OceanicThai

In our Thai regalia.

I appreciated this article so much. (Click on the title to go to the Zacharias Site, if you'd like.) 07/31/07Abandoned by Our Expectations Margaret Manning Have you ever experienced the dissonance that comes from the contradiction of your personal experience and your beliefs? What do you do, for example, when you've believed that God always heals, and yet you watch helplessly as your mother dies of cancer? How do you affirm God's love to a woman who was abused as a young girl? What do you feel when you've been told that God has a wonderful plan for your life, and yet you can't square that wonderful plan with a series of professional and personal failures? If you're like me, the fortress of beliefs you thought were impenetrable come crashing down as life experience smashes that fortress like a battering ram. In the aftermath, the alternative shelters of cynical doubt or blind faith beckon you to take your refuge with them. For most of us, we run perilously betwe...

Yesterday was chaos. Our Thai friends killed a snake found in our kitchen, and in the process hacked our water pipe in pieces. Kennedy couldn't fix it himself, so the plumber came and tried. Today he is back again, his fix is leaking pretty bad. The snake turned out not to be poisonous, I found it in the snake book. Then Jasper kicked the glass door to our bathroom upstairs, AGAIN, and shattered it. Last time we had to take him to the emergency room to get stiches on his foot. This time his foot just got nicked. Kennedy had just finished with the plumbing job, and had to turn right around and get to the broken glass door job. Needless to say, Jasper is in the doghouse. He's picking weeds & trash up today.

An old friend found me on the internet, and Kennedy suggested I look up my maiden name, too. Lo and Behold, I found something, someone's memory of me. How strange it all feels, we bring memories with us, not only of ourselves, but those of other people who were an important part of our lives in the past.

Pipe broke this morning...

Thankfully, it's not that bad. Over the year we've been here we've only had 2 snakes in our house. We are still trying to figure out if the one we found this morning is poisonous or not. Our visiting Thai friends helped us kill it, and said it was poisonous, but I'm still trying to find it in our snake book. They threw it over the fence, so I might have to put on my galoshes to go find it. It was a juvenile, for sure.

It is a bit shakey, but here is Kennedy giving a quick sermon at the center's opening. (Thank you Stephen & Julie, for letting me use your pictures!)

Here are the Bang Sak kids helping out to get the back entry to the center finished.

The inside is divided white sections of yummy sweet/tart fruit.

A typical road in our area

We had visitors from our home church come stay with us for a week to see what missionary life was like in Thailand. These newlyweds were very cute & fun to have around. They helped us homeschool our kids so we could get some very overdue work done. Julie helped me do the makeup for the kids that danced at the grand opening of the center, which was so great...even with the 2 of us it took almost 2 hours to do all 10 girls (& some adults who asked to be done, too.) Julie & I scrubbed the (just finished & coated with grime & cement dust) bathrooms while Kennedy & Stephen lifted stuff and helped get the center ready for the ceremony. They were good workers with great attitudes and a blessing to have around. We tried to do some fun stuff, too, like elephant riding, cave & monkey visiting, and, of course, to the beach. We dropped them off at the airport today & they will be flying around the world for about 22 hours. Blessings to you 2.

07/26/07 The Nature of Truth Joe Boot The demise of truth began at the fall of our first parents. Adam was given a task that would require the development of knowledge--zoology and horticulture, no less! He was required to classify all of the creatures and vegetation God had created. In going about this task, Adam did not question his sense perceptions, nor did he question that he was a creature of God himself. He began with God at the foundation of his knowledge and worked accordingly. But then the epistemological temptation came along in the form of the serpent. He essentially asked, "Why have you accepted the validity of God's word to you as real knowledge? Surely you will not die like God said. Why accept that God governs all reality and history? Why accept that God is the interpreter of everything? Why not define your own truth and morality independent of God and know the facts for yourself? You can govern reality as a competing interpreter to God, and you may even be ri...

The construction workers and the Thai dancers.

We had the official grand opening of the center on Sunday from 9:30 a.m. with lunch served to end the celebration. Everything went well, the donors were honored, the workers were honored, the Thai dances & songs went well, and the food was delicious & plentiful. As you can see in the photo below, Poppy danced with the other Thai girls. She looked lovely & danced gracefully! :) Our visitors from Shadow Mountain Community Church, Stephen & Julie, were a big help preparing for the opening.

I forget how strange Thailand is for Americans until we get visitors from the U.S. It took us years to get used to some things, and there is plenty that still gets under our skin, but it all feels "normal" now. There are things in the U.S. that bug me, too, but it is also just "normal" life there. I can only imagine how weird our lives must seem to someone "fresh off the airplane" from the west. Yet we are happy here, and not too concerned about looking weird. It is more important for us to fit in well with our Thai neighbors and friends, even if we look a little odd sitting on the floor and eating, or eating strange foods and having odd things around the house. Or jabbering in Thai to our friends and to each other. Our clothes are faded, stretched out and sometimes decidedly frumpy. Our towels & dishclothes are stained and old, & smell a little, too. Our furniture is simple and sometimes kind of ugly. But when I compare what we have to what most, ...

