Rejoicing and Mourning

It's been raining a bit lately. It's not supposed to, but it has.  Tonight it means that the glorious orange sky outside my window is decorated with wasps of gray cloud lined in purple and yellow and red.  The wet morning was a small price to pay. 

Last night I received news from a friend about an event that we have been praying for for 3 years.  From a continent away I was able to rejoice with her and celebrate this new development in her life, wanting to reach through the computer to hug her. It wasn't a likely scenario, and it would have been easy to give up hope.  But she didn't. 

A short while ago I also received devastating news from another friend. The kind of news that punches you in the gut and leaves you heartbroken and speechless.  From half way around the world, I want to fix it. But I cannot. 

Somehow, in each one- the sunset, the miracle, the tragedy- God is there.  Watching with us, smiling with us, weeping with us.  Darkness falls on a Bangkok sky and I know He is with me, even when I don't understand and can't explain and feel so very far from it all. 


Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Romans 12:15

Spoiled Rotten- the every other month club

I bought some more airline tickets today.  To China. In April.  Which made me realize just how spoiled I've been this year with my traveling:

August- Argentina
October- Cambodia
December- Cambodia

and soon: 
February- Singapore
April- China
June- USA

I do work a full school year, I promise! 

MS Ignite Retreat

This past weekend was our school's annual middle school retreat, called Ignite.  I went along as a chaperone and re-entered the world of middle school youth retreats.  I went on plenty of similar trips when I was in middle school, then accompanied our Jr high youth group at my home church on plenty more, but this was my first one with ICS.  We left school at 2pm Friday for a 5 hour drive(!) to a resort that also sort of functioned as a youth camp. They had great facilities for sports and swimming and a bonfire, in addition to a small ropes course. 

The weekend was high on fun, if low on sleep.  At least the teachers were able to share rooms with teachers, so as long as I couldn't hear the kids from my bed (which I couldn't, bless the Lord) it didn't matter to me how late they stayed up in their own rooms (natural consequences, right?).  We spent Saturday morning doing the ropes course- one of my favorite parts. I loved watching my group try new things, succeeding at some and being able to laugh at themselves on the things they fell off of (into a pond/lakish bit of water).  It was especially great to see the student in my group with special needs be able to participate in most things right alongside her peers. 

My other favorite bit was swimming during the freetime on Saturday afternoon.  After a nice nap I went up to the pool, which had a small slide. The kids were so excited to have a few teachers get in the water and were eager to go down the slide with us. It was cute, and a great way to just spend time with the students in a way that I certainly don't every day!  

This was the first youth trip I'd ever taken that wasn't with Knox, my home church, which made it pretty odd for me. There were so many things I realized that I assumed just happened, or happened in a certain way, because of my time with Knox. The older I get, the more I really appreciate the youth pastor and program that we have there! 

I crashed last night after some dinner and a massage, and felt surprisingly normal today.  The students were already asking me yesterday afternoon if I'd go again next year. We'll see. 

Fast and faster: Learning intentionality

The discipline of fasting is not one that I grew up with, or have ever practiced regularly.  I did a 30 hour fast in high school once, as a fundraiser with my youth group (we raised funds for an organization that fights world hunger), but that's about it.  Last year, my (then) church did a week fast in early January as a way of starting the year in fasting and prayer. We were encouraged to fast in some way during that week.  I chose to do a complete fast for one day and spent my usual meal times in prayer for the year, for the church, for Thailand, etc. 

My current church is just wrapping up a three week fast with a similar purpose- to fast and pray for our church and its ministries, for our family/friends/neighbors, and for Thailand as a whole.  This year I chose to do a Daniel fast, which I started right after my family left (the church started a week before me).  The Daniel Fast is based on the book of Daniel, where Daniel and his friends rejected the rich foods of their Babylonian captors in favor of "vegetables and water".  There's plenty of information out there about what foods are or are not allowed, but the gist of it is no meat, dairy, sweets, baked goods, additives, fried food, or beverages besides water.  I have tweaked those a bit and included Jif peanut butter (as opposed to the "approved" natural peanut butter, I mean, have you seen that stuff separate???) and not been too obsessive about things like chicken broth which may or may not have been used to make the pumpkin soup I ordered the other day. 

