Perspective Pivot - Both Sides of One Weird Morning

Part One - Bilingual Interference, Or "Where Did My Brain Go?"

Learning a new language as an adult is a thing.

It's a slow thing.  A precarious thing.  Sometimes I think I'm just a tad delusional to think I might be able to get enough Thai in this brain to call it conversive.  Not if I just got started at 51.  Really?  It's like a linguistic version of "So You Think You Can Dance?"  Except with a different audience, and a different purpose.  And actually, I can't dance either.

At this point in the visit, eleven days in and more or less halfway through, I am feeling the disappointment, the edges of discouragement, and a bit of frustration, - or is that embarrassment? - of the linguistic awkwardness born of my almost three-year absence from the immersion experience.  

Apparently, all that I was doing in between to try to stay 'sharp' was not enough.

If "language leaks", my shoulders are damp.

Learning a new language as an adult is a humbling thing.  It interferes with your illusions of competence and puts you back into the care of people who love you enough to listen carefully, with grace upon grace, and interpret with their hearts as much as anything else.

It renews your mind.  Not in the synapses of it like language learning is supposed to do, but in the spaces in between that don’t yet look like Jesus.  The spaces that don’t respond well to the struggle.  The spaces that want to look smart and witty and competent, more than real and loving and submissive.

Holy Spirit come and do Your work in me.  More than to be able to speak Thai, I long to be able to speak Love.  Would You please come and take my fumbling attempts and interpret Your peace into hearts, beginning with mine.

[The above was written first thing on this fine Friday morning, while waiting for Suradet and Yupa to return from the school run.  We had plans for the latter part of the morning, so I was ready to go as soon as they returned.  And then this.]

Part Two - The Pivot, Or "Wait. What Just Happened Here?"

We have two pastoral visits lined up for today.  Both are about an hour's drive from Hot Springs, and within close proximity to one another, so it makes sense to plan it this way.  

I wish I could say I enjoy the spectacular view as we zig zag part way up the mountain, marveling at the yellow flowers in full bloom this time of year.  But I'm not looking outside.  I am instead obsessing with my Thai pronunciation in preparation for delivering Sunday's sermon.  After all, it's been a bit rough in the language department so far this visit (ahem, see above).

Our first destination pulls me up and out of my own head to what I will later say was the first turn of the pivot.  We are in a small village featuring the characteristic narrow roads and wooden slat houses with livestock beneath.  Pi Why meets us on his motorcycle and leads us further through to where the fields open and a large piece of land has been cleared away.

His wife, Oh, is there with their five month old baby sleeping snug in his hammock tied tightly to his mother.  It's hot all of a sudden, under the sun, but we pick our way over the stubbled undergrowth and find ourselves a place to pray.  This is land dedicated to the building of the first Christian church in this area.  Why and Oh are the only Christian family, and they would like to build something where their friends might explore the hope of Jesus.  We pray hot prayers of promise and protection and prosperity for the plans being laid out.  Mountains in the backdrop. It feels good to have come to encourage this hearty couple and their bold plans.  It lifts me.  I take a close up of one of the yellow flowers I missed on the way here.

We are headed next to the house of A-non and Mintra, a couple I have some history with, but we'll get to that later.  Mintra makes purses in a shop attached to their house (some of you have one), so I get ready for a bit of business, hoping to bring more home with me.  But we do not stop at the house.  We stop at a small but brand new building with a cross on the side.  "What church is this?" I ask.  I am told it's actually a 'baby church'.  A brand new church plant from the Baptists of Chiang Mai.  And A-non and Mintra are meeting us here.

Because of our history, Mintra greets me enthusiastically, warmly.  And she and A-non tell us very excitedly about the forty people that have started to gather on Sundays, and the twenty baptisms that happened just recently.  And they are glowing and then so are we, because it's all such very good news for a new church plant.

