I'll Be Home for Loi Krathong

I'll be home for Loi Krathong! That actually has a nice ring to it doesn't it? I was very fortunate to be home for Christmas our largest Christian holiday!  (I'll never understand why non-Christians celebrate Christmas, but hope that one day THEY'll understand why they celebrate it!)

I was also fortunate to be "home" in Thailand for one of their biggest Buddhist holidays.  Loi Krathong.  Pronounced "Loy - Gra- Tong"  (I think).  Loi means to float and Krathong, kind of sort of means, lotus shaped container.  You'll get more from the pictures than you will my explanation of them so I'll just tell you that they're typically made of a slice of the trunk of a banana tree and banana leaves and straight pins.




  I got to learn about them and make them with my university students and these are the base items we used. Here's how mine turned out! I was going for a peacock theme!


Okay, Okay, that's not really mine! This is really mine!


 My Loi Krathong may not have won any beauty contests, but if there was a contest for most pins used, I'd have gotten first place for sure!

Once your little float is made you can beautify it with flowers and candles.  Some Buddhists will place incense for the spirits to take in or a coin as offering to the spirits.  Like us and our Christmas traditions, lots of people do different things for different reasons on this spiritual holiday. What I mostly understood from my university students is that it's kind of like "out with old, in with the new!"  When you float your lantern down the river all your "bad stuff", anger, hatred, trespasses, errors, misfortune, etc. go away with it.  It's a bit of an act of worship, attempt at making merit, hope for good luck, offering for forgiveness all wrapped up in one!

So we made our floats, some more meticulously than others, (I'm just not very Asian, okay?!) and we floated them down the river!! (Cue gasp! I should probably take this time to tell you, I also, celebrated Halloween and am a huge Santa supporter!) Take a Xanax infused with grace and hear me out! I won't debate you about my pagan holiday rituals except to say, Jesus is the Reason for the Season, Our God is Greater Our God is Higher, and This is the Day the Lord has Made,

 but there was more to our Loi Krathong celebration, so keep reading! 

Once a month we host and invite our students to an event we call Quest, it's a night where we answer their questions about Christianity and teach them about the foundations and threads of our faith, love, service, joy, peace, healing, thanksgiving,  and on this particular night FORGIVENESS.  The Gospel is always presented in Thai, to debunk the idea that it is a westerner's faith, He sent His Son for them too!!! God speaks their language as clear as He speaks our's, which makes Him even more mighty in my eyes than ever before because Thai is super hard to speak!  The full moon of the 12th Thai month, (Loi Krathong) just happened to fall or rather rise on a regularly scheduled Quest weekend!! So... we celebrated forgiveness with them! My pastor explained to them the simple message of the privilege of our DAILY Loi Krathong opportunity, the message of the cross, the TRUTH that we are ALL sinners, and have we all have plenty of things we need to float down the river, but that our Savior took care of that debt for us, that His mercies are new every morning and available to them too! Then we wrote down our sins and shortcomings that we wanted God to forgive, stuck them on our floats,  prayed together, and jumped on our motorbikes to float them down the river!

I kind of love my job!

Let Me Out of Here

I used to have this little box on my desk when I was a youth pastor.  Often times after I checked my Thursday morning voicemail or after students left my office I would push the button and concur with the lil man in the box! Or simply make it my prayer to God by saying, "Amen." at the end of the lil man's words!

We've all felt this way! Some of you are visiting family right now or holed up in a vehicle with all your children and are feeling this way in this EXACT moment!

Today the title of my devo was, "God In a Box."  God immediately reminded me of the little man in box that used to sit on my desk and let me know He feels this way sometimes too! Like on days when I try to do everything on my own, when I incessantly worry rather than pray.  When I succumb to being overwhelmed and wave the white flag of defeat! He says, "Excuse me! Excuse me! Could you let me out of here! Last I checked I was victorious over death, hell, and the grave! The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the provider, the healer, the redeemer, the restorer, your Father, your Savior! So could you LET. ME. OUT. OF. HERE!?"

I smiled at my the humor of my very real God and said, "Sure thing Lord, let's hang out!" And I let Him out of the little box I keep Him in when I'm busy or worried or overwhelmed. What a world of difference it makes to let him loose!

Inspired by:  Priscilla Shirer's, "ONE in a million"