And, we’re back!

Christy and I arrived at her parent’s house in Waco, Texas late Saturday night. All of our luggage arrived with us (the missing bag arrived at our hotel in Tokyo the night before we left), and the rest of our stuff should arrive via UPS very soon. It’s good to be back.

We will be visiting with family and friends over the next few weeks before we make the move to Dallas. Right now I’m in Waco and Christy is in Abilene. We’d love to catch up with you at some point. Let us know when you’re in the neighborhood.

Thanks for keeping up with us, and thank you for being our friends.

 

In Tokyo

Christy and I have said our final goodbye’s to Thailand. We left Chiang Mai yesterday, spent the night in Bangkok last night, and we arrived in Tokyo just a few hours ago. We’ve checked into our hotel and already had our first Japanese meal, which was of course pizza. We’ll be here for two nights, and then we’ll finish our journey to Texas on Saturday.

We’re looking forward to seeing many of you very soon. If you want to pray for us, pray for our safety, and pray for our luggage. One piece didn’t make it to Tokyo. The airline is looking for it now. Hopefully it will arrive here tomorrow. We also have extra baggage coming by way of UPS to Texas. We’re hoping everything ends up at its intended destination, including us.

See you soon!

 

Book Recomendation

If you have not read Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, put it on your “must read” list. I’m still in the final pages of it myself. Its challenges and its suggestions for meeting those challenges are penetrating. I am positive that I am a long way from embodying the life that Sider implores us to live, but I am also certain that this exhortation is not from him alone. He has reminded us of the call of Christ, and he has pointed us toward the difficult path of obedience.

 

Traveling Thailand

It’s July. Wow. We will be in Texas in one month.

Christy and I are back from our vacation. We did not end up going to Cambodia, but we did spend several days in Bangkok, a couple of days in Krabi, and a few more days on Phi Phi island. (pronounced Pee Pee island) Phi Phi is where they filmed the Leo DiCaprio movie “The Beach.” We took a long tail boat to the place where they filmed the movie while we were on the island. It was a beautiful spot.

On the beach where the filmed “The Beach”

Vacation highlights include, but are not limited to: the opportunity to enjoy the massive American type mall in Bangkok and it’s many western store and cuisine options. (west = read euro/American, not cowboy hats and boots), visits to the grand palace and the massive reclining Buddha at Wat Po in Bangkok, my first massage (just off the beach in Krabi), paying $6 for that one hour massage, crystal clear salt water, an amazing pool or two, great island food, our long tail boat island snorkeling tour, and hanging out with my friend Susan in Bangkok.

With Susan in BKK

To see more pictures from our Thailand Travels, check out the Flickr link on the sidebar of this blog.

 

On the move..

We’re on the move. We’re not moving back to Texas yet, but we decided that after the ECHO Asia conference ended and after we said goodbye to the American interns we’ve been working with for the last six months, we would take some time to see more of the country. We arrived in Bangkok on Sunday and have spent a few days seeing the city. We are just about to leave this morning to catch our flight to Krabi. We’ll spend two nights there and then three nights on Phi Phi island. After that, we’re not sure what we’re doing. We’ve talked about flying to Cambodia for a couple of days to see Angkor Wat, per the suggestion of many. I hope to give more details on ECHO and our travels at the end of the month.

In the meantime, check out some of the pictures I posted of our Compassion visit. You can access them by clicking the flickr link on the sidebar.

 

Compassion

On Tuesday Christy and I traveled with a guide to Chiang Rai meet the child that I have sponsored through Compassion International for 5 1/2 years.  Three days have passed since this meeting, and I cannot get Sirinya (Nang Pat) out of my mind. In a few hours years of sponsorship and letters became real, and Sirinya took a piece of my heart. I’m sure this was to be expected, but it has come as a bit of a suprise to me.

We have been working with marginalized people in this country for 10 months now. The experience of meeting Sirinya, her grandparents, her schoolmates, and the Compassion project workers was educational, but understandably, nothing that we saw was shocking. We’ve grown accustomed to the people here and to the poverty in which some of them live. Stepping into the reality of a village or a family in need is simply something that we do. Still, Nang Pat’s smile, her beautiful personality, her world, her story, and our shared history of scattered letters filled my heart. It was like meeting a daughter that I didn’t know I had. The meeting was brief, but when we left there was a feeling that I couldn’t quite understand – it didn’t make sense. Four days later I think I have the words - it’s love – love for someone that we barely know, but still – it’s love.

I don’t have pictures for you right now, but I will have them soon. When I can, I will post them to my flickr site. Some of them will probably make their way into our newsletter as well. I think I will also use the pictures in a later post to detail our time with her and her grandparents.

Thank you to Compassion International and Compassion Thailand for their work in facilitating our relationship with Sirinya. (Nang Pat) Thanks also to Mark Stephenson for his influence in my initial sponsorship of Sirinya 5 1/2 years ago.

