Limitations of Letters

Last week, on our day off, we took a trip to see a skywalk. The skywalk is about a two and one half hour drive west from here, the other side of the city of Nong Khai.  When we got there, we found out it was in Sangkhom District.  When I saw the sign for Sangkhom, I was a little surprised.  I though Sangkhom was just south of Phon Phisai, where we live.

Looking down into the village of Sangkhom from the skywalk

Well, I wasn't imagining things, I just had not looked too carefully at the Thai spellings of the two places.  Because Thai has more vowels than English, plus tones that English doesn't have, plus different vowel lengths, it can be difficult to render names into English.  The Thai names for the two Sangkhoms actually look quite different from each other.

สังคม vs. สร้างคอม

สังคม translates "society".   สร้างคอม most simply translates "build a computer", but I have a feeling it means something different, I'm just not sure what.

Crossing into Sangkhom District, half an hour south of Phon Phisai

A challenge we constantly face working with different  cultures and languages is being misunderstood.  Sometimes we just say the wrong thing, but sometimes we are misunderstood because of limitations related to language or culture.  People will sometimes ask about something back in North America, but it is hard to explain because there is nothing like it here, so I have to make comparisons to things they already know, even though they are inadequate.

Jesus faced the some issue when talking to people.  How do you describe what the Kingdom of God is like when we've never really seen it and it is a bit beyond human understanding. We've seen some parts of the Kingdom of God, for sure, but certainly not all of it.  So Jesus used parables to describe the Kingdom of God--lots of them.  So the kingdom is like a mustard seed. Or a farmer.  Or a pearl.  Or a net.  Or a treasure.

Or...?

The good thing is that there is a Bible in the Thai language, so there is only one level of language limitations to people understanding God.  Otherwise, the people I work with would not just have to deal with the issue of human limitations understanding the things of God, they would also have to deal with my limitations in communicating it.

Because of these things, our focus in working with the church here is to get the people reading and memorizing scripture.  We try to help them understand the context of the various scriptures, but we also pray that the Holy Spirit will guide them in their understanding of God's word.

There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’
John 16:12-15 (NLT)