Ep. 17: Adventures in Bangkok

It’s not what you think.

<< Previous Episode

Tony and I arrived in Bangkok a little over one week after my mind-blowing “jackpot” answer to prayer.

A movie producer had sent us there to do some research for a script that he had commissioned us to write. You’d think I’d be excited to be working for an Academy Award-winning producer (who happened to produce the film that Soo and I saw on our first date), but frankly, I was more excited to visit our senior pastor, who had gone to Bangkok with his family for one year to plant a new church.

Tony was a longtime member of our church and knew the pastor well enough to give him a call when we arrived. The pastor invited us to his apartment, where people from the church in Bangkok would come and go all the time, as if it were their own home. I was surprised and impressed by his willingness to spend time with people, especially me– I was new to the church and hadn’t gotten to know him at all before he left for Bangkok, but here he was, welcoming us into his home, introducing us to local leaders, and even hanging out with us over some of the best street food ever. (I have been unable to enjoy Pad Thai outside of Thailand ever since.) This was not at all what I expected from the intimidating, holy man caricature I had unfairly imagined all pastors to be like.

As I got to feel at ease around the senior pastor, I started to share my story with him– about my sense of calling to ministry and the incredible circumstances that led Tony and me to Bangkok. He encouraged and affirmed me, even asking me to share the story at the weekly gathering in his apartment. In my mind, he was sizing me up as a potential staff member; I convinced myself that this trip would end with him inviting me onto the staff, in fulfillment of what I felt called by God to do.

Towards the end of our trip, the pastor suggested that Tony and I get haircuts before heading back to the States because they were cheap yet salon-quality. I got mine first, and as Tony settled into the styling chair, the pastor leaned over and said, “Hey, let’s go for a walk. Let’s talk.”

Hot-diggity, I thought. This was it– the moment of truth.

I was convinced that he was about to invite me to join the staff of our church. It had been foretold. History was about to be made.

With nervous excitement, I kept pace with the pastor as we strolled down one of Bangkok’s bustling main roads. (Remember that old cartoon of a big bulldog strutting down the street while an eager little mutt kept bounding along to keep up beside him? I was that fawning little pooch.)

I waited with bated breath for the pastor to make the invitation, but he didn’t say anything, so I thought I’d initiate: I asked him if he had any advice for me on next steps.

He replied with Psalm 37:23, “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him.”

A great answer, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

We kept walking, stopping for a bag of Thai iced coffee. (It was served in a plastic bag, not a cup, but man, was it tasty.) We were almost back at the hair salon where Tony was waiting, when the pastor finally uttered the words I was waiting for.

“Stephen, I need to ask you something.”

I nodded eagerly, anxious to hear what would come next.

He took me aside, looked me in the eye, and said, “You know, my wife and kids are heading home to California in a few days and we have a lot of stuff to bring back. If you still have some luggage allowance, could you maybe bring some of our bags back with you?”

:/

You know when a balloon deflates so fast, it sounds like flatulence? That’s what it felt like when my bubble burst.

I forced a smile and uttered, “Sure. No problem.”

It wasn’t his fault that I was disappointed; it was my own. I had unrealistic expectations– why would I think that the senior pastor of a fairly large church would hire a guy he just met and had zero experience? This incident showed me that I had placed my trust in a human being rather than in God Himself. I had idolized our pastor, who may have been an inspirational leader, but was not the One who called me to ministry.

I had to learn to trust that if God wanted something done, He would be the One to bring it to fruition, and He would do it in His time.

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.  Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. 
(Psalm 146:3-5)

Tony and I enjoyed spending time with the pastor and members of the Bangkok church, but we had a job to do. We were there to research the city of Bangkok to give us a better grasp of the local color, which we were to infuse into the screenplay, so we set out to explore the city and scout locations for our movie.

Swamp baptism

Part of our exploration included a cycling tour through Bangkok. It began in the city, snaked through alleyways and busy marketplaces, and veered off the beaten path towards a rural area across the Chao Phraya river, accessible by boarding a streamlined, outboard-motor-powered riverboat that could fit the dozen members of our tour group, plus our bicycles.

During our twenty-minute cruise, the scenery dissolved from urban chaos to lush rain forest.

We weren’t even that far from the city, but the foliage was so dense, we could barely detect any signs of civilization. It was, at once, spectacular and forbidding– the perfect backdrop for the movie that Tony and I had been hired to write. Our minds raced with ideas for sequences we could set on this urban jungle river.

Once we docked and unloaded our bikes, our tour guide directed us to a narrow concrete pathway, perhaps no wider than four or five feet, and cautioned us to be careful and stay on the path, which was elevated approximately six feet off the ground and had no safety rails. If you swerved off the path, you’d plunge into the bushes—or possibly worse.

This made me nervous, but I convinced myself that it’d be fun and give us more ideas for the job we had to do. I started pedaling, zooming along the elevated pathway with confidence until I encountered my first 90º turn and chickened out. My feet hit the ground to stop Flintstones-style, and I bike-walked around the corner, just to be safe.