There's an 80's tune for you, "Here Comes the Rain Again" by Annie Lennox. Anyway... The week of sweltering heat has given way to 2 weeks of glorious, cool rain.

Jasper turned 8 today. Here is a picture of him riding a horse last month. He told us, "Now my big boy days are starting." He never fails to make us laugh. We will take him to pizza for his special birthday meal. We will have a cake and a party with our Thai co-workers and the church members tomorrow evening. We will celebrate Ning's birthday, too, another Thai co-worker, I think I'll be making the cakes. :) Happy Birthday, beloved son!

She was in her 90s, so this wasn't unexpected. Today we'll go and visit Gee to see how we can help and just to be an encouragement to her.

Speaking of red ants got me thinking about the giant red ants that build their nests in trees & plants. The Thai like to collect the eggs and eat them. Kennedy has tried them, I haven't yet. I may have a chance, though, soon, because we've got a nest of them in our yard and our friends can't wait to eat them. Sometimes we sit around and talk about all the crazy things they eat. The folks in the South here won't eat the same things our Eastern friends eat. Our Eastern friends joke they will eat about anything. We tried to think of all the things they like to eat: grubs (Jasper has eaten fried grubs.) beetles (Kennedy and I have eaten fried beetles.) crickets grasshoppers squirrels snakes dog lizards shrimp eggs (We've all eaten these) ant eggs (Only Kennedy has tried these.) fish eyes & brains intestines (These can be kind of tasty cooked right!) frogs (We could only eat the curry they were in.) snails flying termites (I think I could eat these fried, kind of...

Horrid things, these red ants here in Thailand. They love to make huge nests everywhere and our garden is full of them. They like our house a lot, too. When they bite, a clear blister appears and the itch is unbelievable, worse than mosquito bites. Then the blister pops and leaves a little weeping sore that itches even worse than before. We went to the public park the other day to clean it up and mow the grass, clear off the invasive tropical vines & plants, (you wouldn't believe how huge and how fast-growing weeds are here,) and the ants really got me good, on the feet and arms. Last night I kept Kennedy awake with all my scratching and itching. Today I've been trying to coax the dog to lick them, talk about pathetic. They can last for weeks, too. Horrid things.

Not to me, of course, I like cheese a lot. But most Thais really hate the stuff. "Congealed cow's milk, I can't eat that!" I tell them that it is the farang's pla ra, meaning it is something we westerners love(farang=westerner) like they love their pla-ra, or rotted, fermented fish concoction. I can't eat the stuff unless it is hidden in some strong spicy curry or something, it smells like rotted fermented fish. On the other hand, I can imagine how cheese smells to them, and how horrible the prospect of eating it might be for them. Younger Thais are learning to like cheese, though, especially on pizza & sandwiches, crackers and snacks. But it's still considered a bit of a feat, kind of like the farang eating their pla-ra!

When the weather changes, everyone is afraid of getting sick here. When you tell people you are sick, they often say, "Oh, right, the weather is changing." Sometimes I'll say, "No, no, I caught it from my son." They will agree, but it still has to do with the weather changing. A little more time here and I'm sure I'll be saying the same thing..."Oh you're sick? The weather has been changing." On the other hand, in winter we all get sick in the U.S. hmmm...

In a few weeks we will have the grand opening ceremony for the center, Thai style of course. All the Bang Sak kids that come to church are coming over every day to practice the dances they will do for the opening ceremony. Poppy is dancing with them. They will do an Eastern Thai-style dance, even though this is the South, since our partners are from the East. Our Thai partners feel very strongly that the opening ceremony needs to be done well. We will lose face in the community if we don't prepare enough rice or food. If things don't go well or are poorly planned, the community will lose confidence in our ministry. If things are done well, confidence will be gained. To be done well, there must be traditional dancing and lots of good food. Our Thai partners asked me to do the children's makeup, and the wife, Khrua , is making the traditional costumes for the dances. The roof is being put on the 3rd story of the center this week. It is exciting to see the progress....

The unreal, glass-like turquoise Andaman Sea coast here has turned to a muddy brownish color, and the jellyfish are here. When I go to the ocean it doesn't look the same as just a few months ago. None of us really want to go swimming because of the jellyfish. They don't always sting, but when the slimy tentacles and soft bodies wrap around your legs it is a pretty freaky feeling! In a couple more months it will be unbelievably beautiful again. It is always beautiful, of course, right now, though, it is a little wilder.

Groggily riding my bike along the ocean-front road today I noticed someone had put a beautiful fan of red coral in the spirit house set up in front of the beach. Spirit houses cover the entire country, most houses and plots of lands here in Thailand have them. This particular one was probably set up after the tsunami to placate the sprits that, in the minds of some, probably caused the destroying wave to come. It is a bit like a small shack on stilts, with a Chinese idol inside, along with incense and food offerings. Down the sand bank a bit is another offering, plastic grocery bags full of now rotted rice hung on poles. Across the road, tall poles topped with coconut and seed decorations are used to fly strips of white cloth, another fetish, this one probably from the nearby Sea-Gypsy village. In placating the spirits, they hope there will never be another tsunami disaster.