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December 2001
A Santi Suk Advent and a Santi Suk Christmas
Here in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, we cannot clearly see if there
is a star over Bethlehem this year. What we see from Palestine
on TV are children sallying forth throwing rocks and angry men
bearing their corpses back home on flag-draped litters. Diplomacy
fails. No wise men seem able to find their way to the City of
David to make peace. The shepherd’s plain is obscured this
year by a cloud of smoke and dust that has drifted from lower
Manhattan around the world. One thing they say about haze is that
it produces spectacular sunsets. The sun has set on one era of
history. What follows a sunset like this?
I stood outside tonight, on the eve of the first Sunday of Advent
in the light of a full, clear moon. The street was deserted. Thailand
is a peaceful place. But the world seems more perilous than it
did a few months ago. Since peace is something you do, perhaps
we Christians in Thailand have a contribution to make.
On Tuesday morning I announced in the weekly assembly at Christian
University that the president of the university had agreed to
a project I had written to help promote a spot of peace. We have
proposed a Santi Suk Mission from Christian University to three
St. Louis churches. Santi Suk is the Thai word for peace. Three
Christian University students will be ambassadors of peace, missioners
of Santi Suk. Presbyterian churches in St. Louis are inviting
a Buddhist, a Christian, and an Islamic student to come to the
United States to represent the Thai form of interreligious peace.
These three students will spend their semester break, from February
10 to 22 in the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy showing how we
do peace here.
Next Thursday and Friday (December 6 and 7) I will conduct another
workshop for English teachers from two dozen schools in the area.
The theme is "Christmas." The teachers are coming to
learn activities they can include in their English classes. All
that most of the teachers and their students know about Christmas
is that it involves a jolly old man in a red suit and white beard.
We will talk about him, but also about the birth of the Prince
of Peace. We will use the Bible story as a basis for word games
and teaching activities. Peace needs an emphasis this year, even
in English classes.
The week after that I am in charge of a stress management workshop
for the administrators of one of the large Christian charitable
foundations here in Thailand. Our practical approach to stress
reduction will include massage and meditation as well as Bible
study, exercise, and lifestyle modification. Peace begins with
regaining control over our own hearts and bodies.
Then we will begin a round of Christmas programs in our university
and in schools up and down our road. The theme for Christmas that
I suggested for our university this year is "Green Christmas"—making
peace with the environment.
I dedicate this Advent to peace. I wish these Advent efforts
were grander, somehow, likely to effect santi suk in ways more
appropriate to a season in which the Taliban is being bombed into
oblivion and Afghanistan is feeling the wrathful aftermath of
"nine eleven." But I have no way to do that, no platform,
no audience. This is the best I can do from our campus out here
in the middle of the rice fields and orchards of Thailand.
Blessings to you as you have a Santi Suk Advent and Christmas.
Kenneth Dobson
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 163
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