What a blessed day…

 

Aggies and Lahus

On May 24th we traveled with UHDP staff members and 11 aggies to Ob Sua Wan village. The people of Ob Sua Wan are Lahu (this group was originally from Burma) and they are Christians. We had the privilege one evening to listen as village leaders recounted their 20 – 30 day journey with their families through the jungle to a place of peace (Thailand). It was a journey that they began about 40 years ago.

Most of the villages where we work are Palaung. The Palaung are Buddhists and most of the people in their villages do not have citizenship. The situation is different for the Lahu people at Ob Sua Wan. They are citizens and because of this, they can own their land and they can stay on their land.

Still, UHDP works there because of great need. Citizenship brings with it its own new reality. People can leave the village. Many of them do. Some do it out of desire and others out of necessity. As the population of the village grows, the land cannot provide for all of the people, so many leave for work with the intent to send money home.

It is a village filled with small children and elderly people. Most everyone in between is gone. These people are strong and as able as they can be, but age takes its toll on everyone, and when our able bodied aggies stepped foot into Ob Sua Wan village to finish building a new water system, they were met with grateful expressions.

We enjoyed being with the Lahu people, but even more, it was nice to be with Texans again. They blessed our lives more than they probably realize. I was born in Texas. It’s always been my home. Christy moved to Texas for college. Her Dad was in the army, so she grew up everywhere. Texas has since staked its claim on her as well. These 11 folks from College Station brought wonderful conversations, smiles, and a diversity of personality to us. They brought a little bit of home. It was a wonderful week.

It was also a unique village experience for me, in one respect. On Saturday afternoon one of my coworkers informed me that the pastor would like for either me or the college minister to preach the next morning at the Lahu church service. Guess who drew the short straw? I was told that the village was struggling with unity, that it would be good for them to hear a fresh voice, and that it was perhaps the “appointed time” for them to hear a special word of encouragement.

So, the next morning I stood before a congregation of Lahus and Aggies, unshaven, wearing the Texas State T-shirt my sister gave me, and delivered a message on unity through 2 translaters – from English to Thai to Lahu.

 If you’re reading this and you were one of the Texans who just left us – Thanks again – we completely enjoyed our time with you. And if you were the one who suggested that you guys give us tickets to an aggie football game this Fall – thank YOU! We’ll probably see you again in October!

 

Gig ‘em

 

 

Our latest volunteer group arrived yesterday – a group of eleven Texas Aggies from FBC College Station. We’ve had a good time with them so far and we’re looking forward to a wonderful week. Today they woke up, had a traditional Thai breakfast, and then gathered and prepared food for their lunch. (tree bark, catfish, veggies, spices, and the bamboo and leaves we used to cook it all) After lunch we gave them a tour of UHDP and now we are all resting until dinner. Tomorrow morning we will wake up early, have breakfast, and then we will travel by water and land to the Lahu village where we will work for about five days. We definitely will not have internet access and we probably will not have cell phone reception. So if you’re looking for us, that’s where we’ll be.

Whoop!

 

Earthquake

Yesterday the earth quaked. I was sitting in a coffee shop in Fang helping one of the UHDP interns with a resume and all of a sudden it felt like we were on a boat. I don’t usually get motion sickness, but after a minute of swaying I had to get up and walk around.

It was weird. Different that I imagined. On T.V things always shake and crumble and fall. I’m sure that’s what it’s like sometimes, but yesterday, the land moved like it was on water. Smooth.

 

Rain on the Horizon

I can see the green again, I can feel bits of the future falling on my shoulders, but the new season is not here…yet.

When you live in the woods, and it’s 100 + degrees, and there is no air-conditioner, and there is no rain, and you cannot see the mountains through the smoke, and the earth is on fire, hoping for June becomes a way of life.

In June the rain will fall. It will fall hard, and it will fall constant. It will fall until November, and then it will give way to the winter.

It’s the middle of May, and almost every day now, we get a little bit of rain. Mild precipitation has taken the edge off of the heat, but it’s still hot. It’s sticky. It’s humid.

In Texas, we have a saying: “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” People say this all of the time. Sometimes we say it to log a complaint against creation, other times we say it to brag. “It may be hot where you live, but it’s not like it is here in Texas. It’s not the heat, you see, it’s the humidity.” When I hear people mention humidity in Thailand, it’s hard not to laugh. I smile as I think of my past, as I think of my people.

Right now, I’m trying to decide what’s worse: Intense heat, or bugs. They are everywhere. And in the evening, they’re in our house – swarming. We turn off most of our lights, but they still find us. We have screens on every door and every window, but they’re resourceful, they find a way in. Warm, sticky, buggy.

In the midst of this we are preparing for our next group, we are preparing for a conference in June, we are living our lives among these people, and we are waiting. We are waiting for a tomorrow that we’ve seen glimpses of in the drops that have turned the brown to green. We continue to wait for the rain. And beyond it, well, that’s were you are.