Faraway in the country called Thailand there is a large area known as "Isaan". And in Isaan there grows a special kind of tree known as the "Isaan rubber tree". These trees grow very straight and very tall, over one hundred feet high. Isaan people like to cut down the Isaan rubber trees to use the wood to saw into boards to make their houses. In fact, so many people were cutting down the Isaan rubber trees that the government of Thailand began to notice. They decided to make the Isaan rubber tree a protected tree which means they cannot be cut down unless a person gets special permission.
In the middle of Isaan there is a small village called Non San and this story is about a family who lives there, the family of Uncle Sook and his wife Aunt Fong. At the time of this story Sook and Fong had three grown sons who lived with them whose names were Laem, Lerm and Loht. They were a poor family who lived in a one-room house with a tin roof. But Laem, Lerm and Loht were able to help make some money to help their family by doing house painting. They knew how to make paintbrushes out of straw and by using bamboo they could make ladders to reach high places.
Uncle Sook and his wife Aunt Fong were followers of Jesus. Their son Laem was also a follower of Jesus. In this village there were others who followed Jesus too. None of the followers of Jesus in this village had much money but they took turns sharing what they had. This group of believers did not have a church building and in fact they still don't. Why? Because they don't need one! When they want to worship God they meet together in one of their own homes. Sometimes they meet in Uncle Sook's house which has a nice big room and has a lightbulb so they can see at night. Some of the homes don't even have that. When the believers meet together they play their Isaan instruments and sing and dance to Isaan music to thank God for what he has done for them. Then they will read from the Bible and talk about what it means to them and spend time praying together.
In the yard outside Uncle Sook's house was one of the largest and oldest Isaan rubber trees in the village. It was so big it took four men to reach their arms all around it. Over the years many people had come by and offered lots of money to Uncle Sook to let them cut it down but he never wanted to sell it. Now he couldn't sell it anyway because it was a protected tree which was against the law to cut down without special permission.
One day Uncle Sook's son Laem came home from a painting job and had some white paint left over in a bucket. As he parked his motorcycle in the yard under the shade of the tall Isaan rubber tree he had an idea. What do you think he did? He took the leftover white paint and painted a large white cross on the smooth trunk of the Isaan rubber tree. He had to stand on top of his motorcycle to paint the top of it but he made it very large and very high across the front of the tree. Now even at night people driving by their house could see the white cross painted on the tree in their yard.
Now not everyone in Non San village was a follower of Jesus. There were others who did not believe in Jesus and did not like it that Uncle Sook did. Some of these other men followed evil spirits and worshipped them. They told Uncle Sook that the spirits were unhappy with him allowing other people to worship Jesus in his house and they warned him that if he didn't stop then something bad would happen to him or his family.
Uncle Sook heard what they said and shared it with his family and with the other followers of Jesus. They believed that God was more powerful than the spirits and would protect them because they believed in the name of Jesus, the Son of God. They did not want to stop following Jesus but recently Uncle Sook had been busy on Sundays and had not been home when the other believers came asking if he would worship with them.
In Thailand rain falls for about four months of the year. Thai people call this their rainy season. During this time it rains almost every day and sometimes there are heavy thunderstorms. You can tell when a storm is coming because at first there will be a strong rushing, blowing wind. After this it will be totally quiet. Then, all of a sudden, there will be a flash of lightening followed by a crash of thunder (if the storm is close by). And then the raindrops will fall. People who are caught outside rush to find cover because it is very dangerous to be caught outside in a thunderstorm.
Have you ever heard rain falling on a tin roof? When there is only a light shower the rain sounds like a gentle tinkle. But in a real heavy rain the sound on a tin roof is so loud it sounds like bullets being shot from a gun. It can be deafening.
Well, early one evening during the rainy season, Uncle Sook and his wife Aunt Fong and their three boys Laem, Lerm and Loht were sitting inside their house. They had finished eating their dinner and were sitting on their straw mats on the floor watching television. (They owned a small black and white television set which sat on the floor). As the night grew darker someone turned on their one light bulb hanging from the ceiling and it gave out a dim warm glow.
