Itsara

I am experiencing a little bit of reverse culture shock, although I’ve done this before so it’s not quite as bad this time. The difference is that this is the longest time I’ve been in another country before coming back. So I don’t feel as though “nobody understands what I’ve learned”. Nor am I more critical of US culture - at least, no more critical than I already was. (I am still critical of some aspects of US culture, but it’s the same critiques I’ve always had - especially when watching TV. My favorite was the commercial that stated, “It’s not your clothes. It’s not your neighborhood. It’s your watch that tells most about who you are.” There are so many things wrong with that statement.)

Though every once in a while, I feel a little… misplaced. Like the other day we were driving down the freeway and I saw a fat luxury car with some vanity plate I didn’t understand (seriously, what’s the point of a vanity plate if nobody else understands it?), and I realized that the owner of that car leads a very different life from me. Okay, that’s not really fair because everybody leads a different life from me. But I guess every once in a while the gap becomes blindingly obvious. Every once in a while I see someone (nobody I know, so don’t worry friends and family) and realize that they have made life choices I would never have made - and presumably vice versa. I can understand why those life choices were made, I suppose, so it doesn’t make me angry like it used to. But it does make me a little sad.

On the other hand, it has been extremely relaxing to be at home with my parents again. There’s something about the home I grew up in. Even though it’s changed in a lot of ways since I last lived in it, it’s still home. I immediately felt at peace once we came in the door, and I still feel that. I hope that peace sticks a little. I’m sure it’ll feel the same way for Cindy with her family.

The part of this trip I don’t know anything about will be returning to San Diego. I’m used to seeing family only once a year or so, but our Coast family is different. I don’t know what that will be like, or what difficulties we’re about to face emotionally, or what it will be like leaving again. At the very least, it will be good to see everyone again. We can’t wait.

Om Goy is the nearest town to the village I mentioned. In any case, I’ve got a bunch of pictures up from the trip. Looks like between Matthew and me we got some good ones this time too. There’s some pictures of us eating dinner at Prang’s house, sharing and praying at church, handing out gifts, and other various shots around the village.

We’re leaving for the States tomorrow and arriving… well, tomorrow. Saturday. We’re visiting my family, then Cindy’s family, then we’ll be down in San Diego for New Year’s. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see most of you. Pray for our trip. Leaving the kids, and then re-entry into America, and then later leaving America (again) is going to be weird and probably quite difficult.

There must be something inherently broken with teenagers - or perhaps it’s just a bunch of new machinery trying to find its place. Last night, we’re teaching the teens and they had absolutely no interest in answering questions, singing worship, or anything. Tonight, the very same teens are asking for “one more song”, singing obnoxiously loud, answering questions (that I didn’t even ask!), and are basically full of energy.

I understand emotional shifts, even drastic ones, in individuals. I’ve just never seen a whole group shift at once. Now I just need to learn how to predict it so that I can teach to their moods. Tonight would’ve been great to have a lively discussion, but because of last night I planned a short teaching where I talked the whole time. How silly of me to assume they’d be the same two nights in a row!

We went up to visit the village of one of the staff here this past weekend. Sean’s been to villages, including this one, a couple of times already, but this was my first time since we’ve been here. It was really fun and actually reminded me of Mexico in some ways.

We left Saturday afternoon with about 13 of the kids. Most of them stayed there until Monday, but Cindy and I came back early along with Matthew, the oldest boy (18 years old). Saturday night we had dinner with Prang’s family (Prang is the aforementioned staff whose village this is), worshipped with many people in their village, and then watched TV. Sunday morning we had church with the village, walked around and visited with a couple of families, had lunch, and that’s when Cindy and I had to leave.

The church services were definitely high points, and these are what reminded me of Mexico most of all. The church looked much like many Mexican churches I’d been to, except that everybody sat on the floor. When they prayed, which they did often, they did so simultaneously and loudly. After working with the teenagers who often (though not always) pray because they have to, it was refreshing to see Thai Christians with faith like this.

They asked us to share stuff with them. Fortunately they asked us before the services, so we had a chance to think about what we were going to say. I was so proud of Cindy, cuz she didn’t even think about it - she just did it, all in Thai too.

