Kingdom Kindness: Laughing All the Way

We celebrate Pride Month by showcasing Jesus’ Kingdom kindness: how His love invites and enables sexually wounded people to become fruitful. May every testimony we feature this June persuade you that ‘the kindness of God leads us to repentance’ (Rom. 2:4).

‘Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.’ Pierre de Chardin

Misdirected devotion is no laughing matter. Idolatry, be it spiritual or sexual, enslaves us. Yet the grace through which Jesus liberates us (and through us, others) elicits joy like sparkling water. No matter how narrow the way ahead, Sue and I laughed. For 30 years!

Sue Hunt was desperate when I met her at a Living Waters conference (early nineties) off Hyde Park in London. ‘Please pray for the healing of my lesbianism,’ she asked. I assured her that Jesus gave her a new self; I prayed for much grace to reconcile Sue to the gift of her womanhood.

Not long before, Sue had left a Buddhist temple in England, after deciding to become a Buddhist nun during a stay in a temple in northeastern Thailand near Ubon by the Laos border. Spiritual in the tradition of Buddhist ‘detachment’, Sue came alive to Jesus, the living God, even while a nun in a Buddhist temple.

She had a lot to sort out. Raised in the east of England by postwar parents who wanted fun more than family, Sue distanced herself from a painful relationship with mom and her own womanhood, a disidentification strengthened by the childhood sexual abuse she experienced for years from an older male relative.

An arm of Thai Buddhism in the UK gave her some rest after the sexual idolatry of her young adulthood. Only Jesus gave her freedom, and a fighting chance to heal. She came to intern with us at Vineyard Anaheim in ’97 where she faced hard interpersonal stuff in community while participating in miraculous expressions of conversion and healing.

Together with a small team we wrote and piloted for months an agile open group for any seeker of sexual wholeness called Cross Current. Many were plucked out of the fire, set in route to wholeness. Hard work, great joy.

Sue returned to Thailand, this time Bangkok, where she began to master Thai while networking with churches wanting to offer spiritual and sexual wholeness. Sue had unique authority in her attunement to Buddhism and sexual sin (shrouded in shame and Thai smiles). Thailand’s economy depends upon prostitution and adultery, as rural women are sent by their families to cities where they exchange western men’s money for themselves.

Sue preached Jesus with signs and wonders following. Many Thais were set free as they found their footing in local faith communities. Hard work, great joy. We at DSM participated with Sue in Living Waters trainings throughout Thailand for the next (nearly) 25 years. (She ensured good translation of our materials and in time became Thai fluent. Miraculous.)

It was tough, and with Sue, always fun, even after agonizing bouts with people skewered by adultery and idolatry. We laughed: Jesus ever risen, rising in Spirit to raise her up. All we did was lift her head and hands. She was still healing too, always before Jesus and trusted others to maintain good boundaries and stave off the dulling deceiving impact of idolatry.

She raised up a good leader to take over for her in Bangkok so she could write two excellent books under the pseudonym of Esther Baker on coming out of Buddhism: I Once was a Buddhist Nun and Buddhism in the Light of Christ.

Sue is completing her days in Thailand near the Buddhist temple (Ubon) where she started decades ago. Jesus sent her there so she could serve the nearby villagers, like those who brought food to her when she studied at the temple years before. She expressed her gratitude by inviting them to know the living God.

Last month, I did the last conference that I might ever do with Sue in Ubon (she is returning to the UK for ministry purposes). She taught with slow burn understatement of how Jesus healed her relationship with mom, an unbeliever. Ailing in a rest home in the UK and reliant upon her daughter, mom remained as conflictual as ever for Sue.

The Holy Spirit whispered: ‘How do you expect your mom to welcome Me, the God you worship, when you dislike her so?’ That broke Sue, and released weeping, a grace of repentance and forgiveness that led to her mom’s conversion, and a grace-filled ending between mom and child.                

After Sue spoke, we invited any suffering soul to come and bring their deepest wounds to Jesus. A dozen surrounded a simple bamboo Cross: the Holy Spirit fell and released torrents of tears as Jesus bore their infirmities. A young couple—unbelievers—were among them. He had been a student of Buddhism, of detachment. He had never wept as he did that day over his pain-filled life. Both he and his girlfriend accepted Jesus. They discovered that only His wounds could heal them.

Thanks, Sue, for opening your life to Jesus and many Thais. Thanks for giving us a share in the joy. Thanks for the laughter.       

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