On this evening, as the family sat around watching television they could hear the wind rushing and blowing outside. A storm was coming. Bamboo bushes behind their house were blowing onto the tin roof making scratching noises. As the wind became stronger they could hear that the tin lid to their water tank outside was blown off and had banged across the yard with a loud clanging sound. The boys looked at their dad wondering if they should go outside and try to get it. He looked over at them and said, "Let it go. We'll get it after the storm."
Suddenly everything got real quiet. And then it hit. A blinding blast of white light and the loudest crash of thunder they had ever heard! It shook the whole house and all five of them were thrown to the floor. A sound like a violent hissing went across the tin roof and then another loud CRACK! Lightening had struck their house! The electricity went off and all was total darkness.
For a few seconds everything was silent, except for a sizzling sound and then the rain began to beat upon the roof. At first scattered drops ticked upon the tin roof but then more fell and the ticking became a drumming and finally the drumming became a heavy hammering. Some rain dripped through the holes in the tin and began to hit the straw mats with a splat. Some of these raindrops hit Uncle Sook in the face and he gradually realized he was still alive. He sat up sweaty and scared. His heart was racing. And he could smell something burning.
The room was still totally dark and he could see nothing. Sitting up from the floor Uncle Sook called out over the noise of the rain, "Old Lady! (When a Thai man is really scared or wants to show he cares about his wife he will call her "old lady"). "Old lady! Are you alive?" Uncle Sook stretched out his hand in the darkness and began to feel to his left where his wife had been sitting next to him only a few seconds before. She wasn't there! "Old lady!" he called again, "Where are you?"
Across the room there was a moan, "Old man!" (See, she cared about him too.) "Where are you?" Fong had been thrown across the floor by the lightning's force. "Where are my children?"
"Mom! Dad!" the boys called from different places in the room. All of them could still feel the shock waves going through their bodies. But even though they had all been thrown by the lightning's force they were all still alive and no one was hurt. They began to call out and crawl towards each other in the middle of the room. Then someone asked, "What is that smell?"
Lerm found a match and lit a candle. They all let out a gasp as they looked up at the cable leading from the TV antennae. It was melted and smoking right below the edge of the tin roof. It had burned completely through and hung separate from the rest of the cable which connected to the television below. The lightening must have struck the TV antennae outside on the roof, come down through the cable and melted it.
The next day the real force of the storm became visible. Scattered all over the village was the debris of the night wind's wreckage. In Uncle Sook's yard branches from the giant tree had fallen yet this was nothing compared to what they saw on the trunk of the tree itself. There at the midpoint of the white cross was a deep long gash showing the red fleshy insides of the tree. Bleeding out from the wound was oozing yellow sap which dripped down the whole length of the cross.
All who saw the bleeding cross were shocked. "See," pointed the village elders to Uncle Sook, "The spirits are angry with you. We tried to warn you. Next time it will be worse than this."
It was scary. The lightening had jumped from the antennae cable and ran sizzling across the tin roof in a horizontal line and shot straight to the heart of the cross where it was grounded down. Normally lightening would hit the top of a tree vertically and strike from the top down but in this case it had hit horizontally towards the bottom and gone down. The tree had not burned up, it had only been deeply wounded.
Uncle Sook asked the believers to come to his house and help him discern the meaning of this event. Was this a warning from God? Was this a sign of God's anger? What did it mean?
After a time of singing together, the believers began to share from their hearts. The sign of the bleeding cross was very powerful. The reality was that the cross had taken the brunt of the storm and if the lightening had not struck the tree Uncle Sook and his whole family would be dead. Lots of people had different ideas about what this sign could mean and they shared them. After talking for some time Uncle Sook finally summarized for his family.
"I don't know what all of this means. All I know is that if the cross had not taken the force of the lightning we would all be dead. I don't believe this is a sign of God's anger. I think this is a sign of new life. This cross shows how Jesus took what was supposed to come to me. Jesus took all my sin, and even my death, for me. He is bleeding for me, giving me and my family new life. I can only be grateful that our lives were spared and I believe God has a reason for it. I'm thankful to be alive and I want to serve him in a new way now."
Written 7/7/01