mission field is much more complicated than a simple binary
of West to East, from white to non-white. Nearly half of the
top 10 countries that send out missionaries are outside of the
Western World: neighboring India, Brazil, the Philippines,
Mexico. Korean missionaries now go to places like UCLA,
the Rust Belt, and New York City alongside China and the
Dominican Republic.
Thus, John Chau can be seen as the paragon of a globalization
teeming with the internationalism of religion: Christianized
Chinese immigrant father meets white mother, child grows
up in the Pacific Northwest, attends college in the South, and
then decides to go to an island group off the coast of India.
“I’m in awe of how GREAT our God is,” Chau wrote in his
journal a few days before his death. “Even my heritage points
to you—me, an American citizen, part Irish, part Native
American (Choctaw), part African, and part Chinese and
Southeast Asian—thank you Father for using me, for shaping
me and molding me to be your ambassador.”
In his journal, Chau expressed that he hoped to live with the
Sentinelese for decades, learning their language and teaching
them about the ways of Christ. Moreover, in Chau's view,
if he died, he went to heaven. If he lived, he had a greater
chance to bring the Sentinelese into heaven with him. Thus,
Chau, in his own belief, was by no means "irrational" or
"delusional" for dying as the media portrayed him to be.
The only irrational and delusional parts of his thinking were
that he could quarantine himself for a few weeks, come into
contact with the Sentinelese, and somehow not spread virulent
diseases to the uncontacted tribe.
gawked at how cheap the food was. The next day, we drove a
minivan north into the countryside, through fields and fields
of staring strangers. We spent most of our time driving across
the country.
I found little purpose for me, and even for my father, to be
in Thailand, other than to serve as spectators who were part
of the evangelical travel industry. Because our team was so
small and had an actual pastor, our roles were clearly defined:
the Korean missionary shuttled us around the country and
organized all the logistics, while the pastor gave the sermons
during the night, usually in small homes that doubled as
churches. Generally, from Korean people I know who have
been on overseas mission trips—which is to say the majority
of them—the church teams usually split up into different
groups and visit different villages, often performing skits and
running a VBS (Vacation Bible School) for the children. In
my case, I had no stake in any of it. I did, however, contribute
some prayers into the ether.
My one "role," however, was photographing the events of
the mission trip. My camera was a shining eight megapixel
camera on my new pebble blue Galaxy S3, and I took as
many pictures as I could: the wet markets, the children, the
chickens, the night gatherings. People praying, people crying,
people praising.
+++ My friends, who had done mission trips in countries like
India and Mexico, always came back to church tanned and
weathered, giving exuberant testimonies of how they saw
miracles that summer: people getting healed on the spot,
dead arms becoming functional again, cataracts disappearing,
demons being driven out of bodies. I saw nothing that summer.
In our first night in Bangkok, a sweaty, jetlagged July night,
we stayed in what was described to me as a "four star hotel,"
which surprised me—I had expected to suffer. During the next
day or so, I played with Thai schoolchildren in the church and I remember trying incredibly hard one night after the sermon,
putting my hands on the body of a frail, old man in the hopes
that his paralyzed legs would work again. We were all praying
together, the pastor, the missionary, my father, and I. Dear God,
22 Spring 2020