A Bunch of Burts

Kudos to those of you who also memorized “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll in 7th grade. For some reason, I can remember that poem in its entirety, even though it has served no useful purpose in my life other than completing the poem memorizing assignment in 7th grade English class, and giving me a source of fun and odd words for various occasions.

So I have to ask myself, why I am able to remember this nonsense poem with apparent ease when I struggle with memorizing God’s Word? What better to memorize than the Living Word of God, His Scripture, our Sword of the Spirit? Even verses I know I knew, seem hazy and distant. I find it must be a constant effort and application on my part to fill my mind with those Words of Life.

Not so with more inane info and tidbits. Again from 7th grade, I can recite, in alphabetical order no less, all the prepositions. As well as all 18 forms of the verb ‘to be’. Now, in defense of my 7th grade teacher, those did actually come in handy for me while I was in language school and had to diagram sentences in other languages (with a loose translation to help me).

While we still lived in the States, our kids greatly enjoyed being part of an AWANA program. Although they truly did learn those verses then, I think they would be hard pressed to pull them out for you on demand now. We are working with the kids, and ourselves as well on memorizing Scripture together. To train our minds to absorb God’s Word.

Surely the ablility to retain obscure movie quotes, commercial jingles and useless facts such a what the first product marketed by Sony was, while at the same time struggling to have Bible verses at my recall is absolute proof that my mind is fallen and my heart is desparately wicked!

Now that we are studying Thai, I wish I could push out some of that old stuff to make room for the new. Some words I just have a mental block with. You think that after a year and a half I would have a handle on the difference between salt (gleua) and afraid (glua).

No thank you, I do not want to eat that, it is salty
Not the same as:
No thank you, I do not want to eat that, it is scary
Ok, either one of those could work when presented with this as a snack.

Look! There is a bag of little fried larvae ready for you to buy and snack on too.

Perhaps it is because, at heart I am lazy. I use a computer program to act as my concordance and help me find verses, I just cannot remember where they are. Perhaps, if I am honest, it is not important enough to me. Maybe I have lived such an easy life, that I take for granted having ‘helps’ available to me, having Scripture available to me.

Eeek, more evidence of my sinful nature.

But God is good and faithful, even when I am not.
2 Timothy 2:13 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot deny himself.”

And I can take comfort in His words to Moses.

Exodus 4: 11-12 “So the LORD said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.’ ”

Thank you Lord for using me, a sinful woman who too often seeks her own way, but a redeemed saint whom the LORD can use for His purposes, in His way and allows, encouraged and indeed, enables me to renew my mind each day through Christ.

Today is Chinese New Year! Happy New Year!

Today begins the Year of the Rat.

Although we are in Thailand, this holiday is well celebrated here. Many people have some Chinese ancestry, and there is a large population of Chinese living here, especially in Chiang Mai.

Anyway, it is a celebration, and the Thai love to celebrate, no matter the occasion.

Tonight we are having dinner with the family of our Thai teacher, who also happens to be the wife of the pastor at our church. We have been getting to know this family, and are looking forward to sharing a meal at their house.

From what we have seen in the stores and the markets, chicken is the dish of choice for Chinese New Year. So many different kinds of chicken and some duck too, are lined up, or hung up, as it were, to be sold to fuel the celebrations that will be going on this weekend.

Of course there are other delicacies to be had as well, from some enterprising vendors along the streets here.
Anyone for roasted rat?

You never know until you try it!

We enjoy talking about food with people we meet. It is a subject that everyone is interested in and one we can converse on at a fairly adept level.

Chiang Mai is getting more and more ‘international’ restaurants all the time. When we want to go out for a special treat, there is one little Mexican restaurant, that does a pretty fair job of enchiladas, taco salads, burritos and the like. Unfortunately, the chips and salsa that are usually served free at Mexican restaurants are conspicuously absent. Oh well, helps us save room for the meal, right?

I have asked many of our Thai friends and neighbors if they like Western food.
Most will answer this way:

I like pizza.

I like spaghetti.

I like brownies.

Does that really sum up American food? Pizza, spaghetti and brownies?
KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut are doing well here. (Although be warned, just because the name is the same, that does NOT mean the offerings are!)

Not the most daring pizza we have seen offered, but different enough. Note that there is no tomato based sauce, but a Thousand Island type sauce instead.

So here is a question.
What is American food? Are we too big a country to nail that down? Too many regional differences?

What do you think of as quintessential American food?

So many asked similar questions on my giveaway post, I thought it would be more expeditious to answer them all here in a brand new post instead of you trying to wade through all the comments for my answers.

We have been living in Thailand for nearly a year and a half now. We have spent the majority of that time in full-time language study. Learning Thai has proven to be one of the hardest things we have ever done.

Our first night in Chiang Mai. Do we look as tired as we felt?

