The Nehemiah Community

Student Volunteer Movement 2 is not a missions organization in the traditional sense. We’re not a “sending” agency. Ryan explained it with the story of Nehemiah. When the Jews went about the work of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, each household worked on the section of the wall closest to them. In this way, the workers were building independently and together at the same time. SVM2 wants to take the workers in each area of the world and unite them under the common goal of mobilizing this generation of students to the missions field. Each campus ministry and prayer group can continue ministering in the way they are called to and find works best in their cultural context.

Here is a rough quote/paraphrase from a passage of Ryan Shaw’s book Waking the Giant.

If enough areas and regions are activated, and if they communicate with each other and agree upon common points of prayer and goals for their region, a sense of united momentum emerges. As ministries and organizations serving the emerging generation around the world begin to implement similar strategies and points of focus, a massive and widespread international movement occurs.

Through networks and collaborations, the body of Christ can function in unity for His purposes, instead of doing things as individual organizations. We can do more for the kingdom if we unite under a common vision and work towards a broad goal using out combined resources and efforts.

Thai Church

Last Sunday I attended a Thai church whose pastor is one of our neighbors. This church will be helping the Shaws and I get work visas when our 3 month visas expire. It is important to me to connect with the Thai believers in Chiang Mai, to see their heart for the city. Many of the missions organizations based in Chiang Mai just see the city as a location, not as an opportunity to minister. Because of this many of the native Christians have negative feelings towards the foreign Christians. Instead we should be supporting and learning from one another.

The church felt like any small church in the United States. We sang worship songs before the message, with the words projected on a screen up front. Thai script is completely unreadable to me so far, but the first few songs also had the lyrics written out in the western alphabet. It was fun to sing along to the songs, having no idea what I was singing but knowing it was worship. I was surprised when two of the songs actually were translated into English! So at that point I could sing along to the music in my own language while the rest sang in Thai. I loved the idea of believers worshiping side by side in their own language but with the same words.

Our interpreter was a woman named Julie. She was a Filipino-American woman who had been living in Chiang Mai for six years. It felt awkward to have her sitting behind us explaining the sermon as the pastor spoke. I felt like it must be distracting for the rest of the congregation and tiring for Julie. I also found it hard to focus on the message when it was coming to me second hand. There were even a couple antidotes that Julie was unable to translate.

After the sermon and a couple more songs, we were dismissed and there was a potluck lunch! The church has a lunch every other Sunday where people bring some of their favorite dishes. The food was as tasty as it was unrecognizable. It’s always fun to sample the food that the native people eat and enjoy, as opposed to restaurant food where you never know if they are catering to your western taste buds.

As with most things I’m finding here in Thailand, I was surprised at how similar everything was to what I am used to. Besides the language, this church felt like any small church in the United States. The format of the service and the content felt very familiar. It’s hard to say if this is evidence of churches taking on the culture of the foreign missionaries who help them start or if it shows that we are all not as different as we think.

World Club Land!

The residential areas on the fringes of Chiang Mai are split into neighborhoods called Moobans. The mooban where I live happens to be called World Club Land. While it sounds like the name of a touristy resort or tacky country club, it is a simple mooban just like the others. One distinction it has is that it is the home of Grace International School where many of the students are children of missionaries. For this reason there is an abundance of foreigners in the neighborhood. I found it surreal the first few days here, seeing all of the non-Thais walking past my window. I was surprised to learn that the neighborhood was given its fitting name even before the school and the corresponding flood of Westerners took over. Apparently each mooban tries to take on its own feel, and with World Club Land they were going for a fitnessy, club feel. The school, which is open to all mooban residence after school hours, does have a plethora of tennis, basketball and racket ball courts, all of which I am not likely to ever use. But it’s nice that they are there.



One afternoon I took a walk down my street and was surprised by some of the huge houses down the road. My house is by no means grand, but less than a mile down the road there are some truly palatial properties! The remarkable thing is that just a couple minutes more down the road were some houses you would be fair in calling shanties. These are residences built from old repurposed timber, bits of metal and sheets of plastic. It’s always interesting to me to see places where conspicuous wealth touches elbows with the poor. (Sorry I don’t have more pictures, but it makes me feel creepy taking pictures of strangers’ houses!)