Counterfeit Love

The concept of love has plagued me for years.

This is obviously a strange statement, as love is what powers my very existence nowadays. I’ve had some truly miraculous moments these past weeks where I’ve felt God looking straight at me in the eyes, saying, “I love you more than you can imagine.” It’s incredible when I look back, and see the ways my current life of redeemed love negates the years of pursuing a counterfeit love—

the kind that leaves you empty, lied to, and numb.

We went to Bangkok this week, so I could say goodbye to my team that has been here the past month, and maybe pick up some corn tortillas and cheese at the Siam grocery center (things that are severely lacking here in Northern Thailand). As we made our way through the city, traveling by long-tail boat and fuchsia taxi cabs, I found myself as enraptured with Bangkok as the first day I had arrived in Thailand. The endless shopping, glittering hotels, smiling faces, and sensory-grabbing details left me wide-eyed and in an old, familiar place I’ve spent years in.

Debilitating comfort.

For the next couple days I trekked my way through a strange concoction of the modern and highly exotic—all the while my thoughts resonating a newfound idea, I love this place, I love this place, I love this place.


I loved the friendly faces.
I loved the deflated Baht.
I loved the ceramic-topped temples
And shopping
And food
And art
And beauty.


Walking past the various street vendors in Bangkok, you touch the Thai silk pashmina scarves, you feel your heart thud as men stare at your hair and eyes. You make your way into the biggest, most spectacular malls you’ve ever seen, eat the finest of international delicacies, and pay the equivalent of a few American dollars to do so.

It’s beguiling, and hypnotizing.








And for a few moments, you forget why you came here in the first place. You forget about God. You lose yourself in the neon lights and zipping tuk tuks. You fade with the sunset over the Wat Arun temple and blend into the coming darkness.


Like any other place in the world, evening eventually fell upon Bangkok. As our taxi took us back to the hotel, I watched as the gold-laden temples lost their glittering luster underneath the hot Indo sun. The brightness that bounced off street windows withered, and richly-colored lights proclaiming Orchid Lounge, Playskool Plaza, and Bedbar! took their place. As the team tucked themselves into their last night in Thailand, I felt God telling me to stay awake a while longer.

So I sat myself down on a small, red-velvet couch in the lobby, prayed, and waited.

Tiny, beautiful girls began making their way into the Great Residence, stiletto heels clicking on the marble floors as they walked towards various hotel rooms. They came on the arms of young, strong men, and old, fat men. One particular man, grotesquely big and eyes dark with empty passion, had a girl holding on to each of his hands. As I sat stiff and cross-legged on the couch, I felt them stare at me in quiet curiosity for a brief moment. He then lead them to their next destination for the evening; they turned away from me and stroked his neck and shoulders with honey-sweet laughter and sardonic smiles.

With each couple that made their way through the hotel, I felt a stark emptiness fill the building, the distant voices of young women giggling covered by the dark silence that followed shortly afterwards.

And isn’t that how it always is? You get the short thrill of pleasure that comes along with a worldly life—the high in purchasing something you don’t need with money you don’t have, the ecstasy in the passionate pursuits of a lover, the serotonin-enriched nights with a drink at hand—and as quickly as it happens, it’s over.

And then, emptiness.





It was there that I was left with my own troubled past, my own youthful years spent pursuing beauty, accolades, men, and things to fill the void in my heart,

the expanding obscurity and shadows that slowly covered God’s light and truth from within me.

I thought those days were far behind me, but I still got lost in the counterfeit love of Thailand. Darkness tickled my senses with a sweet aroma, and for some fleeting time, it masked the pungent stench of death and destruction that lie beneath it. For a while, I believed the lies the darkness told me.


"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."
Galatians 5:1

"God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'"
Luke 12:20

"For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you."
Romans 8:5-9

"Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever."
1 John 2:15-17

But God does not abandon those who seek His kingdom; and while my own weakness brought about old, painful memories and desires, the Holy Spirit filled me during this trip and reminded me of true, lasting, all-fulfilling and all-redeeming love. "You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world."
1 John 4:4

I sat in what should’ve been painful, ugly, solitary nostalgia that night. And while my heart broke for Bangkok—for those empty people with worthless dollars and sex and laughter—my soul was overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit. I used to see myself in the darkness of those girls’ eyes. I used to find my worth through men’s approval of my outward beauty. I used to escape my loneliness through physical affirmations. I used to clamor for ways to fill the void that found its way into my soul every sunrise.

And now, the Spirit is like blinding, relentless sunshine
Breaching every shadow
Crushing all iniquity
Overcoming all of my weakness and sin.

Undeniably, if I was left to my own devices, I probably would’ve allowed evil to finish off the self-destruction I started so many years ago. But love has won over my heart. Christ has shown me that while wickedness rules the dust of this earth, His kingdom of heaven cannot be conquered by evil.