Some of the other riders started teasing me for riding like a toddler and slowing down the tour. I’ll show them, I thought. Once we were off the elevated pathway and on the ground, I threw caution to the wind and started pedaling harder, passing the other riders one by one until there was no one ahead of me besides the tour guide and Tony.

The dirt path led to a swampy area, where it was paved with square concrete tiles to keep us from getting stuck in the mud. Though my gut told me to be careful riding on these tiles, I continued my hard-biking ways.

I noticed that one of the concrete tiles ahead of me was askew, sticking out about an inch higher than the other tiles. Again, my gut told me to slow down, but maybe it was my pride that kept me going full speed, hoping that momentum would help my bike roll over the tilted tile. I also caught a glimpse of a Thai man up ahead, dressed head to toe in a white hat, white T-shirt, white pants, and white shoes. “What’s he doing out here?” I wondered, “and who wears white in the middle of a muddy rainforest?”

My front tire hit the skewed tile. Instead of rolling over it, it forced my bike to bank left, where there was an immediate drop into the swamp.

Everything went slow-motion as I felt myself falling.

I grasped at the shrubs growing at the water’s edge, hoping to catch a strong branch, but only managed to rip a handful of leaves off. I took a deep breath and squeezed my eyes shut.

I hit the murky water, back first, and curled up into a fetal position as I plunged beneath the surface. The sunlight that had penetrated my eyelids quickly faded away, and the muck filled my ears with a deafening silence.

It was dark.

Silent.

Terrifying.

For a moment, I thought I might actually die in this swamp. Then, words that I had heard at church rang through my mind– they were the words spoken during baptisms:

“Buried in the likeness of His death; raised to walk in new life.”

I thought, this must be what it feels like to be buried alive.

My back bounced off the bottom of the pond before I started to float back to the surface. I stretched out my legs and stood up, craning my neck to break the surface for a gulp of air. I wiped the sludge off my face and opened my eyes to find myself up to my neck in swamp water, with the pathway I had been on a foot or two beyond my reach. The walls of this pond were muddy and steep, with no inclines for me to walk out on. Plus, my legs were buried shin-deep in the muck at the bottom of the water.

I was stuck in a pit.

I grasped at the roots of the shrub that had failed me earlier and attempted to climb out, but couldn’t gain any footing on the slippery wet clay. That’s when the man in white appeared above me, kneeling on the pathway, glancing at something behind me and seeming a little too anxious for my liking. He reached out and nodded for me to hurry up.

I grabbed his hand and climbed out with his help, thanking him profusely. The rest of the tour had caught up, and some of my tour mates were laughing at me. I suppose I had been cocky enough during the tour to earn that.

The tour guide took me to a nearby village and arranged for me to wash up in someone’s bathroom. Now, when I say “bathroom,” I don’t mean porcelain tub, hot water, and scented body wash– this was a village bathroom, a shack pieced together from cinder blocks and planks of wood, with algae-coated concrete floors and a cement water basin that’s filled with cloudy, well-drawn water you scoop out with a plastic ladle and splash yourself with. Even so, I was relieved and even grateful to be here, filled with an inexplicable sense of peace and zest for life. Perhaps it was because it was so much cleaner in comparison to the muddy pit I was in, or because I had just gained new insight into the words of baptism.

Buried in the likeness of His death.

Raised to walk in new life.

After washing up and putting on my rinsed-out-but-still-wet-and-dirty clothes, I followed the tour guide and Tony from the village towards the park where the rest of the tour was waiting.

As we passed the pond I had fallen into, a tremendous splash interrupted the drone of the rain forest.

“Did you see that?” asked the tour guide.

“No,” I replied.  “What was it?”

“Crocodile,” she answered nonchalantly.

Flashback– the man in white, glancing behind me with an intense look of concern as he reached out to help me, urging me to hurry. Was he looking at a crocodile?

I still don’t want to know.

I’ve been asked if I think this man was an angel. Scriptures tell us that angels are ministering spirits who do God’s bidding (Heb. 1:14; Ps. 103:20) and sometimes appear in human form (Gen. 18:1-19:5; Heb. 13:2). However, angels are not to be worshiped (Col. 2:18): when an angel appeared to John of Patmos, who fell at the angel’s feet and wanted to worship him, he ordered John not to, as “I am a fellow servant with you… Worship God!” (Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9).

Therefore, I’d rather not dwell on angels and instead keep my focus on God, trusting that if He wants angels to do anything around me, He’ll handle it without me needing to know, for He is the “Lord of Hosts,” or the commander of the heavenly army of angels (Ps. 46:7; 84:8). Besides, a fascination with angels can be dangerous, as we can be deceived by Satan and his minions masquerading as angels of light (2. Cor. 11:14-15).

The man in white who pulled me out of the swamp may or may not have been an angel in disguise; I don’t know, nor do I think it’s important to know. He just happened to be at the right place, at the right time, and whoever he might have been, there’s plenty of symbolism in being rescued from a pit by a man dressed head to toe in white.

Several days later, I would return to California and be formally baptized by my church in a public declaration of faith, with my community present to celebrate with me. It was a special moment, made all the more meaningful after my dunk in the murky swamps of Bangkok.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
    out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.
 He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
    and put their trust in him.

(Psalm 40:1-3 NIV)

Next episode >>