“Do you know how to smeing [pray]?” asked my new friend, Fatila, as we sat and chatted with some other ladies under our house.

It sounds like a simple enough question, but the word used for prayer here implies much more than what we westerners usually think of as prayer. To smeing is the special ritual prayer that Muslim people pray five times a day. So how do you answer such a simple yes-or-no question? With a long explanation!

“Yes, I pray every day in my house,” I replied. “I pray, but in a different way,” I tried to explain in broken Khmae/Cham.

“But do you pray five times a day?” persisted Fatila.

“I pray many times a day,” I replied. “Sometimes five times, sometimes more. Every day, my husband and I pray and read the Bible when we wake up. Every day, we pray and read Bible stories with our children when they wake up. Every day, we pray before we eat. Every day, we pray and read the Bible with our children before we put them to bed. Every day, my husband and I study and pray together before we go to bed.”

“Doykunia!” (“It’s the same!”) They exclaimed. “We pray five times a day also!”

When we explain our religious beliefs, people often say doykunia and smile and nod. Just last Sabbath, Fee, our landlord, came over to our house shortly after we had finished having Sabbath School with our kids. All the felts were still out. It was on the story of Moses telling Pharaoh to let Israel go.

“What are these for?” asked Fee.

“We use felts to teach our children stories from the Bible,” Greg explained. He went on to show Fee the book that goes with the felt set with all the different Bible stories. “We teach our children about all of the prophets, about Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Daniel. This is the story of Moses delivering the children of Israel.”
“Doykunia!” Fee exclaimed. “We believe all of these prophets as well. But we have one more prophet—Mohammed.”

Many times, our Cham friends have asked us about the Sabbath, and we have explained that Saturday is God’s holy day, and on Sabbath we go to church and worship God. We teach our children at home and study our Bible. We like to go on hikes in the jungle and visit with our friends. We don’t work, buy anything or do any business. Sabbath is God’s rest day.

“Doykunia!” they exclaim. “We have a day to worship also, only it is Friday instead of Saturday.”

Often, ladies will finger my head scarf and eyeball my attire and say, “She dresses just like us. Doykunia Islam!”

And of course, we are guaranteed a loud doykunia approval when we share that we don’t eat pork or drink alcohol.

But some things aren’t doykunia. The other day, our language helper was explaining how to say “traffic accident” in Cham. He explained that the word for accident is related to the word they use for a judgment or punishment from God. We were puzzled, so he expounded on the topic. He explained that sickness, accidents, handicaps, poverty, lack of education, etc., are judgments or punishments from God for breaking one of the Islamic laws. On the other hand, if you are rich, educated, in good health and good looking, you are blessed by God because you have done many good deeds and keep the Islamic laws. Your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds.

At this point, Greg couldn’t help but interrupt. “We believe kawknia (differently),” he interjected. “Most religions of the world think they must obey laws because they are afraid of judgments or punishments. But we believe differently. We obey God’s laws because God loves us and cares for us. When we love Him, we want to obey Him.”

That afternoon as I visited with people in their homes and practiced the words I had learned that day, my heart was weighed down with a palpable sadness. Everywhere I looked, I saw sickness, poverty, handicaps and lack of education. No one had escaped the curse of God, not even Hakkum—the spiritual leader of the village—and his family. I wanted to ask Hakkum about these judgments of God to make sure I had an accurate understanding. I asked him if all sickness, accidents and other hardships come as judgments or just some of them. What about a little cold? If something happens to a baby? Has the child broken God’s law?

“All sickness and tragedy comes from God,” Hakkum emphasized over and over, “even a small cold.”

I was sitting by Hakkum’s wife. She has been suffering for several months with kidney stones and is in terrible pain. She nudged me and told me she suffers under the punishment of God. “I have taken all of the medicines, but God has not yet made me well. I must suffer longer until He makes me well.”

Doykunia? Maybe on the very shallow surface of things, but isn’t that the way Satan likes to make things look? He is hiding all the richness and fullness of a wonderful, loving Savior and God under the lie of doykunia. The vastness of the difference between the character of God and the character of Satan is as wide as east is from west. But Satan has led these dear people to believe that God is, in character, doykunia Satan! God hands out all of the suffering, sickness, disaster and bloodshed!

Kawknia! (Different!) is the message we want to come across loud and clear. Not in a judgmental or boisterous way, but in the silent but telling witness of our everyday lives. Different in the way we treat each other; different in the way we speak about our loving heavenly Father; different in our deportment and even in the way we treat animals. We want our lives to shout that God is love; that God is compassionate and merciful. Lord, may our lives show the difference!

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