We live in Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand. Bangkok is of course the largest, and to be honest it is too large to considered merely a city. It is a mega-city. There are more people living in Bangkok than in our home state of Washington. Yikes. But the most we have seen of Bangkok is the airport. We arrived there, slept there, and heading straight up to Chaing Mai. I did take my mom back to Bangkok when she came to visit last year and we took a taxi to the guest house from the airport and back the next morning, so there you go, I have seen some of the streets in Bangkok. Enough to know I am not interested in trying to drive around the city myself.

We have yet to go to any of the beaches here. They are all in the southern region, and so far our trips have taken us to the NE. Here is a look across the Mekong River at Laos from Nakhom Phanom.

We love the food. More specifically, I love the food. Well, most of it anyways. I have yet to find a curry I do not like, but particularly like the green kind. Coming from the western sterotype of Thai food, I found out only one of my assumptions/learned expections was correct. Thai food is spicy. If it is not served spicy, most will season thier plate with dried chilis. However, peanut sauce is not the quintessential flavor here, in fact, I have only found two things that really have the flavor of peanut sauce that I was expecting. Go figure.

Do we eat Thai-style? Sort of. The kids eat Thai at school every day, so I often prepare a western style meal for them at home. But even when I do prepare Thai at home, it is my western version, with probably twice as much meat as an average Thai family would use. And not as many unidentified greens. I am branching out in that area. I have even found that I like some of them, alot. Kiddos are a different story.

A popular way to BBQ here. Mmmm tasty meat and a yummy soup being made at the same time. A fun and social way to eat!

Wierdest thing I ever ate? Believe me, it was unintentional. We had not been here very, and visited the food vendor at the front of our muubaan (neighborhood), who sold a variety of curries. One had what appeared to be black tofu in it. I eat tofu and assumed that it had been soaked/marinated in some kind of sauce, perhaps even the sweet black soy sauce that I really like. I bought a bag for my oldest daughter and I to share. We tentatively tasted the ‘black tofu’, but were a bit put off by the flavor and texture. I was seriously beginning to doubt that it was tofu at all.

It was not.

I asked a friend about it, and after thinking for a while realized that it was indeed not tofu, but congealed blood. Blood dried in a pan and then cut into neat and tidy squares, fooling me into tasting them. Needless to say, I have not tried it again. No thank you.

(You don’t really want a picture of the blood do you? )

We do drive, although we did not have a car for about 6 months. I was quite nervous about it as it is on the opposite side of the road as the States. Traffic patterns certainly are different, but you get used to them.

Not too long ago, even just 5 or 10 years, there were hardly any supermarkets like most of us are used to. Nearly all the grocery and daily shopping happened at outdoor markets. Those markets are still there, but we also have stores that are comparable to WalMart and major grocery stores.

I love going to the markets however. They are much more fun, produce and meat are fresh fresh fresh and you can even pick up dinner. I have one market I like to shop at, and one vegetable stall in particular. It is great to be able to build a relationship with people and be a regular customer.

This is my local market. It is always busy and exciting. You will never know just what you will find there.

But of all the answers we have learned living here, we already came with the most important one.

We know the answer to eternal life, we know the answer to salvation, we know the answer to peace with God. And the answer we have is why we are here. As missionaries, we want to get to know the people as individuals, to understand their culture and worldview, to see the world through their eyes.

Our neighbor giving a food offering to the local monks in return for a blessing and merit.

Thailand is 99% Buddhist. Buddhism and its worldview is part of every part of daily Thai life. But it is not the answer.

This is Doi Sutep the largest temple in Chiang Mai and one of the most revered in all of Thailand

The reason is to connect them with to share the answer we have, Christ.
He is the only answer that matters, and He is why we are here.
Of course we have days when we want to go home, when we are tired of being the outsider, of struggling to communicate, of being misunderstood and question our being here. Can we really do it? Lord, is this really what you have for us? We feel so inadequate and helpless.
His answer is: Yes, I have brought you here.
Rest in Me, keep your eyes on Me, allow Me to live out My life through you.
Child you already know The Answer, share with the people of Thailand, people I made and created special, people I love just as I love you.

So here we are, ordinary people serving our Lord, in His strength each day, eager to share the answers found in Christ with a nation who is seeking truth.

Many of you have asked if you can pray for us. Yes, please pray for us.
Pray for our walk with the Lord and that our focus would remain on Him.
Pray for the people of Thailand, that the Holy Spirit would be at work in their hearts, preparing them to hear and recieve the salvation of Christ.

We have so much we wanted to share about our Christmas and New Years, but with getting back in the groove of school and language study, it just did not happen.
We are well on our way to Valentine’s Day, but still want to share a pictorial look at our second Christmas in Thailand.

Our church Christmas program on the 16th of December. The kids had spent the previous month and a half of Sunday Schools preparing for the program. Leah, being the oldest girl in Sunday School was Mary. Zach was a shepherd and Ema was an angel. In the program. Not everyday.

Ema with two of her friends from church, and fellow ballerinas

I also took a small group of girls and taught them a short ballet. Short. One minute.