See, the village is a Karen village, and not everybody there speaks Thai. (I was actually a little encouraged. I was talking with the church’s pastor and I asked him if he spoke Thai. “A little,” he said. I said, “Good. Me too.”). We probably could’ve spoke in English, but it would either had to have been translated twice or the Im Jai kids would have been left out of the service. This was the first time we ever tried doing something like this with adults in Thai. It was scary, but it went well.

Cindy shared about how God helped her during some hard times - she even read out of the Thai Bible, which I was really impressed with because normally she’s shy about her reading skills. I shared Sunday about one special morning when God reassured me as Coast’s worship pastor and as a leader. The kids sang a couple of songs beautifully and we handed out gifts to many families in the village.

That was the highlight for me. Other smaller highlights included getting to watch Rambo 3 (I didn’t know it started with Stallone working alongside Buddhist monks building a temple in Southeast Asia), understanding more of Thai TV than I have to date (to the point where I could stay interested in the story a little), and getting to spend some time on the road with some of the kids, cuz there’s nothing quite like a road trip for relationships.

I have some pictures, and Matthew took a lot of good ones that I’ll try to get. I’ll try and have those up sometime this week, if I can.

Never have I had to suck up my pride so often as I have since we moved here. Like when I say I can eat spicy food only to be presented with a whole new order of spicy. Or when I tell someone how easy it is to drive on the left right before I have an accident. Or when I punish a kid for doing something only to find out that another adult told him to do it. Or when I get mad at being corrected in class, because I’m sure I’m right, only to look it up and find out that - big surprise - the native speaker was right.

It’s always hard, but most of these situations are either normal to life even in one’s home country, or they will go away as I learn more. But there’s one I fear will never go away, and I keep coming up against it. I have to suck up my own pride when Thailand gets proud of itself. (more…)

Just wanted to share some cool blessings we’ve had in the recent past. God is good!

1. I’ve had this strange extra skin on my lower right eyelid for years, maybe even since birth. I’ve had my sister Diane (an opthamologist) look at it, and she said it wasn’t anything harmful and even volunteered to remove it for me. I refused, mostly because I didn’t care and was afraid it would hurt. Anyway, last week my eyes were extremely itchy and the extra skin was really irritated. I prayed to God one night for it to get better and not bother me anymore. The next morning, I woke up and rubbed my eyes like usual, and something felt different. I looked in the mirror and that extra skin was gone! I didn’t expect God to answer in this way, but this was way better than just making the pain go away. Praise God!

2. Adam and I have been praying for more one-on-one time with some of the kids here. Many of them would rather play with their peers than spend one-on-one time with an adult with poor Thai language abilities. One morning, I prayed that God would bring Adam a good conversation with any of the kids that day, and guess what happened? That same day, one of the teen boys came up to Adam and asked him if he would be willing to teach him English regularly, one-on-one. Yea God!! :)

3. On that same subject, there is a teen girl here that I spend a lot of time with. She used to demand almost all of my time and attention at Im Jai, and while I enjoyed being with her, I really missed hanging out with the other kids, and she became jealous whenever I spent time with others. I didn’t know the solution since I wanted to still spend alone time with her and also the others. God gave me the idea to have a scheduled, weekly time with her to hang out and make sure it happens every week. I told her that, and she said she had already thought of that idea as well. Since then, we’ve met every week to hang out and pray, and now I have time with the other children as well.

4. Also on the subject of spending individual time with the kids, one of my responsibilities here is to teach piano to two specific girls. Since I began to teach those two, I have had 8 more children ask me to teach them as well, so now I get to spend individual time with 10 kids.

5. Everyone at Im Jai went out to dinner last week at one of those buffets where you cook all your food by yourself on a hot pot at your table. Each adult had to sit with some kids so they could help them cook the food. Adam had been cooking and serving the kids at his table the entire meal. While Adam got more and more hungry, these kids were just enjoying Adam’s service without being very thankful to him. Then, all of a sudden, one of the kids pulled off a piece of fried pork (Adam’s absolute favorite), and put in on Adam’s plate. Adam didn’t even pray for that, but he knew it was God!

Thank God for His blessings!