Smiling wide

You really don’t know the difference in cultures until you enter a new one. Textbooks and the internet tell us what it’s like to live somewhere far from home, but you really have to enter a new culture in order to understand it. When we came to Thailand we learned about the people’s natural tendencies during a ‘cultural orientation’.
Even when I learned about Thailand in Thailand by Thai people, I still failed to fully grasp the type of people I was about to be surrounded by.
We learned during this orientation that Thai people are innately kind and loving. I didn’t think much of it; I kind of just figured it was like the northern vs southern USA dynamic when it comes to people’s demeanors. It took actually living in Thai culture to realize there is something significantly different about these people.
When we settled into our base, we had a few days to get over jet lag and learn/prepare for our scheduled ministry. One of the first interactions with Thai people I had was with a kind old woman at her little street coffee shop. There was a super awkward language barrier that was realized very soon after some girls and I walked in. I figured that I would just grab a water, but the woman embraced me more than a customer. She was so smiley. She went to find someone around who can help translate. I felt her love- it wasn’t just because I was there paying for her service. It was because I simply was there as a presence. She persisted in conversation despite the language difficulties.
Next, I met another kind old woman. A team member and I were walking around the more crowded, city area of Ratchaburi. We were doing a scavenger hunt and needed to take a picture of a certain Thai fruit. My partner pointed to the photo on our paper and a woman who pointed us in a direction to walk to hopefully find it. We walked for about one minute and asked someone else just to be sure we were headed the right way. When we stopped, we noticed the original woman who helped us was behind us still, but just figured she was headed in the same direction. We kept walking for a while and stopped walking since we figured the woman was mistaken with what direction to go. Again she was still quietly walking behind us and pointed in a direction again. We felt awkward about it so we again kept walking that way ( it’s been like 10 mins of walking in Thai heat looking for some fruit and we were ready to give up lol ). We soon found a stand with the fruit for sale and saw the woman was still behind us. She smiled and pointed at the fruit. This woman literally walked over 4/5 blocks worth with us just so two foreign white girls can take a selfie with fruit.
Walk into a typical American school as a substitute teacher and you probably will find little respect. Students are typically excited, not to learn from someone new, but to get away with slacking off since their regular teacher is absent. Walk into a Thai school with only a-few Thai words mastered as a English teacher for an hour of a day, and you will find respect. You will find respect, love, happiness, and gratitude. As soon as we entered a classroom to teach English the students are smiling wide. Smiling wide is a term we all use too lightly. These are the widest smiles I have ever seen. They definitely hurt- but a good hurt- and they are SO contagious. The students love our simple presence and our silly songs and even our sometimes awkward teaching styles. When the music comes on at lunch, dancing is not a recommendation – it’s pretty much required. Its not a rule, but you cannot just sit there and watch these kids smile and jump around, hold your hands, hug you, and not dance. Our very cringe worthy karaoke performances on stage make them giggle and dance and smile ( wide smiles, all the time). Such love these Thai kids have for us.
At home, if I encounter a clearly foreign person who cannot speak English, I don’t think I would show such love and kindness. I would probably throw on my sorry but there’s nothing I can do to help attitude.
Let’s talk about how much like Jesus’ love is the Thai people’s love for us. They don’t care that we are white or can’t speak our language. They just want to love on us and learn from us. We went to Thailand to bless the people, but I underestimated how much we will be blessed by the people too.
It is so convenient ( for lack of a better word ) that these people are so naturally kind and loving. We have found so many opportunities to love on them and demonstrate a new type of love to them that Jesus wants us to be giving. Our host reminds us that despite the language barrier, we can still minister to the Thai people by the way we simply interact them. They can notice something divinely different in us. That may be enough to plant a seed of Jesus in them that can be watered throughout their lives. For the kiddos at the Thai school, it is a significant seed displayed of their wonder and interest in our Noah’s ark story (after telling it, students asked for more- for a story about Jesus!) For the lady at the coffee shop, it is a simple seed of us relaying her own love for us back to her.