Moses Moments

It always surprises me how I can have been here over a week like this, and not sat down to write about it.  But it's like that sometimes.  Sometimes the simplicity of being here just fills up the spaces in good and happy ways, and I look up and, hey, it's January 27 already!

The ladies I'm travelling with have all been here before, which makes for a collective of experience less requiring of explanations and interpretations.  Conversations are easy and important and mindful and frivolously fun, sometimes all at the same time.

I've also had my head down in completion of sermons and reading, all for the purposes of my current course work.  "Paul the Missionary-Pastor" is my focus, and the richness of this study, and its keen application to my own life, captivates me for long periods until I just need to stop and look at the mountains for a little bit.  Or the faces of the children as we read together.

I confess to a gluttonous intake of free Vitamin D, the generous combination of sunshine and January's cooler temperatures making for more time outside without the need to hide inside all afternoon with the air conditioning.

We're observing a better pace for outings, both with the children and just for ourselves, with every other day being a 'home' day.  Good days for catching up on sermon and Bible lessons prep, reading, and....catching up with blog posts.

The other afternoon, while we were reading with the children, I found myself quite suddenly overcome.  The warmth of the afternoon's slanting sun surrounds the voices reading,
and I find myself asking again, What am I doing here?

More to the point, What am I doing here feeling so me?
Being so known and knowing so intuitively?
Being loved and loving so thoroughly?
And somehow, in the sway of all of it, being actually useful?

How did this happen?

It still seems surreal.
As if it's not really happening to me.
This Asian life is so much more than I expected.
So much more than me.

We're telling the stories of Exodus this month.
I find a reflection in Moses' resistance to God's bigger than expected ideas for him.

"O LORD, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.  I am slow of speech and tongue."  Exodus 4:10

Yes.
Utterly inadequate for the task.
Just me, here out in the desert of ordinary.
And You want me to do what?

This past Sunday during the sermon, I made a very rookie language mistake and switched the Thai word for "fear" (gloo-a) with the Thai word for "banana" (gloo-ay).  Apparently, later in the story, Moses would stand at the edge of the sea, raise his staff with strength and authority and declare to the terrified people of God, "No bananas!!!!!"

I have never been eloquent.....

Flashback to those times in my childhood and teen years, even into my adult life, when failure was so convincing. Nothing important would come from my mediocre self.

Debilitating comparisons,coming up short.  Every.  Single.  Time.

Dte.

But.

Here I am.  How?  I think just small significantly insignificant choices on a micro-daily level to simply say 'yes'.  Little yeses that compound and build pathways and open doors and compel me forward until, here I am out on the porch on a not-too-hot afternoon, astonished again.

The Reckless Welcome: I Can't Wait To See Him Do It Again

This fresh snow,
come pasting in it did,
as if to wash away what's left
of this year, this decade past;
robustly singing
a wild white song
these last,
brief hours.

It covers the dregs
of my disappointment.


Pretends it's been winter
all along.
As if I won't remember
a Christmas greenish brown.

I welcome it anyways.
Pull up the blinds,
Let in the snow light.

Glad to be home with tea.
Glad to welcome winter.

But.....I know.

This snow wash comes on New Year's Eve.
How appropriate, I say out loud at the window.

Because,
in spite of myself,
I lift my face again
and open arms and heart
to a brand new year,
a brand new decade,
as if I didn't know,
as if the true things weren't.

As if I thought
but I don't
that nothing but happy
will happen these next 365 days,
these next ten years.

2019 is gone under a fresh wash of time.
That decade is done.
2020 here you are
full of the promise.
A decade full of possibilities.
And here I am
full of hope.

What is this reckless welcome?
As if I didn't remember
but I do
the 'all of it' that last year was,
that possibilities are also full of probabilities
which are also full of
possible,
probable
pain.

I notice this inside of me.
This reckless welcome
despite the knowing,
knowing it is not delusional,
knowing that this kind of knowing is just
real.

