Loi Krathong

Well, that was interesting. Tonight in Thailand they are celebrating an event called Loi Krathong or the "festival of light". All night I've been listening to fireworks and the sounds of music from our apartment buildings celebration down by the pool. The celebrations here I guess are various and range from a week long celebration in Chiang Mai or big parades and fireworks, costume contests and float contests in Sukothai where it originated. I tried to look it up online to figure out just what it is, and of course I got 5 different stories. Anyway, Sarah's landlord really loves inviting Sarah to do various activities and tonight she invited us to come along to the celebrations they were having at our apartment building. We weren't so sure about what we were supposed to do when we got there and certainly didn't want them to expect us to pray to the Buddha or anything like that. Thankfully she knows we are Christian, so we were pretty confident we wouldn't have to do anything like that. Most people in Bangkok will go to a Wat or go to the Chao Praya river to celebrate with huge crowds of people, but large businesses and apartment buildings also have their own. Our apartment building made a makeshift pond outside our pool area for everyone to take part in the festival. Traditionally people buy or make these floats made of banana leaves and flowers, but they also have ones that are made out of bread. Sarah's landlord had bought floats for us and her friend that was with her. I got one that was made out of green bread. When we got there there were lots of people milling around. Some were taking pictures, some were cooking food like it was a barbeque, others had tables set up where people could make their own floats, and there were lots of little kids dressed up in cute costumes running around with sparklers.We pretty much followed the Thai's lead, once we got our floats together and lit, we cast them out onto the water. According to Sarah's landlord this is supposed to represent letting go of bad feelings and wrong doings. It made me think of how as a Christian we could use that type of imagery to present the Gospel to the Thai people. Light and water are definitely powerful images in Christian teachings, as well as Buddhist teachings. So, how can we change the meaning of these symbols to celebrate Christ being the light of the world? Or how can we use the concept of water and baptism to parallel the symbolism in Buddhism of casting their sins on the water to cleanse themselves from evil. Perhaps that is how. In this place that is so darkened by Satan and his false teachings the light of Christ still shines brightly and through baptism we are daily renewed and washed clean of our sins. Here's one last glance at my float, even though many of the other lights had gone out this one was still shining :D