So I tell all of you reading this and who know Jesus in your heart: REJOICE! The Spirit of God has filled your soul, and NOTHING can negate the love and redemption that dwells alongside a relationship with Him. He is pursuing you like a lover; He will bring you not short-lived ecstasy, but

rich,
unadulterated,
unfailing
joy and peace.

God loves you. Even when you forget He does. Even when you turn your back on Him. Even if you close your eyes at His efforts to show you. Even when more darkness fills your soul than His light.

He loves you.
And He’s more powerful than you give Him credit for.
He can crush your doubts and fear.
He can alleviate your sorrows and struggles.
He can wash your past clean.

And if you let Him change you, his Spirit not only brings eternal brightness into your life, but reflects for all to see around you. Through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, you are the temple that glorifies God’s purpose and love for His creation; don’t allow the counterfeit loves of the world to make you believe otherwise.

Rain and Refugees

So it’s been twelve days since I’ve written anything, partially because there’s barely enough time for us to really soak in anything here, but also because we’ve seen so much in the past few weeks it’s a daunting task to put any of it into words. I thought I’d go through a couple stories over the next few days; it’s taken me quite sometime to figure out what I’ve seen, and there are some stand-out experiences I wanted to share with y’all.

The day I waited for my team (Casey, Katie, Kristina, Jessica, Tyler, and Emily) to drive from Bangkok to Mae Sot I got the chance to visit a Burmese refugee camp on the border. As gray skies and water drops the size of marbles filled the horizon for what felt like the millionth day in a row, the group I was traveling with got the low-down on the camp. As one of the largest camps in Thailand at 150,000 registered (and upwards of 100,000 unregistered) refugees, Mae La holds a long history of fear, uncertainty, hunger, and homelessness. People of various Burmese ethnicities have fled from Myanmar to escape from one of the most oppressive and terrifying dictatorships modern history has ever seen. I don’t even know where to start with the stories we’ve heard about this regime; just think murder, rape, torture, human sacrificing, and Satan worshipping, and you’d get the foundations of what’s been driving Thwan Shwe and his military.

To get to a Karen tribe tucked in the back of the Mae La camp, we rode in the back of a truck along what felt like the real-life version of the Indiana Jones ride—complete with muddy potholes, fording through rivers, and me thinking over and over, “my parents would kill me if they saw what I was doing right now”. We eventually arrived at the bible school our Karen friends attend, completely drenched and clothes splattered with bright orange mud. Everyone stared at us with a combination of curiosity and laughter as we swish-swooshed through their lessons for the day. We got a tour (I completely forgot his name, but this Karen guy was totally awesome and told me that one day I get to give him a tour of California) from one of their students, and he showed us through the elementary schools and ramshackle huts that were scattered along the dirt paths of the camp.





For what was supposed to be a temporary place of refuge, the people living In Mae La had definitely created a new community; most of the kids and young adults there had grown up in this part of the camp their entire lives. Just like most of the experiences I’ve had here, I was amazed by these people’s ability to thrive with so little. Kids ran through the muddy puddles with their school books in tote, mothers rocked and fed their babies from the porches of their huts with smiles on their faces, shop workers waved at us as we passed by. At one point, they had the entire bible school (of about 400 students) sing worship for us—and if you want to be knocked off your socks with what will probably be the music we’ll listen to in heaven, I’d strongly suggest paying them a visit.

In the middle of our tour, we stopped at the “handicap ministry”, which consists of mainly of victims who’ve lost limbs, their hearing, and/or their sight from the landmines scattered along the Burma forests. Our group sang worship music for them, and as Rachel’s beautiful voice reverberated off of the tin roofs, I had a hard time not losing it. Seeing these men and children with their sewn-up arms and legs and eyes gutted from their faces was a reality check that destroyed my world. Oh my God, my God, this is for real, I kept repeating in my head. These chosen people of God were being wiped out off the face of the planet, and I was right in the heart of their exile. And at that moment, all we could give them was a song of praise, lyrics of redemption and hope. I prayed over them, reminding them of their eternity with Christ; I knew in those words that one day I’d see them whole and in their glorified bodies, surrounded with heavenly treasures no one on Earth can imagine of. The man with no eyes smiled as we closed our thanks to God. It was a moment that will stay burned in my mind forever.

Our visit could’ve ended there, and I would’ve left feeling completely humbled our experience in Mae La. But God wasn’t finished with us yet, and at the end of our visit, the Karen people surprised our group with one of the most incredible lunches I’ve ever had. And as the third, maybe fourth course of rice, pork meatballs, vegetable salad, and noodles made its way to our table, I couldn’t help but feeling this horrible weightiness in my chest. Here I was, enjoying the hospitality and gifts of people who had next to nothing—and they served us with joy. I asked our tour guide how anyone could be so kind, and he told me with a serious face: “We are proud to have friends from the West who are willing to come and listen to our story. We hope that our friends we make will go back to their homes and tell their families of the Karen people, our faith in Christ, and our fight for peace.”


