I do not stay in Bangkok but in the largest town in the Northeast of Thailand. I know the Protestant Christian Seminary here and their methods.

1. Students, mostly Issan or Lao or Hmong and poor must pay fees for a five-year curriculum. Fees are between 8.000 and 15.000 Baht. 4th year means internship in a church.

2. Their bedrooms do miss every standard. They live 3 or 4 in one room with ironbeds, but no locker or something like that. A lot of things get stolen, mostly money and mobile phones. The bathrooms, that they have to share, lacks a standard-working water system. Their are 4 showers (that mostly do not work due to the poor water system!) for 40 students in one floor. No washing machine or anything like that. It is forbidden to wash clothes in Sundays. It is also forbidden to play music on Sundays.

3. Food is never enough. Once a time during the term, their Thai and foreign teachers teach them not to eat to worship God. They then will not eat breakfast and lunch and only get boiled Rice Soup for dinner. This for a day long. During a week, there are about two or three days they only get boiled rice soup for breakfast. Lunch and Dinner never is enough, so these already poor students must go to eat additionally outside that seminary.

4. They must attend chapel every morning from Tuesday to Friday. Than the study different subjects during morning, have one hour break and study in the afternoon. 4 p. m. they have to do cleaning work inside and outside the buildings for at least thirty minutes. Then, there is sport or music activity. 6 p. m. is dinner and 7 p. m. Homework time till 10 p. m. Then, they are expected to turn off the light.

5. Students there will be used for every stupid work. Beside that, the Seminary has a caretaker and cleaning personal and one cook. One cook for about 100 people there to feed! Male students must be watchman during the night. I do not know if they get paid for that or not. Sometimes, the teachers and the other staff order the students to clean their houses as well. But mostly, the students get paid for that work.

6. The students get brainwashed there. Some of them start disliking Buddhists. They sometimes pray til midnight. Even sleeping in the praying rooms or in front of them during night. They just stay in their Christian community lacking Buddhist friends. Most families send their children to Christian schools or wish so. They do not want the kids being influenced from Buddhists. It is a community locking their doors.

To summarize. This seminary is a true lie. Because.

1. The teachers and preachers tell the students they should live like poor people - like Jesus said. But the teachers by themselves have everything - Mobile phone, car, computers, notebooks, washing machine, cooker, juweles, own houses (3.000.000 Baht)and hundred of clothes (especially the foreign teachers). The students have to iron the clothes. This is the first lie.

2. They get taught that everybody is equal in front of God. But I have never seen a teacher cleaning a student toilet or bathroom. Beside that, teachers do have washing machines and such things, students are not expected to do so. Foreign teachers get double and more salary of that what Thais do get. The Thai cook, caretaker and cleaning personal get 5000 Baht per months. This is equality. And this is the second lie.

…

There would be much more to say. But I am afraid, this will be too long. Lets have a short talk about the churches.

I can tell you, here is no church I can go. Of course, there is no Quaker Community. I think, it is not neccessary for me, too. for me, I do no mission at all for I respect Buddhist religion. I even went to a temple to practise meditation for I think, that meditation is something everybody can do no matter what religion.

I sometimes went to a Thai protestant church, but always felt (and still feel) very uncomfortable with this institutions. I know Thai, so it is not neccessary for me to go to a church preaching in English. There are some reasons I feel uncomfortable with Christianity in Thailand.

1. Most of the preachers in this church, (Thais) preach extemly aggressive and loud. They always critizise Buddhists and unfaithful people telling you these people are bad and untrustful.

2. Asking them to speak clearly and repeat the song numbers, so that I would be able to find the song that they will be singing, it hardly happened that someone was taking care of my handycap. This is the way, Thai Christians taking care for their fellows. (Even though I am Quaker, but okay).

3. Preaching and worship style is quite american, loud music, always microphone, no need to dress accordingly. Even the preacher does not. There are a lot of brainwashing methods like praying loudly, touching others and always using emotions. It looks very uncivilized. Corean missionaries are extremly aggressive, so that their Buddhist neighbours cannot sleep during the night. They worship God till midnight with loud music, preaching and crying. Swedish missionaries once had a mission session in front of a Thai temple. They came to heal handicapped people. The Thais took my arms and pushed and pulled me to the stairs becaus of my handicap. I could not defend myself, but told them that I do not want to go there. Luckily, I did not need to go on the stairs. All the broken, the handicapped or the ill stand in a line and the missionaries came in front of them to heal them with their hands. Then, the Swedish and American missionaries took oil, laid their hands on my … and prayed loudly. Than, they asked me if I could … do better. I said no. They prayed again. Again they asked me and my answer was negative. So one said, I do not believe enough in God, the other said, Welll, sometimes God will not come to everybody to heal. And so on. They were unsuccessful with me, so they let me go. But another handicapped fellow had not enough luck. He was an old Thai man, leg-handicapped and could not walk. The missionaries did the same with this man. He could go a little. Because of their success, they pulled this old man in the stairs and showing the public that they are really able to cure handicaps and illness. After the show, this old man did collapse behind the stairs. The missionaries saw and just said like. Do not stop believe in Jesus and God. Then, you will be able to walk again. No help to carry him, no help to bring him to a hospital … This was one of the most disrespecting Christian shows I have ever seen in my life.

4. When being in church on Sundays, I do not take part in the rituals like eating bread and drinking wine because Quakers do not do all of these kinds of rituals. If other Christians see me doing this, they stare at me with a look telling me I am not a pure Christian or even gossip with each other that Farang is not a good Christian.

5. I cannot tell many Thai and foreign Christians that I am Quaker. Thais do not know what it means, and these foreign Christians somewho accept but do not think it is adequate to be a real good Protestant Christian. (IN my country there is not such a problem).

Please note, that their are a lot of differences between European and American Quakers as well.

I think, I will better stop now. Just want to share my experiences and apologize for any mistake in English, for my mother language is a European language, but not English.

Billy Bangkok (post above) has the right idea. Unfortunately the missionaries and radical born-again Christians are spreading their views of intolerance. Not only won’t they enter a temple, they want to prevent Buddhists from going to the temple to, by converting them and teaching them that the founder of their religion is just another “False Idol”.