Itsara

“What is rain, Dad?”
“Rain is God peeing.”
“Wow… that’s a lot of pee.”
“Well, he’s a big God.”

พายุ (pa-yú): n. an atmospheric disturbance with strong winds accompanied by rain or other precipitation; a storm.

It’s April. In Thailand, that means it’s the hot season, which is every bit worse than it sounds. And even though it’s still technically the dry season, April does have the occasional shower. And by “shower” I mean “torrential thunderstorm”. The few rains that come in April are loud, windy, thunderous, and uh… lightning…y.

Last Tuesday afternoon, we had one that knocked down one of the large trees in front of our house. I was upstairs at the time, closing the windows to keep the rain out. I heard some loud noises, but I thought they were just transformers exploding elsewhere (that happens all the time when it rains). Then Matt came running upstairs to tell me what had happened. The tree had fallen forward, away from the house and onto the street, where it took down the power lines and two power poles as well on either side of our house. Another power pole had fallen elsewhere in the muban, so 10 or 20 houses could only get out to the main road by walking that day. We were blessed that Cindy was out with our truck at the time, otherwise we would’ve been stuck too.

It took them about 24 hours to get the tree cleared and the power lines back up, so the whole next day we had no power until later in the evening.* Without power in the muban, the main water pump couldn’t run so we ran out of water late in the morning as well. Isaac loved watching the people working outside, especially the guy who cut the tree up with a chainsaw. He was at the window all day for that one. The next morning everything was fine again, except that the phone line to our house was still severed so I had to call the phone company. That took another two days (mainly because they took their sweet time coming out here), but it’s done now and I feel better.

Take a look at the pictures and their captions for more.

* And even then it was spotty – we had to turn off all non-essential electronics so we could watch a movie without the TV shutting off. We considered asking the neighbors to turn off their lights too.

This job is just the very hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Have we said that enough? In a way, Jesus had it easier. I mean, he only had to love those who hated him for like three years, and then it was over. Oh, except he was rejected by God too. Oh and he loves those who hate him for eternity. Okay, fine, he’s got it harder. Whatever.

This last week, though, we’ve been kinda blessed. All the kids were off school, which was good. We went to a waterfall, had some friends over, went over to see friends, stuff like that. After eight months of living in a playpen, we finally reclaimed our family room; Isaac has earned the freedom to roam downstairs and make a mess of things where we cannot necessarily see him. But the best part about last week was that one of our kids who was being particularly defiant has miraculously had a change of heart. They still obey slowly sometimes, and they still complain sometimes, but it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. And what’s more, they don’t avoid us quite as actively as they used to anymore. They’ve been accepting hugs and smiles without complaint – and even reciprocating sometimes.

I don’t know if I can explain how awesome this is for us. One of the hardest parts of parenting is defiance, which every parent deals with at some point. But we’ve also come up against this thing called oppositional defiance. If defiance is saying “Why should I?” every once in a while, then oppositional defiance is saying “I’m not doing what you told me to! What are you gonna do about it?” everyday, over virtually everything. Really, if it weren’t for oppositional defiance, this job would be… well, not easy, but I wouldn’t have to go to God every single day for strength. (So I guess it’s kind of a good thing?)

Good thing or not, we are hugely thankful to be rid of some of the major defiance in our house, and we are awfully glad to have one of our kids back. That’s what it feels like.

This week we start homeschooling again, though Pan, Alaypa, and Lutiya are still on their summer break. Just seven more weeks, Cindy tells me, and then we get our real summer: Matt and Sandra will be out of school and in the US for a bit; Pan, Alaypa, and Lutiya will be in school during the day; and Coast will be sending a team to visit. This is our real vacation (and that’s not even counting the trip in September), and I’m really looking forward to it. I just have to remember not to check out anytime soon.

Through the generous and miraculous acts of friends and family, Cindy, Isaac, and I will be in California from September 9th to the 22nd and then Mexico until the 28th. We plan on being at Coast on Sunday, September 14th, probably for every service. At least, we’ll be hanging outside of every service, if we’re not inside.

Parenting is HARD! For those out there who have done it, thank you – and HELP! I think each person should come with his own instruction manual. That would make things a lot easier.

The last few days have been quite difficult. Lots of defiance, hatred, extreme selfishness, anger, etc. It feels like at any given moment, either Adam or I are about ready to lose it completely. Okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s definitely more often than we’d like. It upsets me so much when we try so hard to love these kids, and they just push it away. We try to treat them like they are our real children, but they reject us, either actively or passively. It doesn’t make any sense to me. But then I think about what it must feel like to be in their shoes. Why would they accept us as their parents? They already have parents, some who have given them up, and some who’ve passed away, but they do all have parents. Also, these kids have been around a lot longer without us than with us, so why would they need this family? Some of them didn’t even live with parents or any kind of parenting figure prior to living with us, so they got pretty used to being independent. It makes sense why they would hate any parents. They didn’t “need” them before, so why would they need them now? We’re just getting in the way of them living life however they want.

Adam and I talked to a counselor yesterday, one who has a lot of experience with foster children. He confirmed to us something that we realized a while back: These kids might not ever accept us as parents, and if they do, it might be when they’re much older and not living with us. Our family life will continue to be difficult and increase in difficulty as they get older. All we can do is love and persevere, expecting nothing in return. I think now would be a great time for me to learn how to find my worth in God. (I haven’t learned that one yet.)

On a happier note, Adam and I are going out on a date tomorrow for 5 whole hours! We plan to eat Western food and take a long walk together. Thank God for Sean and Prang for loving us and our kids enough to help take care of them! Our kids absolutely love them (maybe more than us sometimes)!

And by the way, it’s not just the kids who make me want to rip out my hair. It’s like 100 degrees these days! Long black hair is just a JOY this time of year!

As always, please pray for our family. Thanks!

I apologize, once again, for the lateness of this post. Not that most of you care. It’s been a busy week. Alaypa and Lutiya came back from their village. Pan has been applying, testing, and finally getting into Kawila Wittayalai School, which is awesome. Meanwhile, I’ve been going to meetings for Sanpasak (Alaypa and Lutiya’s school) and Kawila, which is all kinds of fun; meetings like that test my endurance more than my Thai skills. And Cindy has been trying to get her new kitchen just the way she wants it, and she’s started teaching dance afterschool, which is something she’s wanted to do for a long time now. The whole time we’ve also been trying to homeschool Sandra and keep Isaac out of trouble.

So all in all, a good week, I guess. Tomorrow, while I’m leading worship at church, Cindy has to run around town buying books and uniforms for everybody (for some reason, Thai schools always do this kind of thing on Sundays). But then, finally, we’ll have something of a break next week and the week after. It’s the middle of the Thai summer vacation and that means Songkran. Matt and Sandra have the next two weeks off, which means Cindy and I do too – at least from homeschooling, and that is much needed.

Our houses are coming along. Cindy’s dad came down and helped Cindy out with some things like getting her kitchen cabinets the way she wants them. Now it looks as if we (the Heines) might move in as early as June, which would save us quite a bit of rent. The Abbotts house will be done shortly afterwards (we all asked them to work on the Heine house first since our rent is much higher). There’s still little things here and there that need to be watched, and our foreman keeps saying he’ll do things but then forgetting, or just plain not doing them. So it’s kind of a headache, especially for Sean.

Oh! And Cindy, Isaac, and I are planning a trip to the States in September. It was going to be a trip to Mexico, then a trip to Napa and Mexico, but (as these things usually do) it kinda turned into a California tour. We expect to be in San Diego for at least a couple of days, including one Sunday at Coast. I’ll try to keep you posted when our dates become more definite.