Knowing, without a flicker of hesitation
that
come what may
He'll be there.
Knowing that
come what may
His grace far outstrips
the enough that I'll need.
And He'll be right there
making all things new
and better than.
This I know
because this I've seen
time and time
year and year
decade and decade
again
and again.

He keeps on doing it.
Without fail.

I can wait to see Him
do it again.

A new year
a new decade
is recklessly welcomed
in a wash of snow-white gloried hope.

God still writes the story.

Home for the Holy Days

There is much in my heart,
these early-dark and closed in December days,
that pulls me inward to homesick ruminations.

It's a wispy thing,
since I find myself oddly home-abundant,
wherein there is not just one,
but truly three
places on the planet
which hold a deep knowing of
Home for me.

 Capital H Home.
The Home that is more about
belonging and longing,
graces and faces,
loves and beloveds,
light and delight,
than it is about
place and space.
Although it is still that.



My mind is quieter and clearer
at Home,
my heart content and excited,
my body relaxed and energized
at Home.

I love Home.

And lately,
right now,
in these early-dark and closed-in days of December,
into this particular Home-space
where I find myself now,
all Canadian and wintry and citified,
I feel the pull of with striking strength.

Something holy almost.

Stay Home.

I am compelled.

Protect the quieter, clearer mind.
Nurture the content and excited heart.
Listen to the relaxed and energized body.

Listen.
Listen.

Stay Home.

Home for the Holy Days of it.
For the prayer candles
and fireplace reading,
for the making of supper together at the end of the day,
for the white lights pushing back the early-dark,
for the tea,
for the mindfulness of teacher learnings
in all the preparation,
for the listening that happens
in the deepest places of me,
for the truth I tell myself'
and the better confessions
that happen in that larger capacity of self-grace
available because I am so deeply at Home.

Tis the season.
Longing.
Waiting.
Being.
Hoping.

Homing.

The Lego Way a Soul is Formed

Supper is finishing when I arrive, which is kind of nice because, for a few minutes at least they'll all be in one place around the table.  Soon enough it will be time for evening chores, and Wednesday is garbage night, so the big kids will be busy with that, and then with homework.

Jayden, however, is required only to make sure his face and hands are clean, and perhaps to carry his own little plate to the counter.  This means he and Gramma can head down to the Lego bin.

It's our weekly routine, these Wednesday nights when Gramma is here to put people to bed.  And the Lego has become our first thing to do.  We'll likely get to a puzzle, and maybe even a board game that we'll play with a toddler's imaginative priority, aka a blatant disregard for any rules whatsoever.

But first, it's all about the Lego, and specifically, about the Lego people.



They are in disarray, most of them.  Heads pulled off, even legs and sometimes arms are gone, rent asunder in the past week of play.  It's our labour of love, to help put the people back together.  That's what we do on Wednesday nights, Jayden and I.  And we invest ourselves in this quite seriously, as demonstrated by the impressive duration of attention he is willing to give this every week.

He's not even three.  But his little hands rake through the tumbling, tiny blocks, slowly, methodically, looking so carefully, handing me heads, and pairs of legs, and torsos with arms.  When we find them, all the people parts are laid out on the rug in a line, anticipating their wholeness.  When we find a missing piece from the bin, we match it with the corresponding part laying on the rug.  And then, when we are able to snap together enough pieces - torsos, legs, heads -  we hold up the little Lego person and with joyful satisfaction, declare him or her 'finished', before tossing him or her into the small 'red pail of completion' we've set aside for their collection.


And once we're ready to move on to the puzzle, we dump them all back into the bigger bin, ready for the next week of adventures.  And yes, we know full well they will be pulled apart again.  But that's next Wednesday's job.




I like doing this with Jayden.  He talks to me about everything while we do it, but not in a way where he's expecting conversation.  Just the bubbling spill of toddler thoughts that happen when a Gramma is there to listen to them.

And also, I find the putting together of people, even Lego people, rather therapeutic.

