Itsara

I don’t normally pass these quizzes along, but I liked this one. And I can think of a number of you who are going to do this the moment you see it…

I am:

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?

It’s 10 PM here. According to weather.com, it is currently 21 degrees Celcius in Chiang Mai. That’s like 70 degrees in America. And I am telling you right now, without a single hint of sarcasm, that I am cold.

The holidays are coming up. I know that’s obvious to all of you in America, but we have to remind ourselves sometimes. Especially about Thanksgiving. For our Thanksgiving, we’re going to Immigration and City Hall (whee!) to extend my passport and work permit. Then we’re probably going to school.

Ah, but then we’ve been invited to dinner with our friends Norbert and Cathy (we’ve mentioned him before, though he’s now leading the Vineyard in Chiang Mai). Despite the errands we have to run, it should actually be a fun day.

That’s unrelated though. I wanted to share a revelation I had this morning. First of all, trying to love 50+ kids living in an institution is hard work, and the kids have plenty of problems on their own. The bottom line is: we have no idea what we’re doing.

Like this morning, Ladda was telling us about one kid who has been stealing. Last year he even managed to steal something like 5000 Baht ($125) out of the office. They took him to talk to the police, and one thing the police told Ladda was that this kid’s problem with theft was actually a spiritual problem. A Buddhist cop told this to the director of a Christian orphanage. He even wanted to send some monks over to talk with the kids.

The thing is, I think he’s right. It would certainly explain why we seem to be at our wits’ end all the time, no matter how many different things we try and do.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that God seems to answer prayer around this house. For example, e’ve been praying for understanding and help in Thai since we got here, and we have learned Thai a lot faster than we ever expected. Or another time, one of the girl’s told Ladda that she had 200 Baht stolen while Ladda was in America. Ladda prayed that God would show them who did it and return the money, and shortly after they discovered who it was. And another time, we prayed that the houses at the new site would have a mixture of boys and girls, instead of just boys. The next day, Ladda told us that God reminded her about the kids here who are already siblings and she put those brothers and sisters in the same house. There’s still two boy’s houses and a girl’s house, but there’s at least one mixed house and the siblings of that house don’t have to be separated.

These are just examples. There have been plenty more (not the least of which is the huge amount of money God has given to Im Jai for the new buildings). So these two things I noticed – that the thievery is spiritual and that God seems to answer the prayers of this house – made me realize what the real problem was. It’s not that we’re not doing enough. It’s that we’re not praying enough. I was convicted that I don’t really pray for these kids. I pray for them, but I generally just pray for them to be good or to listen or any number of things that, in the end, serves primarily to make my job easier. When was the last time I prayed for something for their benefit without thinking about how hard this job was or how little I understood Thai?

Anyway, that’s my new job. I’m going to pray for these kids, by name, for their benefit and growth. I’ve been primarily praying for my Thai language studies and listening skills for months, and God has certainly answered, but I’d honestly rather have that kind of power aimed at them.

Remember Songkran? Well, here’s another festival that you have likely never heard of: Loy Gratong. Just like Songkran, it’s a big deal here. I’ll give you a quick lesson on what I know about it, and there’s a link to some pictures at the end.

Loy Gratong happens when the moon is full in early-to-mid November. It literally means to float a “gratong”, which is like a pretty, flowery little boat (usually the size of a dinner plate) on which the Thais put flowers, incense sticks, coins, and their sins (that last one is symbolic, of course). Then they put the gratong’s on the river (or in the canal, or on the moat, or whatever the nearest large body of water is) and watch them float away as they look forward to a new season and hope for new blessings.

They also do this with small hot-air balloons they make (I got some pictures of those) that they send into the air. This is my favorite part of this festival because it fills the air with hundreds of tiny orange lights floating off into the distance. It’s really beautiful. I couldn’t get a good picture of that though, so you’ll just have to imagine it (or come out here next year and see it for yourself).

People are also shooting fireworks off all over the place. There were no big fireworks shows here, like we would have in the States, but everyone seemed to manage just fine with their own private fireworks (not all of which are as small as what is legally sellable in the States – there were some major explosions from some random places). And, like any good festival, there was a parade and a market and lots and lots of people.

We went with Ladda and took some of the teens out, and a couple of folks from a visiting mission team. It was fun, though I didn’t get as many good pictures as I would hope (I knew that was coming, though – night pictures are hard).

Anyway, here’s all the pictures (the good ones, at least). The next big holiday I know of is Christmas. Yeah it’s a Buddhist nation, but capitalism doesn’t appear to know any bounds. In America, the commercialism of Christmas is troublesome for Christianity – here, it might actually be an in-road. We’ll see, although we’ll be in the States for Christmas so maybe we won’t.

A couple of unrelated things that made me laugh recently. The comic was done by the guys at Penny Arcade.

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” — Ambrose Pierce (1842-1914)

I don’t have much else at the moment (I mean, I do have stuff on miracles, short-term missions, and maybe a couple other things, but none of them are very well thought out at the moment), so let’s talk about what’s been happening. You can glean prayer requests and praises from it, if you want. (more…)