Market Trip

This morning I had an opportunity to go shopping at the market with my mom for the first time since last two years. I am not fully awake right now since I went to sleep around 2 o'clock last night and had to get up at 6; but I feel the urge to write this note.

We took a Song Taew truck to Nonthaburi market, the busiest place I have ever seen in the morning like that. Vendors after vendors, shops after shops were opening to welcome their customers. People, mostly in their PJs, were swarming in and out to run their early errands. Sellers' bellowing voices trying to get attention from shopppers, street dogs wandering..sniffing for left-over food, buyers hurriedly rush from one aisle to the other to get what they need and Thai Buddhists kneeling down...receiving blessing from a simple looking monk really made me overwhelmed. I have never been good in being in such a crowded, busy place with loud noise like this anyway, so it could probably have been another overwhelming trip. But the truth is...I kinda felt a little different this time.

While I was waiting around for my mom, a group of people caught my attention. A group of five ladies bowing down their heads, kneeling down on the stenched wet dirty floor, holding their hands in a wai form in front of a young monk with such stone, straight, emotionless face made me planted where I was standing.

These folks were joyless! They were hopelessly looking for ways to heaven, trying in vain to do good things...to earn merits...while knowing too well that it may not be the right path. The scene captivated my soul, and my heart was being squeezed so tightly that I thought I was going to collapse. It looks to me that the monk was the only brightest hope they could ever find...and try to cling to... before they started their days living in sins. How depressing that would be when you are not even sure of your salvation? "Do good things, girl, and you will go to heaven."...that's something I had been told since I was a little child. Everything is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Oh! My ultimate desire is to see my countrymen repent and receive Salvation. My dream is to be Jesus' hand to help the poor and the orphans in this place, the country that has been called, "the Land of Freedom". I want to see Thailand being the chosen nation. But I am so little. I am not much. Yet I really want to help. The spiritual warfare is marching on, but I am still stuck with sins. "Lord, Your strength is made perfect in my weakness. Deliver me from sins. Arm me with Your armor. And make me selfless, Lord Jesus. I am Your clay."