Some of the things I have learned from this time of fasting have surprised me.  First, I was quite surprised, and nearly a little horrified, to enjoy it so much.  I really like cooking and eating healthy foods.  The strict diet forced me to be creative in what I ate and to pack a lunch eat day, which is maybe not so fun the night before but is AWESOME everyday when I compare my food to the school cafeteria.  There have been challenging moments for sure- the first days back to school without my morning tea (okay, EVERY day without my morning tea), the Christmas chocolate still in my fridge, the oatmeal every morning, controlling my ginormous sweet tooth, etc.  But mostly, the yoke has been easy and the burden light. 

The second thing that has been huge for me is a lesson in intentionality.  When I've done complete fasts in the past, the main goal was always to just block out food from my mind. Not think about it.  Here, the opposite is true. I have to think about food all the time. I have to shop and prepare food constantly.  Every time I will be away from the house at meal or snack time I need to plan ahead and bring something.  I have to think about getting protein and carbs.  When I grocery shop I read every food label, making sure I'm getting the basic, real, good food- no additives, especially sugar.  and I've learned about the parallel needed in my own life, the intentionality I have been lacking. 

I may be a "planner" in many ways, but I'm not a dreamer or a visionary.  I don't have any idea what my future is going to look like.  And many times, both on the larger scale of life and the smaller scale of day to day living, I let life happen to me instead of being intentional about where I'm going.  I'm quick to say yes, and then soon find myself overbooked and overwhelmed or somewhere I had no intention of being.  Last semester this was especially true.  I took on too many tutoring students, too many commitments, and as the ball got rolling, I quickly found myself much busier than is good for me.  So this semester, when one of my tutoring kids dropped out, I intentionally decided not to fill his spot, even though plenty of kids are begging for it.  I'm laying the pieces of my semester schedule slowly and intentionally, letting these first weeks of school settle first.  I'm planning now for some days with my closest friends in Michigan this summer.  And it feels good. 

The fast has also just given me the chance to spend time drawing near to God, sitting at his feet, both on my own and with friends who are doing the fast with me.  Together we are seeking God's face for our own lives, those of our friends and family, that of our church, and our host nation.  We don't necessarily fast and pray because God promises some great miracle, we fast and pray because we know that when we do, he hears us and acts on behalf of his people.  That, in and of itself, is reward enough. 

A Long Lost Love

This past week has been very unusual because I have been... cooking!  There's a bit of a story behind it, which I can share later, but it's been surprisingly enjoyable to cook again.  I rarely cook in Bangkok for several reasons.  It's so very cheap and yummy and convenient to pick up food at the places around my apartment or even go out to eat, which makes cooking much less necessary.  It's also rather inconvenient to grocery shop when you don't have a car (like in the US) and don't walk past the grocery store on your way home from work (like in Argentina).  In addition, some of the stores aren't that great- either they don't carry many of the items I would want or their produce isn't good or whatever.  Couple that with the minimarts on my street that can supply the basics and I've gotten rather out of practice.  And don't even get me started on cooking with one burner, a toaster oven, and an electric grill to work with (just don't use more than one of the three at once). 

As I was enjoying all that delicious home cooking this past week I was thinking about how I can get this to continue. What was is it, exactly, that would inspire me to cook?  And I think the answer is grocery shopping.  I went yesterday, to a good albeit expensive store, and got inspired all over again and I realized that nothing inspires like having great ingredients to work with.  Now, I don't expect this cooking everyday thing to last, but I do hope I can keep at least a little bit of it going and mix it up more in the future since it really can be quite fun and delicious and healthy! 