Life, at least my life, is often occasioned with forces that pull me apart.  I'd like to think that I can get my stuff all together and keep it that way, but it doesn't happen like that, at least not for me.  Instead, I find there's something of a rhythm to it.  I'm together, and then I'm not.  And then a loving process helps bring me back together again.  So I'm whole for a bit, yet I'm changed, not the same as before everything went nuts, but put together just the same.  And then, I'm rent asunder again by events that I would call anything but "play".  And then, in a loving process where I am, slowly, methodically, carefully sorted out, left waiting in pieces for a bit, and then rebuilt, I am 'finished' for a while.

And it goes that like.

And every time, I'm changed.  If I've cooperated with the process, with the Hands raking through the tumbling pieces of my life, I'm changed for the better.  Unlike the Lego pieces, the rebuilding of me is not drawn from a static stock of blocks.  It all morphs and becomes stronger, wiser, more beautiful, but in ways I didn't think were strong or wise or beautiful before.   It makes me better, if I cooperate.

I don't like it, the being pulled apart part.  I want the adventures, but I don't like how they scatter me.  Especially the ones that come out of no where.  The ones I actually don't want.  Not at all.  I don't like those adventures.

And there was a time when I didn't like the putting back together part either.  It's slow.  I've been left waiting on the rug for a long time, it has seemed, sometimes.  The snapping back of all the parts can be jarring, painful.

But, the stronger, wiser, more beautiful person I am becoming (in all those ways that didn't seem strong and wise and beautiful to me before), is learning to go with this.  To trust the process.   Trust the love.  Trust the Hands.  To know the Presence that sits listening to my own bubbling spill of thoughts, and to be curious and patient enough to see what He will do with me next.

One day there will be no re-dumping of the finished people back into the bin to contend with forces that render.  One day all the rebuilding of me will be done.



I wonder who I will be by then?

Jayden is done with the Lego people.  He's dragging a chair over to reach for the puzzles.

As I contemplate yet another metaphor, I am grateful for my little teacher, and for all the Spirit says to me these Wednesday nights when the three of us are together.

Every Sad Thing That Doesn't Really Matter Any More Because of This

Only existing photo due to camera restrictions.  But it's a winner!

We're planning our day trip to Chiang Mai Zoo.  Yupa tells me me that not too long ago, they opened a Snow Dome.  For an additional fee, "We can play in the snow," she says.   I vow to make sure it will happen, not knowing how much the extra fee will be but not caring one bit.  Give these kids a taste of winter?  You bet! 


Zoo Day is hot.  We stop for water and frozen treats half way into the hour long drive there.  We arrive slightly wilted, but still very excited.  There's lots to see along the shaded pathways.  First we visit the giraffes.

It's the closest I've ever been to one, actually.  They're very interactive since there's leafy food you can buy to actually feed them by hand.  Such beautiful eyes on these creatures.

We won't get so up close and personal with the lions or rhino, but we will be entertained by a white-cheeked gibbon who has become an expert at catching morsels tossed to him.  Hilarious!  He should be signed up for some baseball team, he's that good.

Later I will remember all of this with fondness, mostly because of the way the children are impressed with the animals, reading the information plaques, holding hands with one another, and always some little hand slipping into mine, as we sweat make our way from one exhibit to another. 

But it will be the Snow Dome where I hear Him say it.

The signs warn us that, inside, it's  -7C.   Standing in the hot long line up, this sounds wonderful to me.  We are given red jackets, and I consider refusing mine, but not wanting to push it, I settle for putting it on but not doing it up.  Even stepping into the first room, an ante-chamber of preparation to reduce the shock, there is life and vigor pouring out from behind the larger refrigerator-type door.  My inner Canadian is clamoring to get in there!  But first we listen to the rules, and the warnings about how cold it will be.

And then.

We tumble into a room full of packed down snow with blocks of ice and benches and rubber tubes for the 'sly-DER' aka a short but satisfyingly spinny toboggan hill.   Suddenly the flip flops are ridiculous, but nobody cares.  Just stepping into the cold air brings laughing and squealing and exclamations of wonder and surprise.  It's so cold!  Yes it is!!!!  Welcome to Canada, I say. 