It’s this kind of stuff that continuously strips you of your privileged mindset, that breaks your heart into a million different pieces, and that makes you question what kind of faith has been driving you for the past couple decades.
It makes you question what faith even means—like when people tell you to have faith you’ll do fine in finals, that you’ll get the job you applied for,

and on the opposite side of the world there’s a group of people who have faith their God will save them from genocide.
Needless to say, I’ve fallen in love with the Karen people. And I hope you all are ready to be bombarded with their story when I get back, because I’ve got a responsibility to fulfill.

☺

The Last Shall Be First

It’s hard to know where to start. We’ve only been here a little over a week, and as of tonight I feel like God has already chipped off the majority of my surface and left my raw emotions to soak in the unadulterated truth to what is happening here in Northern Thailand.

The first few days here were met with mostly pointing and ooo-ing, as I put together the images and experiences of a wild, untamed jungle trying to fake its way as a Westernized, second-world nation. There was Bangkok, with its scuttling tuk-tuks, beautiful temples, and street food; and here, Mae Sot, adorned with brightly-painted houses and lush greenery clamoring its way out of make-shift neighborhoods and streets. Everything here is a clash of the familiar and bizarre; nothing is anything I’ve expected or experienced, but most of it is manageable and adaptable to.

But overwhelmingly, above the bustling cities and ridiculously amazing Thai food, there is Life Impact. Lana, Cindy, Larissa, the staff, the missionaries, and the beautiful, innocent children.

These doe-eyed angels who raise the arms up to you, who snuggle up beside you like a parent they’ve been raised by.

These Burmese kids, dirty and covered with lice and sores, who hold onto their younger siblings as they make their way through a sludge-covered trash dump.

And you look at all these little things, you look into their big brown eyes, and you know they’ve seen far worse than you ever will. You know they have stories that can hardly be heard without losing it, much less stood to be told. You look at them, you hold their hands, you carry them in your arms,

And your heart breaks like it’s never been broken.

And the gospel washes over you like a flood, and for what may be the first time in your life, you understand. You understand Jesus and the people he spent his life with, his ministry with. You understand his heart for the poor, the hungry, the sick. And not in a, let’s-volunteer-at-the-soup-kitchen-on-Christmas kind of way, but in a way that makes you want to spend every waking moment showing these children and families Christ’s love and sacrifice for them. Everything you used to think was a big deal suddenly isn’t. The clothes, the accolades, the achievements and goals and statuses and associations are all like a bunch of bad jokes.

Much of the people fleeing to this part of Thailand are Burmese, escaping a genocidal hell-hole in which hundreds of thousands of people have been tortured, murdered, and displaced from their homes. The Karen ethnicity, a group in Southern Burma whom are predominantly Christian, have experienced the brunt of this war, losing thousands of their villages and families to ruthless, unimaginable killings by the Burmese military. The men have their limbs cut off before being shot. The women are raped and equally tortured. And the children—if they aren’t brutally murdered in the same fashion—are kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers or prostitutes. For the past week, I’ve been listening to the stories of the families and children who’ve escaped, while also being able to physically stand at the border of Burma they’re crossing over. I see hordes of Burmese men, women, and children take boats across the river to come live here in Thailand, in refugee camps and trash dumps. I see the girls, with their yellow make-up brushed across their face like army paint, holding skinny children who will most likely start working at a factory or begging on the streets once they get here. And the men, with old jeans and dark, weathered skin who look like they’ve traveled too far, seen too much in their recent life. And here I am: pale, privileged me, thinking how stupid it is that I’m standing here with my pockets full of money, my hair freshly washed, watching all of these families settle in a dump because it’s better than where they came from. Here I am, right in the middle of all this struggle and tragedy and heartache.

It does things to you.

I’ve realized in my short time here that becoming born-again isn’t simply through a request for Jesus to come into your heart. It’s a continual process of losing yourself, of humbling yourself, and of showing the same kind of love Christ came to give. Matthew 20:16 has been on constant repeat in my head; as I watched the kids from the dump sing worship songs the other day, rejoicing and praising a God of redemption, compassion, and glory, the truth of that verse resonated through every bone in my body.

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
…The last will be first, and the first will be last.

My prayer for us is that we be last in the weeks and years to come, so that He may be lifted higher. May the blessings we’ve been given in our lives may not be in vein, but be spread in hopes to bring God’s kingdom here among us. May we not merely stand on the border of human pain and suffering, but stand with them. May we face rebirth everyday as we allow God to break away our multitude of sorrows and sins, and sculpt us into His vessels of love, compassion, and beauty.