More adventures with my mom and brother

Wow!  So much going on that it's hard to even write about it!  Despite the food poisoning changing plans a little bit, we made the most of the time that Mom and Matt were here. We went and saw The Hobbit while we were recovering and got out and about once we felt well enough.  Mom and I went to the Grand Palace, Chatachuk market (one of the largest in the world), Jim Thompson House Museum, Wat Pho (a temple that I liked much more than the one at the Grand Palace), Thai cooking class, and the Museum of Floral Culture.  In between we snuck in iced coffee, rooftop cocktails at sunset, good food, and a 2 hour Thai massage.  Ahhhhh.  While she was in Singapore for a few days Matt and I got some work done, but also found time for naps, massage, Thai cooking class, and rooftop cocktails with some of my friends. 

It was wonderful having them here and showing them a bit of my world across the globe. 

Mom at the Grand Palace

Heading down from the rooftop

This sign was posted on a board that was literally a good 7 feet in the air. I'm sure people that tall are quite adept at being careful of head impacts. 

Colorful veggies at cooking school

Cooking yummy Thai food!

Beautiful afternoon on the river boat.

Quite the spread- ready to learn how to cook!

Everything cooked on high heat- it was hot!

Yes, I really made that Tom Yum Gung and it was delicious!

City view at sunset from the roof of Siam@Siam hotel

Tea and coffee on the veranda at the floral culture museum.

Community

com·mu·ni·ty

social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

We all live in communities, but don't necessarily live in community.  This past week as I learned about sacrifice and service, I also learned about living in community.  The community that I find living overseas and teaching in Christian schools is one of my favorite things about my job, not because these communities are perfect, but because they exist in a way that is incredibly rare in the States.  It's not communal living, but it is community living to an extent that is hardly seen outside of biological families- heck, I don't know that it's seen within biological families much anymore.  

You see, when we got food poisoning last week and I didn't know what to do, I had a friend I could call.  She's a friend, yes, and with her husband runs the rugby program I volunteer with, but she's also an ICS parent and part of the ICS community.  She wasn't able herself to do much more than give me simple advice, but she also knew of 3 nurses within the ICS family and was able to give me the contact info for those I didn't have.  The first one was out of the country, I left a message with the second, but reached the third.  

Here, a mother of 4 (whose oldest is in my class) whom I've really never spoken to much and her husband (who I work with) were able to drop everything on a Wednesday afternoon and come to my apartment to see my family and give me advice on if I needed to take them in anywhere- and if so, a ride and help getting them registered at the hospital.  After we concluded that medical help would really be best, we were able to arrange a house call from my doctor so that wasn't necessary.  So before heading back home they went out and restocked us on bottled water, ice, and rehydration packets. While we were waiting for the doctor to arrive the second nurse called me back, an ICS parent of children far younger than my students, and told me to feel free to call her if I needed anything. 

Meanwhile, most ICSers are out of the country but one of my friends who lives in the building next door to mine in the complex was home and came over with water, juice, applesauce, oatmeal, bread, Campbell's soup, saltine crackers, and an offer to fetch me anything else we needed.  A few minutes later she was back with Tylenol and later in the evening, a refill on phone credit as mine ran out, and some ginger ale.   

Over the next 24 hours, each of these individuals emailed and texted me to see how we were doing and make sure we had what we needed for the recovery.  In addition, they and several other people in the ICS community were praying for us through that time.  In the first couple of hours, before that first phone call, I felt rather alone in the weight of caring for my sick family, but not anymore.  

I've seen the community here and in Buenos Aires swing into action on other occasions- the births of children, severe illness, death of family members, accidents, etc. and had a chance to be a part of that, and I have felt the general support and resources of the wider community before, but this was the first time that I really saw the whole thing in action to support me through something, and I am incredibly grateful.  This, this is why I can live in a foreign land.  Because God has not left me here alone.  He has surrounded me by a wide net of community, rich in resources, far from perfect, but there to help. 

It All Went According to Plan, Until We Ate the Duck

For months, I planned these few weeks with my brother here, and then my mom too, then just my mom.  We booked flights and hotels and cooking classes, plotted itineraries and scheduled our days.  And then in mid December he showed up, and the wheels started rolling, everything falling into place.  I'd spent so long planning it that as the days passed it all felt oddly surreal. 

