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From Buddha to Christ: An Interview with Jeab

By Deborah Colby

Jeerakan (Jeab) Duksukgaew is Thai. Although she was raised a Buddhist, she became a Christian when she was fourteen years old. Now twenty-eight, she works as a translator and secretary at the Greater Grace Church of Bangkok, Thailand, and is in her third year of Bible College. I recently sat down with her at the church office.

Q: What was it like growing up in a Buddhist family?

A: My family members are not strong Buddhists, so they do not go to the temple every day—just on holidays. I worshipped Buddha before I became a Christian; we had an idol of Buddha in our home. We did Buddhist activities like making merit (doing good works to win points in the afterlife). My parents taught me how to be a good person and not to harm people, and to be a good student at school. They were very good examples.

Q: Obviously, the idea of worship in the Christian context is very different from what you understood as a Buddhist. What did your worship entail? What were you thinking when you were worshipping Buddha?

 
Buddhists believe that if you do what Buddha says, your
life will be like Buddha’s and you will enter into Nirvana.

A: Buddhists believe if you do good things, you get good things added to your life. Buddha’s teaching is good. We did not worship Buddha as God; however, Buddhists believe he was a real person who died. When we worship, we just do what he taught us to do. He taught us to believe in reality, the things that have been proven and are scientific. For example, he taught that if you fast, your body lacks food and you die. If you eat good food, you will be healthy. The heart of Buddhism is to escape suffering.

Q: So how did you actually worship Buddha?

A: The idol of Buddha is there to remind you to be a good person. Some people wear a miniature idol around their necks as a reminder to be good. That is their worship.

Q: Wherever you go in Thailand, you see spirit houses. Could you tell me how they tie in with Buddhism and if you ever personally worshipped spirits?

A: Most people think that spirits can protect them. If you respect or worship them, they won’t harm you. There are good and bad spirits. Good Buddhists worship good spirits—the spirits of monks or kings who have died. There is a lot of fear with people here. They live in fear of the bad spirits.

Q: Were you also taught Buddhism in school?

A: Yes. Our teachers taught us to meditate to help our minds relax and to forget our problems. I did not like meditating. I always fell asleep during that time. The teachers taught us that if we were in a very deep meditation, we would see a glass ball in our mind.

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Deborah Colby has been serving as a missionary in Bangkok, Thailand, for the past seven years. She teaches in the Greater Grace Bible School of Bangkok and is actively involved in evangelism and discipling Thai women.