Since ballet is nearly the exact opposite of Thai dancing, it was a challenge. A good time to practice my language though, pick up a few a words, master some old ones, and give the girls some giggles at my faux pas. (When trying to get young dancers to close their arms in front of them, it helps to actually say ‘close’ buet, instead of ‘open’ beet.

The program went great, and Leah remembered all her lines, in Thai even!

Leah as Mary, and of course the only other falang boy as Joseph. Andrew really wanted to be a wise man this year, but Leah was taller than all the other Thai boys.

Zachary herding his sheep.

The night before we left to travel to the NE, the church came around caroling. This is a yearly tradition for them. All the carolers gather at the church around 8 and begin to make the rounds to the homes of everyone else in the church. They have been known to be out caroling until 3am!!

We made sure Philene knew we were planning to leave early in the morning for the NE, hoping for carolers before midnight.

They arrived around 11, and sang beautifully! In harmony no less. We welcomed them in for some goodies and hot drinks, and enjoyed having so many from church in our home, even if was for a short while.

The next day we drove off on our first solo road trip across Thailand. Would you believe we did not miss a turn?

Anyone going to Burma? China? Malaysia?

Driving in Thailand is not quite like in the States. There is no point at which you can just cruise along; constant, vigilant attention must be given to the road at all times. Most of the roads are officially, two lane. One lane going your way, one lane heading in the opposite direction.

In reality however, all lanes are at least 5 lane roads.
One lane going your way
One lane heading the other way
One lane in between the two official lanes, for turning, passing, driving ect.. (either direction is acceptable)
One lane beside each of the two official lanes for traffic in the opposite direction. (We tend to call this lane the shoulder )

In light of this, we decided to stay the night in Udon Thani, instead of driving straight through to our destination.

The kids really enjoyed the first English TV they had seen in nearly a year! No one even minded watching the Food Channel with me.

We spent a wonderful week in Nakhon Phanom with our dear friends the Sullivan and celebrated Christmas with them.

Ema managed to surprise Zachary with a present he really wanted

On Christmas Eve our two families took some plates of cookies out and caroled at the houses of the Christians in the muubaan. 3 houses. Although we were done way too quickly for me, it was great! One house belongs to a lady who has been studying the Bible with the Sullivans for over a year now. She struggled for a long time with trusting Christ and Christ alone for her salvation, but praise God has placed her faith in Him. She came out of her house while we were singing and tears ran down her face as listened us sing of our Savior’s birth.

When we sang at the Sullivan’s neighbors, they were not sure what to do. Russ and Nancy work with this family in leading a church in another muubaan, and they have been Christians for many years. It was a new experience for them to have people come to their house for the sole purpose of blessing them, with both the songs and a gift. Many times neighbors only come when they need something.

After Christmas we went to visit our friends the Culletts and Lynches in a nearby city, Mukdahan for New Years.
This city, like Nakhon Phanom is bordered by the Mekong River and looks across at Laos.

The ferry from Nakhon Phanom to Laos

We spent nearly a week there too, enjoying their company, playing games and eating way too many treats!
Unlike Chiang Mai, foreigners are not very common in Mukdahan, and when we all went to the Indo-China market, we tended to turn some heads.

The Mukdahan-ers may have thought we were interesting, but I thought a baby elephant walking down the road was much more. Apparently, I was the only one. You notice no one in the picture is even looking at it.

These two families are gearing up to move into a village to begin a new church planting work among the Phu Thai people. We are excited to see this process through their eyes. It was a good opportunity for us to hear how each step of their move from language study in Chiang Mai to village surveys to move-in prep has gone. This is the same direction we are looking to head in a year from now, sharing Christ with people who have never heard before, and in the future, celebrating Christmas with them, instead of just around them.

Eek, I should have warned you to get a cup of coffee or snack before you started reading.

Ok, just one more picture, but that is it for this blog.

Who says missionaries don’t know how to have fun?

Tina

Yes, the Golden Arches is here, encouraging bad eating habits, er, I mean serving tasty treats, all over the world. Every so often we will take the kids there, and sink into the taste of America. Well, sort of. I have not seen any McDonalds in America offering to tickle the taste buds of its patrons with corn or taro pies. Or pineapple. Nary an apple or lemon pie to be had.

For the more adventurous burger enthusiasts, you could also try the McRice. A ‘bun’ made of grilled sticky rice with a pork patty in some kind of soy sauce inside. Actually, I do not think it sounds so bad, but if we are going to pay the high prices of McDonalds, I am getting a beef burger!

One thing we miss about the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is the drive-thru. Oh for the convience of the drive-up window. But there are compromises. When we go to McDonalds here, we get waited on at our table, food brought to us (including the ketchup from the service pump), refills and clean up service.
So of course when we leave, we are polite, thank our servers and wai them. Well, at least most of us anyway.

Khap Khun kha Ronald!