Four More Days But Who's Counting?

Sneaking in another update between a delightfully unexpected day trip and a delightfully expected visit from a new friend.

The day trip will help provide more pictures to post, which is what I intended when I got started yesterday.  This time there'll be a little more focus on the girls.

Meena and Atom

 The first part of the morning I was anticipating.  Day off school, so we were going to treat the kids to a swim and picnic snack just up the road at the Hot Springs Park.  There's a children's pool for the younger ones, and I was given the happy task of watching over six of our girls while they played in the water.  You have to picture a perfectly warm day, my feet dangling in the water, sipping on fresh and pure coconut water, and watching adorable humans I love like crazy having fun in the pool.  Sigh.  The harsh life of the missionary.....but hey, it's part of the job.

My 'missionary work' station today.

Aaaaaannnnd...the jump shot fails...but they sure are cute!

Gam

It was fun to let the teenagers roam free in the park for a bit, each having 50 baht to 'go wild'.  Don't laugh.....that $2.00 equivalency goes a long way.   Caught up to them as they were finishing their mid morning feast.  Don't worry.....it's not going to ruin their appetite for lunch.

I thought we were going up the road for 15 baht bowls of noodles, but apparently a different little plan had come to mind.  Proving that it actually is possible to be spontaneous with a family of over 20, Suradet and Yupa decided to try out a new destination part way up the mountain, near to where we did the zip line that year, for the Team that might remember that queasy drive.  I won't mention any names, but one of us on board was extra sorry to have indulged a little too much earlier on.   Destination was a small village that has take advantage of the many visitors that come to see the waterfall, and also buy their coffee.  Think St. Jacobs.  It had that vibe. We saw the waterfall and stopped to have our picture taken against the outside wall of one of the oldest wooden buildings in the region.  It's a famous picture spot.  We actually had to wait about 15 minutes for our turn.

Several times during the day, at the park and in the truck for all the driving, I was asked if I was okay, or if I was tired.  I realized I'd been pretty quiet.  And I guess there were two reasons for that.  One is that I just wanted to be fully present in the each moment as it was happening; to soak up the joy and gentleness along with the free Vitamin D and February's agreeable temperatures.  I've been sort of working full out non stop for the past three weeks, pretty much 24/7.  It was lovely to just take a break today, something that wouldn't have happened in quite the same way if the kids didn't have the day off. 

The other was....well, I'm just trying not to be sad yet, but it happens.  I know Friday's coming.  And while there is so much about my rich life in Canada that I can't wait to get back to, it's always a both/and kind of deal for my heart.  

I'll add this shot of this pink papery bloom that's everywhere right now.  Can't resist getting in for the closeups on the flowers!

Time to get ready for my expected visitor.  More on that tomorrow I hope.

Five More Days

The Sunday worship service comes to a close, and I sit down with two dominating thoughts.

One.  I'm hot!  Not such a surprising statement since I am in Thailand, but actually this visit has been marked more by the cooler morning temperatures than anything else.  Approaching noon today....yup, I'm sweating.  As February inches towards March, the hot season will be upon us.  I can feel it already.

Two.  I'm done!  Well, not entirely.  There's still a few meetings to have and some estimates to get and five more ESL Bible lessons to do with the kids. Oh, and all the books we can cram into five more days!   But preaching this morning's sermon in Thai is the last of four in a series that joyfully pressed me to my capacities.  From now until Friday morning when I set out for Canada, the workload will be considerably lighter.  Feels good.

Just now then, getting up from that sweet ritual of the Sunday afternoon nap, I am realizing how much the demandingness of these past three weeks has affected my communications to everyone back home.  Feedback from many has been that, other than random Facebook updates, I've kind of dropped off the map.  I feel it too.  Sorry.  One day I might be actually good at what I do here and it won't take some much concentration!  (My brain is hurting from all the translation.)

Meanwhile, I would like to offer something of a peace offering by sharing some pictures that hopefully will fill in the gaps a little.

I'll start with hands-down my favourite creative shot from this trip.  This Eak (who Ken and I have the great honour of sponsoring) coming back from tending the goats.  Love the mood of this.  And the mountains in the background.  As an aside, a church from North Carolina who got connected with Suradet and Yupa a few years ago, have sponsored the goats we have here.  It's a way of making use of the land, teaching the kids some good husbandry skills, and turning a small profit towards the operating budget at Hot Springs.  Right now we have no less than seven kids (the goat kind) who are all only about six weeks old.  There's this free roaming time (with a fence around the larger part of the property) and it's not unusual for the kids to come read with the kids, if you see what I'm doing there.

Speaking of kids with kids, this is Boy who has been with us at Hot Springs since he was about eight I think (too lazy to go look it up in my files right now).  He has graduated from high school level vocational school, but has decided to pursue preparation for pastoral ministry.  We are thrilled, of course.  He's been back home for the past month, helping as an intern with the goats and the children, leading worship during evening and morning devotions, and doing assignments for memorization given to him by Ahjahn Suradet.  His disposition is cheerful and his heart eager.  Joel and Louanne, he does you proud.  Next month he will transfer to a Bible college in Bangkok which has a reputation for more demanding academics than the school he finished his first year at.  We are praying good things for Boy.

