Here For This

Sticky rice for the road

It's pitch black except for the bouncing circle of light that barely shows the way down a steep hill on a dusty red pathway.  I have no idea where I'm headed, only that I'm in the midst of a group of excited teenagers and one of them is playing a guitar and all of them are laughing, talking or singing as we descend and climb in repeated patterns bordering on treacherous.

It's New Year's Eve.

Somehow I have been invited to go along for the village tradition of having the youth go from hut to hut to sing a blessing over each family as the old year leaves and the new one arrives.  I am with Thim.  She's one of Hot Spring's university students who has also been Ken and my sponsored child since the beginning, and who volunteered (at least I hope so) to come on this mountain visit to help take care of Ahjahn Ruth.  She's taking care of me now, taking my elbow for the especially rutted parts, and laughing and confessing that she has absolutely no idea where we're going either.  She understands the tradition but she doesn't know this village.

We walk a long way.  I can't help but make a mental note that for every acutely angled descent there is an equally steep incline, and that, in order to get back to the church building where we originally set out from, we will have to do this again.  This vigorous walk is made all the more amusing by the fact that I am wearing a traditional Karen skirt, which means there are no elastics, zippers or buttons holding it up; just some string and a way of folding it over that I have not actually mastered yet, even though I've been shown several times.  Perhaps the fear of losing my dignity entirely overrides the crazy fact that I am randomly marching through a tropical forest in the dark.   I embrace the muscle-building, character-shaping opportunity, cling to Thim, hold onto my skirt for all I'm worth and soldier on.  And actually, truth be told, this is amazing fun!

Finally - and honestly, I think we walked steady for about 25 minutes - we arrive at the first home assigned to our happy group's blessing.  A new challenge presents itself in the steep ladder that provides the entrance to the home.  All these mountain youth scramble up like trained gymnasts.  Poor Thim is left helping the traditionally-skirted 'gola' make a less than graceful entrance.

But it's all okay and we find a place on the bamboo floor in a darkened room, and we sing our songs of blessing, and are offered a ridiculously huge basket full of treats around a fire that's actually inside the bamboo hut (how do they do this?).  And the owners of the home are oh so grateful that we've come, and they wish us happy new year as we leave.  And I discover to my mixed horror and amusement that going down is harder than going up, especially in this skirt!

Heating water for a bath L-R Thim, Ahjahn Jaroen, Tae

The next home isn't quite so far away, and we gather first at the bottom of the ladder, like last time.  I turn to see what's making that gruffling noise behind me and a small pig, rather cute I'd say, comes up close to my feet, to investigate, with more gruffling.  His gargantuan mother gives me the evil eye from under the hut a few yards away.  But before any maternal instincts give way, everyone tumbles up and in again, and we sing again, and this time they ask the 'gola' to pray the blessing over the home.   I pray a little in Thai, mostly in English and end with one of the three Karen phrases I know to say God bless you.  I pray hard.  I pray for health and prosperity and for joy; and it occurs to me as I speak these words out loud, that these are exactly what God is giving to me right this very minute.

To spend New Year's like this, right here, how is this even happening?

With surprise I remember, as I ungraciously make my way down an even steeper ladder to leave, that God first put this picture into my mind when I was 11 years old.  He brought a missionary from Southeast Asia to my little church back in the 70's, who described in detail the very things I am seeing and hearing and smelling and doing right now.

That picture in my imagination?  This is now.  Only more.  So much more.  Because what the missionary couldn't know and God probably wouldn't try to explain to an 11 year old girl, was that at the other end of the up and down return trek tonight, I will arrive at another wooden hut and be greeted by people who call this village home, and whom I love.

This is Suradet's home village.  We are staying with his family; his mother and father and sisters.  These are people who have embraced me so thoroughly I am no longer called 'gola', but 'korpkua' family.  Suradet says he has a mother in the mountains and a mother in Canada.  Only this Canadian mother is here right now, worlds colliding, joy crashing in on my soul in wonder that I could ever in my lifetime be this.

The stated purpose of this mountain visit, actually this whole trip, was that I had been invited to speak at the New Year's service held at the church in this remote mountain village.  I did speak.  I told a version of an ancient mountain story about twins, a brother and sister separated for a time, the girl to head to a far away land and become rich and educated, shunning her darker skinned brother.  In the story the girl twin becomes hollow inside from pursuing a too-busy, materialistic life and returns to be reconciled with her brother and her village, the mountain, God and her own soul.

They listened, from what I could see.  They listened while children played freely and little girls picked lice out of each others' hair, and old men loudly cleared their sinuses, all of them smiling and nodding and showing complete respect.  I encouraged that a spirit of reconciliation dominate our lives for 2017.  I promised to pray for them and asked them to pray for me.  We sang and prayed and praised God for the old year past and the new to come.

And I am honoured to have been invited to do that.  For sure.  And as every preacher is mandated to do, I offer it as loaves and fishes for Jesus to feed the multitudes (all 250 or so of them) as He sees fit.

But that's not really why I've come.  Not really.

Suradet's Mom booking it in the potato sack race!

I'm here to sing in the New Year with beautiful, joyful mountain youths.  To eat together in fellowship with a faith community that trusts simply and loves liberally.  To cling and be clung to by Suradet's mother who's bent body conceals great strength and ungrasping love.  To receive gifts and not be asked for anything in return, even when they are fully aware that the resources at my easy disposal could feed almost all of them for a lot longer than I care to calculate.

The singing and blessing goes on into the night, a lot longer than Thim and I choose to participate.  But it's what I hear as I fall asleep.

And it seems to me, as I receive this joy, that in all that came against my joy this year past, in the end

God wins.