Then we came home from Koh Chang at 6pm, starving and ready for dinner.  We thought some Korean barbeque might be nice, but chose a nice Chinese restaurant at the last minute for Matt's last dinner in Bangkok before flying home the next night.  We ordered, among other things, their famous roast duck. And that's where the trouble started. The food seemed oddly lukewarm and the duck especially was not hot. 

By the time I woke up at 6am the next day, I was the only one who had slept and my brother had already started puking.  Mom wasn't far behind. For the next 5-6 hours I ran between them as they got worse and then laid down at the foot of my bed when I could, nauseated myself.  By late morning I was really worried and starting contacting friends to help and had a colleague's wife (who is a nurse) stop by.  As the dehydration got worse we got my doctor to come to the house to see them as they couldn't really go anywhere.  She was a lifesaver.  Without that we may have had to make an ER run.  

I called Lufthansa to find out the options for changing Matt's flight and getting a medical certificate, called the airline Mom and I were going to fly to Chiang Mai the next day and cancelled the cooking class we had scheduled for that day. 

By evening my nausea got much worse and I started getting sick.  I had been praying all day that I would just stay healthy enough to take care of them and that I would be able to summon the strength to do so.  I'll be honest. I had never cleaned up after sick people before, other than myself.  Normally, if I had felt how I did, I would not have gotten out of bed.  But somehow, when other people are counting on you, we find that place of super-strength, similar I am sure to the strength hidden inside of moms who take care of sick kids or keep the house going even when they are sick.  Food poisoning taught me a lot about service. 

Luckily by the time I was on the tile floor my mom was well enough to check on Matt from time to time and I was able to pop up in the better moments and help them.  By night I was feeling okay and laid down on the couch to keep watch through the night.  I crawled into bed at about 1:30 once Matt's fever had broken, I'd gotten some fluids in him, and everyone was sleeping as comfortably as possible. 

Needless to say, Matt didn't make it home that night nor did we make it to Chiang Mai the next day.  We didn't make it to Chiang Mai as it was going to be a short trip and by the time we could go it was only one night, plus, in order to change it I would have had to be on the phone with the airline in my worst moments to reschedule.  But we've had some relaxing days here and then were able to head out to the ginormous Chatachuk market on Saturday, the Jim Thompson House, and the yesterday the Grand Palace.

The soonest Lufthansa could get Matt on a flight was the 9th, so he booked another flight home the night of the 4th.  Except shortly after he left for the airport Mom looked at his itinerary and noticed a problem with the date: January 19th.  So I ran off behind him to the airport, though by the time I got there and had him paged he had already exchanged more money and was working on getting himself to my apartment in a taxi (quite a feat- sometimes it's hard for me to get the drivers to go the right place even when I know exactly where to go and speak a bit of the language).  Eventually my mom called me on the spare cell phone to tell me he was back and I returned home.  So he's back to the flight on the 9th.  We're make the best of the fact that he's stuck here with me awhile longer. 

So it has not gone according to plan, these last 5 days, but God has sustained me in the moments of worry.  When I've needed to serve, he's given me strength.  When I've needed to sleep, I've slept.  But I needed to hold my cookies, I've held them.  And in the midst of it all we've had some laughs and been able to poke a bit of fun at ourselves. And we have quite a mind to walk back into that Chinese restaurant and give them the bill for what it cost us to eat at their restaurant! 

Koh Chang New Year's

My mom arrived around midnight on the 28th and 11 hours later we were on our way to Koh Chang in the Gulf of Thailand for a few days of sun and relaxation and NYE fireworks.  We had a lovely time in the sun and sand and water.  Our second day we went to two different waterfalls in the interior of the island where we were able to swim in the amazing chilly pools below them.  We rung in the New Year watching fireworks on the beach and then headed back to Bangkok on the 1st.  Definitely a wonderful and memorable New Year! Happy 2013!

Reading on the porch of our beachfront bungalow before heading to breakfast.

Sunset on the Gulf of Thailand

Swimming at the first waterfall.

The second waterfall.

With Mom before heading home.

Mom and Matt