And while we're still chatting about the boys, I'll include a few more pictures of them.  The girls are always all over getting their picture taken, but the boys, not so much.  So, Sponsors of our young men, you are right to feel ripped off.  But here's Jabez, one of our newer children, who's smile over his supper is actually his face most of the time.  This is just one happy dude!  Dale and Mike, you help put that smile on that face, thank you.

What a line up of handsome young men.  Left to right, Mee-oo (Puala!  Take a look at the jaw line.  He's a man now!), Eak, Boy, Ju (a friend of Boy's and also interning with us before heading to Bangkok for Bible school), Philip (whom I can't talk too much about because I am just excited he's agreed to come on staff.  More later.)

And I'm out of time on this one.  That's how it goes.  I'll go ahead and post this for now and get back to more pictures and ramblings tomorrow.  

Meanwhile, thanks everyone over and over again for how you all make it happen.

And for your patience when I don't get to your emails!

Swat dee, ka!

If I Could Tell You But I Bet You Already Know: A Letter to Mom

It ambushes me over a banana leaf wrapped around my desert.

There's a piano CD playing, among many other songs you'd recognize, that old hymn that ends with the refrain, "For I know what ere befalls me Jesus doeth all things well".

Yes, He does.

I am quite suddenly wishing you were here, in this moment with me, eating a simple communal meal with mostly strangers at a Thai Presbyterian church about 10 minutes away from Hot Springs.  It's been a more formal service this Saturday morning; a special thanksgiving time of worship, complete with choir and special music and even a processional to get things started.  It's 'old church' for me.  And even though it's not my style these days, being here, especially the music, is bringing back washes of nostalgia from when I first fell in love with Jesus as a child.

Maybe it's because that's when I also decided, at the very young age of eleven, that I would go to Asia to be a missionary.  And that's when I remember you telling me your own story.  Of how you had wanted very much to be a missionary, but your childhood brain injury made the necessary education, and even the coping skills, unreachable.  And then how you had had that dream where it seemed to you that God was saying that one of your children (you were not yet married) would end up going instead.

Mom, I'm here.

I'm the only farang in this group of over 200.  I'm being greeted by the church leaders as 'the missionary from Canada' and I'm having a conversation with them in Thai.  I'm surrounded at the lunch table with beautiful, earnest believers who look very different from me but with whom I astonishingly belong.  And just now, between scoops of rice and thoroughly enjoying whatever this is in the banana leaf, I am wishing you could be here.  I think your heart would be singing.  You'd look around at all the smiling faces who love Jesus, hearing them say, as I did again this morning in the sermon, that if it wasn't for the missionaries they would never have known they had a way out of the fear and darkness of spiritism.  Mom, they are so grateful!!!

I met today two young men who are attending McGilvary College of Divinity.  

Do you know of this man?  Daniel McGilvary was one of the first missionaries to come up the river from Bangkok to establish Christian communities in Chiang Mai.  He started hospitals and schools and planted churches which planted churches which planted churches.  His heart and engagement with these people and the Buddhist way of life was clearly full of a respect and love.  He's so incarnational and real.  I'm reading his autobiography right now and feel like I've met a new friend.  Maybe you have met him, who knows? If you have and if you can, please tell him that I am in awe of the sacrifices made and have no right to be regarded in the same ranks at all.  I am fully aware I now benefit from the high regard Thais have for missionaries, likely and largely because of him.

But if you were here right now, I think you might feel, as I often do in moments like this, that all the hard things about our lives just kind of don't matter any more.  They happened, but all the sadness is being sucked out of them, and gratitude and amazement are all that's left.  Redemption in its most beautiful dress.

None of this missionary stuff happened at all the way either of us likely imagined it, certainly not the way I thought it was going to go.  It took me another forty years after my first eleven year old 'yes' to God to get here.  My story doesn't get me here until God put together the team that is Ken and I as a first step, and then waited a little longer again to put together the Thai team that is Suradet and Yupa.  It took longer still to mature us all, season us with life, both harsh and delightful, and then to introduce us, let us find out how much we love each other, and go from there to rescue some of His precious little ones.  God hasn't been stressed and rushed about any of it, it would seem.

ALL THE WAY MY SAVIOUR LEADS ME All the way my Savior leads me;   What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy,   Who through life has been my Guide? Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,   Here by faith in Him to dwell! For I know, whate’er befall me,   Jesus doeth all things well, For I know, whate’er befall me,   Jesus doeth all things well.

I'm 62 and feel like I'm just getting started.

Mom thank you.

For reasons you and I both know, there's much about our family life that I prefer not to remember.  But this?  This is priceless.  What you left me in this?....Beyond my ability in any way to even come close being able to capture in words.

But I bet you know this all anyways.  I bet you do.
And maybe you can even see it happening.
And maybe you're singing right now about how Jesus does indeed do all things so very well.

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.