Shannon and I have been in Surin in our village of Top Krabeu for just over a month. We’ve been trying to get to know our neighbors—their lifestyle, beliefs, and everything else we can about them.

“How’s it going?” you ask.

Well, we are more than a little swamped with new information and insights which we’re trying desperately to record and organize for use in our evangelism strategy phase. The language barrier, though much smaller than last year, still poses challenges. When people open up and explain their beliefs to us, just a couple key words, if not understood, can leave us unsure about the larger meaning.

And what can I type after such an interview? Sometimes, it seems like everything is just a hypothesis—something I think might be true, but need to reexamine and test a few times to see if it actually is. It seems like we’re always having to interrupt someone mid-sentence and ask them please to repeat something or say something using different words or spell out a word we don’t know so we can look it up in a dictionary later.

And I really hate to interrupt people, especially when they’re speaking from their heart and really excited about what they’re saying. So sometimes, I confess, I get tired of trying to listen and interpret their gibberish, and for a while I regress to simply uttering encouraging grunts while I nod my head as if I totally understand and sympathize, while in truth I am clueless and secretly wishing they would come to the end of their story. Have you ever been there? Well, that’s the way we are sometimes—so weak.

But praise God, that doesn’t happen all the time. Sometimes, I sit in amazement on the edge of my seat soaking up everything they say, grateful to have the opportunity to hear and understand this part of Northern Khmer life. In the next several months, we will be giving you the gleanings of our detailed cultural studies so hopefully you, too, will understand the people we live with, pray for, and to whom we will soon minister in Word and deed.

This month, I want to focus on the positive external characteristics of our people—those things that anyone can see and appreciate. (Our people aren’t perfect, but we’ll share problems and struggles later on.)

Our Northern Khmer neighbors are a very thoughtful, helpful, and loving people. For someone who thinks that Christians have the market cornered on such characteristics, this may come as a surprise. I stand in wonder of it too, sometimes thinking, “How can these people, not knowing God, really love and care and sacrifice unselfishly like this?” And I don’t have an answer, except that I believe God, through His Spirit, is already here, unknown and unappreciated, but certainly not inactive; striving with men, working on their hearts, speaking to them at least through nature, so that they are even now without excuse and convicting them of righteousness, sin, and judgment. And many of them are already responding favorably to that Spirit. Here are some examples of how we have been loved by our neighbors in our first month here.

On the very first day we arrived, they were here to help us move our stuff in.

On the next day, many families came together to welcome us officially and wish us a happy stay in their village. Of course, their welcoming ceremony, which we did not understand at the time, was extremely spiritualistic! They gave food offerings to their dead ancestors and petitioned them not to bother us, but to let us live on the property and in the house with health and happiness. Wrong action, but right motivation, so far as we can tell.

The next day, half a dozen people dropped in just to visit and welcome us again. Some people had been unable to come to the welcoming ceremony the night before. They kept saying, “Thought you might be lonely.” “Wanted you to know we were thinking of you.” “If there’s anything I can do to help you here, just let me know.”

Then our landlord, Aajaan Manii, invited us over to his house for supper. He knew we’re vegetarians, so he asked us, “Can you eat eggs?” We said, “Sure, we can. We’d love to come and eat with you.”
Then, when Shannon went up to Chiangmai for a week to learn about malaria and dengue fever, they came over almost every day bringing food from their gardens or inviting me to eat with them. “We don’t want you to eat Ramen noodles all week,” they said.

One Sunday, I bought the parts for a digging hoe, but I didn’t have the tools to put the head on the handle, so our landlord directed his nephew to assemble it for me. A week later, I wanted the head sharpened. He instructed his neighbor to do it for me. I told him that I was going to dig a garden. He said, “My kids and I will come and help you.” And they did for three hours under the noonday sun.

Once a week, we go into town for shopping and communications. Every time we come home late, Aajaan Manii’s wife, Phii Phat, sends her son to turn on our front street light and porch light.

Last Wednesday when we came home especially late at about 10 P.M., our nearest neighbor who usually goes to bed around 8 P.M. told us she was unable to sleep until she knew we had returned safely.
And these are just a few examples. I once asked them, “Why are you guys so thoughtful toward us?”
One neighbor answered, “It’s because you’re a foreigner far from your home. You know, just like if I were to go over and live far from my family in your country.” She was implying that I would no doubt do the same for her, were the tables turned. But sadly, I had to remain silent, thinking of all my previous neighbors in the States whose names I never knew and for whom I never lost a moment’s sleep wondering if they had returned home safely or not. Dare I imagine that I would really treat this woman as she has treated me were the tables turned? We American Christians would do well to pay attention to the Spirit who prompts us to be kind and thoughtful; by our actions, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Do you have someone in your church, school, or neighborhood who has just moved in from another country? If so, would you do me a favor, as one who has been loved in a foreign country far from his home and family? Go buy a few apples and take them to that person and say, “I want to welcome you to America. We are so glad you’re here. I pray that God gives you peace and happiness while you’re here. And if I can help you in any way, please let me know.”

“And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 19:33, 34).

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