza Huts and all of the other multinational trademarks will most certainly stamp their brands onto the hills and towns of Thailand, just as they will throughout all of Southeast Asia.

Already the signs are here. No, I mean the real signs. "Coming Soon." In English, no less. Some of these signs are exclusively in English. Oddly, I found out that most of these were put there by the Chinese people who are flooding here day after day.

Here in Chiang Rai, there are 2 universities. One is a large, venerable and beautiful campus with many thousands of students. The other is brand new and was built by the royal family in order to teach the students - wait for it - in English.

Why? Pretty easy to guess really.
Not only are these mainly American conglomerates making their way here, the Chinese are moving here in droves and bringing their business savvy and love of English speaking dollars with them. There is the "Friendship Highway." It's the road that I travel everyday here on my way to the Media Light school. It's a busy 4 lane stretch of asphalt that is meant to connect openly over the Mekong River straight through Laos and into southern China. China's border is less than a hundred miles away and this nearly completed highway is inevitable as the Chinese system continues its quest for world domination one business and one neighborhood at a time.

So things are heating up in every sense of the word "climate" you can imagine: The climate of business, the climate of change, the climate of climate. It got to about 93 today and I hear that's mild. Hoo boy.

It's also heating up for the gospel. This place reminds me of Cambodia a few years ago. In flows the cash and the government somehow loosens up to allow the "opiate of the masses" to take a small foothold. They think they can contain it in small doses. Maybe it's the scripture "the kindness of God leads to repentance," brought to life. It sure looks to be some sort of beautiful plan unfolding here. As peaceful as Buddhism seems to be and as devout as the followers are - its whole purpose is to be empty. Finding the void leads to fullness. Nothingness begets completeness. It's a concept that has some merit for this life but leads to nowhere. On purpose - it actually leads to nowhere.

So here comes commerce, with all of its benefits and foibles, to fill that void and hot on its trail, but not in sync with it, is the gospel; burning down the barrier between this world and eternal life with the power of God and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. A radical concept when placed next to any of the eastern religions and certainly a final and legitimate source of hope, joy and love for all eternity. Who wouldn't want that? Sadly, even most people who are from Christian nations don't see it this way. They see a form and function and have lost the completely incredible promise of eternal life. Here it's new and it's going to freak these people out when faith blooms. We have one Burmese girl here as a student who prayed for her brother a few weeks ago and his blinded eyes were opened. God is going to turn this place on its head as the Spirit of God makes His way west to close the circle and complete the call to all the world.

It's a great time to be here and we're busy, working hard everyday to make sure that these young leaders have the skills to be able to speak to their generation before the certain wave of mass merchandising floods every corner of this region and douses the fire of change by drowning everyone in greed.

I named this class "The Red Hots." Red, being the first and fastest light in the spectrum and Hot because of the reasons listed above. I selected the Thai Chili as our symbol because I'm an instructor and can do whatever I want.

Keep praying for us all and for Media Light. We're doing some pretty ground breaking things here and laying a good foundation for the future.

The next blog, coming tomorrow, is all pictures. Enjoy them - they were taken by my students on the school's video cameras.