Surely my cup runneth over

I’ve heard “Thingyan” described as an Asian Mardi Gras, but it’s just not the same.

The Water Festival is a celebration of this country’s new year. Lasting four or five days, people of all ages stand on the sides of the street or even elaborately built stages to spray water on other people driving, biking or walking down the road.
There are little kids with plastic, colored bowls scooping water out of giant drums to toss on the passersby. There are also long hosepipes stretching out to the street from the homes nearby used to spray water. I’ve seen everything from empty cans to ornate water guns wielded to splash water.

People cram into flatbed trucks, jeeps and open top buses just to drive down the road and get sprayed. Almost every street has spray stations set up by the people who live nearby. We live on one of the main streets through our city, and I can see nearly 10 spray stations from my bedroom window.

It’s almost impossible to go anywhere because the streets are clogged and jammed with all the people and vehicles.

You’d never know it is the dry season here because the streets are puddled with water.

There’s music blaring from loud speakers, and it’s, in general, a party atmosphere.

The festival is a celebration of an ancient Buddhist holiday, but to say that Water Festival is promoted by Buddhists is about the same as saying the Easter Bunny is promoted by Christians. It’s more of a patriotic practice than religious celebration.

Thingyan can definitely be a hassle if you’re trying to get anywhere, and since every business (including grocery stores and gas stations) are closed for the week, it’s almost as if the whole country shuts down.

But there’s a blessing in disguise…

I remember after Katrina noting that without electricity and water, the residents all came out of their houses and really got to know their neighbors.

I feel the same about Thingyan. It’s been difficult to reach the people who live in our apartment building until this week. Normally they exist behind locked gates and we don’t see them, but this week, they’re all down on the street sitting, eating, chatting and having fun. It’s been a great opportunity for our family to establish connections with them and begin to share with them.

While the children are playing with the water, CJ and I have been able to sit with the parents and talk to them about their life. It’s through these connections that CJ was invited to go to a village just behind the main road where (they told him) no white person has ever visited. He was able to visit homes there and meet people, giving them Good Book tracts in their language. They invited him to come back again when he can.

Yesterday, I brought some popcorn down to the street as I watched my girls playing and sat next to a young mother and her toddler. The sweet child looked at me with curious eyes as I held out to her a handful of popcorn. Within minutes, the little girl was sitting in my lap munching from the bowl while I conversed with her mother using the little language I know. It’s just a start, I know, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, right?

The best part of the week though came when I encountered a young man coming out of our apartment building wearing a t-shirt that said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life!” I asked him if he knew the meaning of his shirt.

“No,” he answered me. The shirt belonged to a friend, and he couldn’t read English.

In the limited language that I knew, I tried to explain to him where the words came from and what they meant.

It was a difficult conversation and I wished that I could speak to him from my heart using his language. I was comforted in the knowledge that this is just the beginning and in time, I will be able to do just that.

Thingyan has been quite the experience. We’ve been exposed to an event and the underlying culture that are dear to this people. We’ve been soaked to the bone by all the youngsters who love spraying the foreigners while we worked to communicate and establish relationships with their parents and the other people here. But most importantly, we have made small steps towards open doors and hopefully open hearts that Father will use to spread His message and His love.

During Thingyan, the locals spray water to commemorate their new year, but it is our hope that they will come to know the Living Water that can overflow from their soul. Would you please pray that Father would grow the relationships with our new friends and that we would be able to share with them the promise of salvation through faith in Him? It is our hope that these are people that we’ll know not just for a few years, but for an eternity!