Going

Going

 

Going      

Acts 13:4

 

My name is Brent Rosendal, I am a missionary to Chiang Mai, Thailand, sent by Landmark Baptist Church in Anderson, Indiana. I have been ministering in Thailand since 2002. Serving alongside me is my wife, Tawm, and our son, Owen, who just became a teenager. The main focus of our ministry in Thailand is planting churches and training Thais to be able to plant churches as well.

My journey to Thailand began as a young child. Ever since I was a kid, I have always been fascinated with missionaries and their stories, especially stories about Asia. My mom tells me that she always knew that I would move somewhere far away. My parents never helped to make that a reality as they hated traveling and so I never had any opportunities to travel very far
from home. As a junior in college, however, I had the opportunity to go to Bangkok, Thailand, on a short-term mission trip for two months. That trip was the first time I had ever flown on an airplane. While I was on the trip, God burdened me for ministry in Asia, but I was sure that did not include Thailand, as I did not enjoy Bangkok very much. After graduating from college, I had the opportunity to lead a short-term mission team to Thailand. I did not really want to come again but the organization I was serving with didn’t give me a choice. On my second trip to Thailand, I came to Chiang Mai which was completely different than Bangkok and during my time in Chiang Mai I sensed that God was calling me to spend the rest of my life serving Him here. Soon after that trip, I moved everything I had to Thailand which consisted of everything I could fit into 2 suitcases. When I first came, it was to teach English to university students and use that as way to share the Gospel with them. However, after moving here I saw that sharing the Gospel in English with Thai people wouldn’t be very fruitful as Thais don’t speak English very well and one couldn’t get very far using English. So, I started to
study Thai; at the Thai language school, I met ABA missionary, Nicky Barnett, who invited us to begin working with him to plant churches.

I studied Thai full-time for 18 months and then part-time for about a year. Thai is a difficult language because it uses a different script. It has 44 consonants and 32 vowels. Thai is also tonal. That means that if you say a word and change the tone or inflection, you’ve changed the word. Even more challenging is that I studied central Thai which is the language
that unites Thailand but outside the classroom people spoke a dialect instead of Thai. Even though I understood Thai in the classroom, it didn’t always help outside the classroom because people were not speaking Thai. To make it even more complicated, Thais have spoken Thai, written Thai and royal Thai. When I began to teach and preach, I needed to learn royal Thai which is the language that Thais use to address the king. Royal Thai uses a lot of vocabulary that is only used to talk about the king or God. The Thai Bible is written in royal Thai which helps Thais to have a high view of God, but it also makes the Bible difficult to understand because people never really use royal Thai.

Although the Thai language is difficult, there are also a lot of customs that I needed to know so that I didn’t offend people. Thailand is known for having a lot of peculiar customs. In Thailand, one must be careful about your feet. Feet are seen as very low and showing the bottom of your feet is similar to
giving some the middle finger in America. Thus, you need to be very aware of your feet when you sit. You need to sit cross-legged a lot of the time. You cannot step over any part of another person, so you have to ask people to move to get by. Feet are considered very low, and the head is considered very high. So, you never touch people’s heads. You never put your foot
on any Thai money because all the money has the king’s head on it. You must also be careful how you point. You don’t use your finger or feet, you usually use your nose and lips. The language and the customs took time to adjust too but the hardest barrier to ministry in Thailand is Buddhism. Thailand is 95% Buddhist. Thailand has freedom of religion and so we are free to minister but Buddhist thought is so different that Christian
thought which can make it difficult to get Thais to understand the Gospel. On top of that, most Thais mix their Buddhism with the worship of spirits. This complicates things even more as Buddhism in Thailand is different from what is written in textbooks and the worship of spirits makes what a Buddhist believes very individualistic. What a person believes depends on
their background and situation.
In many ways, living in Thailand is quite easy. Chiang Mai is very modern and has most of the amenities that are available in big cities in America. As a foreigner, many doors are open to me as well. Most Thais dream of moving to the US because they think all Americans are rich. On top of that, I speak English, which is a language everyone wants to learn. So, I have opportunities to go into schools and even universities to teach English. Although teaching English is no longer my primary focus, I am still afforded opportunities to go into different places to teach English which opens doors to establish relationships with students which in turn will hopefully open
opportunities to share the Gospel with Thais. This is extremely important as relationships are the key to doing ministry in Thailand.

Despite all the challenges of living in Thailand, I am so grateful that God has given me the opportunity to do His Kingdom work in this area of the world.

Missionary Brent Rosendal