And in that glowing moment, the history lays itself down in the room, and we start talking about it.  About how it was one visit while I was here that A-non invited us to come to his house where his wife was working because she said she was ready to become a Christian.  And how that day I got to be a spiritual midwife and watch a 'new creation' birthed from Mintra's heart.  And how it was another visit when I was here that she wanted to be baptized and make her faith public, so I got to do that too.  And how they had faithfully put themselves under the care and teaching of Ahjahn Suradet and Yupa, to nurture and grow their faith.  And now, here they were, part of a new and exciting extension of the Church of Christ in a land very curious about how life and death and goodness and freedom from sin works.  And Jesus has something to say about that.

And I heard the Spirit say, "Here.  A gift of a moment where you get to see just a little bit of how all your fumbling attempts have been given life and power in My Name to bring peace into hearts."  

And it spun in my soul like light and life.

So I said so.  A little bit in Thai, mostly in English that had to be interpreted.  I said how hugely my heart was encouraged in this moment.  How amazing it was to see Mintra especially growing into a fully devoted follower of Jesus.  How honoured I was that they would invite me into their lives like this.

And we cried together a little bit.  

Because Love was spoken 

and I'm not sure which language said it.

Wonderment Reflections on the First Few Days

Escargot, anyone?

This is Steve, a new friend I named and who gave me permission to post his photo, as well as send it along to Jayden who has a fondness for snails.  So, no, we won't be having him for lunch.

Strangely enough, Steve is helping me to feel right at home.

It's these quirky little touches, for example, the fact that a rather large snail in the bathroom doesn't phase me in the least, that remind me of how far away from home I am, and how I've come back home all at the same time.

I think that's what surprising me most in these first few days.  The lack of intensity I sort of expected since I was gone for as long as I was.  [Two years, eight months, two weeks, six days, eleven hours and 33 minutes, to be exact, in case I haven't mentioned it.]  With that much time in between, I expected things to feel strange and different again, or to have to get adjusted all over again.

But no.  Just two days in, with two decent night's sleep under me, and it sort of feels like I never left.  I feel calm, safe, happy, healthy, and ready and able to serve in the ways I'm called to while I'm here.

First night handing out the Sponsors' packets, I was still travel-weary, and a little jet-lag spinny.  But being there to watch the kids receive with such delight all the treasures in their pouches....so much energy from that right there.

Im's new shirt fits perfectly!

I've slept well already, although still getting up too early, which is an advantage for morning worship.  By 5:30 when everyone else gathers, I'm up and dressed and have sent out a few emails already.  Then breakfast, and great news is that I'm eating well, taking it easy on the over-travelled stomach for the first few days, and experiencing the benefits of that.  

Fresh and cold.

And while I think I've lost a bit of ground in pronunciation, I'm quite surprised that my Thai language comprehension is as good as it is.  Not bad for this old brain, considering how easily language leaks.

So things are very, very good, and I am very, very relieved.

To take this a bit deeper...

Last January when I was beset with a three-in-one health challenge (difficult tooth extraction, significant sciatic pain, suspicious kidney stone activity) that literally kept me in bed for the better of three weeks, I sincerely wondered if I might be done the travelling thing.  I was not sleeping and not eating probably for the better of six weeks.  The medications I was on caused a wretched amount of heartburn, and made me dizzy.  

The idea of putting this unsteady body on a plane and hauling it halfway around the world provoked no small degree of anxiety during those cold, dark nights last winter.  My heart was wrung out at the thought that the physically demanding part of what I do now might not be possible.  

And yet....

Here I am, feeling amazing.  Feeling like I never left.

Don't worry.  I'm quite aware that my gut might betray me at some point.  And it hasn't really been all that hot yet.  Also, there are any number of unexpected 'friends' more sinister than a bathroom snail to be wary of.   Still, I am so very encouraged by this very strong start.

All our girls are growing so tall and lovely!

Father God, I am amazed again by Your tender intimacy.  

To hold me so beautifully those uncertain weeks last winter.  

To carry me safely here now.  

To provide everything I need, as promised.  

My heart is Yours.  

No matter what. 

No matter where.