Two by two we climb carefully up a set of stairs where an attendant (read, brave Thai person for working in -7 C all day) helps position us on the tube and pushes us off.  Commence the screaming.  Yes, even the big boys.  Yupa insists I sit at the 'front', which, poor thing, is sort of on top of her, but she's afraid and wants me, the experienced winter sports person, to sort of steer the thing, or manage the thing.  But there is no steering or managing to be done.  We are hurled off without much warning, to whisk up and sideways against an icy snow bank, and thrown, screaming, down and around to where we come to an abrupt stop, aided by yet another brave Thai attendant.

Yupa wants to do it again!!!!!!  And so it goes with all of them.  Their first ever toboggan ride, something they will always remember, because they can, because they weren't months old when it happened for them, like it was for me.

And their finger tips are tingling and their noses red and they can't stop smiling, it's that cold.  They don't mind it at all.  They are loving every single moment.  And it is joy in its purest form.

And that's when He says it to me.

I'm not sure if it happens this way for others, but for me, there are moments, like this one right here and now, when it's as if everything goes into a freeze (pun intended here) and time stands still.  And I have the chance just to look around at the faces and the joy, and I feel it in such an overwhelming sort of way that it's as if the voice of God is speaking.

"See this, Ruth Anne?  See this purity of joy?  Doesn't this, this moment of shalom, shalom (everything as I mean it to be) override all those sad things?"

Pause the pause for a bit of back story.  I think it's because I was eleven years old when, having a missionary speaker come to our church, I first entertained an idea of coming to southeast Asia.  I was just a child.  And I think it's also because because now this is all about the children, I think that's why I make so much connection, so often when I'm here, to my own childhood. 

A lot of sad things happened for me in my childhood, at least that's how I remember them.   And a lot of sad things have happened for these children before coming to live with us. 

But today, in this joy-packed moment of cold amazement, it's as if all those sad things don't matter any more.  It's not like they never happened.  They did, and they are part of our stories, becoming, under God's good grace, part of who we are in strength and compassion and capacity.  But the stink has gone out of them, the sting, the wounding.  There is such healing for me in this frozen moment.

When I was eleven, experiencing the sadness, the weirdness that I couldn't figure out then, if you had told me, don't worry, one day you'll be tobogganing with outrageously delighted children on the other side of the planet and it will all makes sense, I could never have imagined.

And that's what He gives me this day.   A beyond-imagining way of healing for me. 

Time's up for our Snow Dome adventure.  But that's probably okay because some of them are actually shivering by now.  We all reach down and touch the snow once more in fond reverence, and move back as a group to hand over the red jackets we certainly won't need outside.

The fun isn't over, and I will hear echoes of His voice at the Splash pad and also on the ride home when all the fun has napped us all out, and sweaty sleepy littles are told that we're home.  

The whole of it, the admission to the Zoo, and the Aquarium, and the Snow Dome and the Splash Pad, and the frozen treats and lunch and supper, all of it, will only have cost $15 per kid.  Didn't have to worry about the budget one bit. 

Random Musings Of A Farang With A Camera On A Sunday In Thailand

Random Musing 1. 
I am a Sunday morning sunrise junkie.  Can't get enough of that first-dawn freshness and a day laden with possibilities.  Especially when it includes the gathering of faithful folks with simple lives in complex contexts.  And especially when it includes the chance to be together to remember that first Resurrection morning and the reason for the hope that makes us recklessly brave in the face of anything.



 

Random Musing 2.
Love my Thai ladies.  These three are especially faithful in coming to worship every week.  How did I ever get to be so honoured to be counted among them as part of this church family? 

Random Musing 3.
Could the greeters be any more adorable?

Random Musing 4.
Moved this morning by music and lyrics I am understanding more and more, and by the sweet way the Spirit dances with us and among us, voices lifted in exuberance and defiant praise.

Random Musing 5.
What am I doing, thinking I have anything of consequence to bring to these people as a preacher?  If anything this whole cross-cultural teaching thing only exposes all the weakness, and drills me down to the bare bones of what I believe about anything.  I love/hate the humility of it.  Wouldn't even do it except one of those bare-bones-beliefs is that the Holy Spirit is an excellent translator.  Also and unrelated, a small bug flew right up my nose, right at the end of the sermon, propelled by the perfect intersection of inhalation, fan rotation, and it's own unfortunate misdirection.  Problem solved discretely.  But I do have to put that into the 'never happened to me before' category of preaching stories. [No picture included.  You're welcome.]

Random Musing 6.
Pumpkin Tapioca for dessert at lunch!  Had two helpings and bragged about it to the cook - Yupa's Mom - who couldn't help looking terribly pleased.  You know you've been in Thailand for a while when this kind of stuff makes you hungry!

What Makes God Happy and Other Beautiful Things About Ken Being With Me This Trip

It's almost impossible for me to put words to how important it is to my heart that Ken is here.   My own frequency of trips requires a lot from us as a couple.  Ken's enthusiasm, support and love in sending me, time after time, is without question a corner stone of what makes it even possible.

He's the 'home front' guy most of the time.  So, when it works out, on many planes of planning and scheduling, for him to be here for a visit, it's just...the best!

Our first week has been quite full just with adjusting to the time change and also having our dear friends Bill and Celine with us from Sunday night to Wednesday afternoon.  Even so, there have been lots of opportunities for those 'moments' when 'something of heaven touches earth'.

In reflecting on his presence here with friends even before we left for this trip, Ken was asked to write out his thoughts about one particular moment from 2015, the last time he was here.  It's a fantastic story.  And I wanted to give him some space here to tell it.

Ken writes:

For about 6-9 months, I had been doing a personal word search on What Makes God Happy?
I started out with the concordance, but there were only a very few references to 'happy', and not much could be gleaned from these.
 
So... I took the alternative path, and said, What Makes God ANGRY or MAD, or what does God HATE?  Whoa.... Immediately with only a few alternative words, I found 75 different verses. That made for some very interesting reading, and secondary research and analysis.

Taking this train of thought with me to Thailand, we are sitting in the fellowship hall / gym,  and I am looking around at the faces of the 19 kids, of the cook (a widow, currently awaiting knee surgery), Suradet and Yupa, and of a trio of Bible College students also staying on the church grounds.   Their faces are blissfully entranced in worship, focusing totally on God and on Jesus, and on what He has done for them.
 
I couldn't understand a word of what they were singing, but I knew they really meant it.


One evening, after devotions, comes Games Time.  As the children line up for the game, this old guy decides that this is a good game to sit out.  Included in the collage of children is one recent arrival, May.   When May came to Hot Springs, just a number of months before, they took a 'welcoming' picture of her.  In her picture, May looked sad, and a little bit afraid, and under-nourished.
 
Now, in my perspective of watching the participants line up on the other side of the gym, I hear the leader call out "GO!" [OCTOPOOT!!!! A form of tag that involves a lot of running and happy screaming.]
 
Running, at full speed, directly towards me is May. She is no longer afraid, she is confident, knowing that she is going to make it across the gym safely. Her face has filled out in the short time since she arrived, and she is using all of her round, healthy face to laugh out loud, while she enthusiastically races towards my side of the gym.

God very clearly tapped me on the shoulder, and said to me, "Ken, You were looking for what makes me happy?
Look around at the widows and orphans, with their bellies full, and their hearts full of joy, singing praises to Me,  in a foreign tongue, and in a foreign land.  That is what makes me happy."
 
I looked up from where I was, knowing only a little bit of where these kids had come from, from families that could not afford to send them to school, or even to feed or clothe them, and I lost it.   I started crying then and there.

God is Good... All the Time    All the Time ... God Is Good.

And then,, a couple of days later, I was directed to Psalm 104, verses 33-34, where God DELIGHTS in our worship.  Just sort of as a Stamp of Confirmation that God is interested even in my own personal devotions.

Now I have a whole new set of words to search through to find out what DELIGHTS God.

It's so very affirming when your life-partner 'gets it' at such a deep level.

Can't wait to see what God's got for us this time out.