OceanicThai

I got obsessed with bread. Not just any kind of bread, but artisan bread. Natural yeast, sourdough, whole wheat 7-grain boules, to be exact. I am a bread lover, to be sure, but somehow my love for bread turned into a quest for a difficult but supremely delicious bread, in short, my bread obsession to make the perfect loaf. So what you see below is the product I finally managed to make after several weeks of trying to get a good fungal/bacterial culture going, I mean, bakers yeast/lactobacillus, also known as sourdough starter. That was a challenge in itself, considering that Thailand is bacterial heaven and the temperatures are not ideal for the growth of yeast cells. I am too ashamed to tell you how many hours I have spent on the superb website "The Fresh Loaf" which you can get to yourself if you click on my title above. I learned from chemists, who also like to make bread, more than I ever imagined I could or wanted to know about growing microbes. Certain special m...

Poppy ended 8 years of homeschooling and entered highschool at Grace International School in Chiang Mai mid-August of 2010. She also went into a dorm so we could continue our ministry in Southern Thailand. In the end, the enormous changes proved to be a little more than she could handle without mom & dad. Kennedy decided there would be no more dorms or living with others, these would be our last few years with our daughter and she needed us to be with her. Within days of his final decision almost all of our furniture sold and everything fell into place to make a very fast move. Personally, this was a difficult move for me and I am still in a bit of shock about the whole thing. I am very glad to be with Poppy again, though, and she is so much happier to be with us. So here we are in Northern Thailand and I am feeling rather dazed and confused. I know that everything will make perfect sense later and right now is a time of transition. Kennedy picked a lovely house for our famil...

The Grand Finale snake story, anyway, since we did have snakes after this one. This was the most dangerous snake of all, a king cobra. I never in my life thought I'd find one, much less next to my kitchen. Earlier that morning I had encountered a huge black snake while gardening that scared me to death but turned out to be just a rat snake. After lunch I heard the dogs bark their "I found a snake" bark, so I went out to investigate. I pulled back a box, heard a hiss, and thought "Oh great, a cobra." I called my Thai friends to come kill it. Then I saw it. It was huge. I thought how strange it was that a python was hissing, didn't think they hissed. So I called another Thai friend, Tanom, who is a hunter and wouldn't be afraid of a big snake. The 2 men killed it and it was a king cobra. I hope I never have to find another one.

No longer in Southern Thailand, now I am in Northern Thailand. A lot has happened, there are still more stories to tell from before and during and then after the move. Life is a journey.

It has been very distressing to see some of the kids who professed Christ participate in the Vegetarian Festival. They told us their grandfather or some other family member wanted them to "gin jee." This year they will probably not go to the temple to be possessed, but they are dressing in white and abstaining from meat, fish and eggs to "purify" themselves. We are holding our camp, and it went well yesterday. Some of the parents no longer allow their teenage children to associate with us or do anything with us because their children have professed faith in Christ. Other kids are travelling or just off doing their own thing during this school break. We had 7 kids yesterday. John held it at his house and we helped him make a Filipino pork dish, very yummy. Today we are holding it at our house and will have homemade pizza & Thai food. We will take them to the beach later to body/boogie-board surf.

This is an ancient story revisited. Um is a girl who has been coming to our center for the past 2 years. This year she is 16 and in 11th grade. Um has been having episodes where she freezes up, turns greenish, and starts to panic for no reason. Our partner John has taken her to the hospital 3 times; we went the 2nd time to a hospital 2 hours away that had a good reputation. The diagnosis was stress. Every time John would pray for her and then she would be fine. After John brought her home from the hospital for the last time, her mom opened up about the cause of her stress. Several years ago the mother was in terrible debt and did not know what to do. She gave her children over to the Vegetarian Festival priests to get help. Shortly after that she won a lottery and paid all her debts off. Um began to have her panic attacks sometime after that. This year the priests want Um to participate in the Vegetarian Festival and sleep overnight at the temple for the week. She did not want t...

As the Vegetarian/Possession Festival gears up, spiritual warfare in this country also kicks into high gear. Across the country Thailand's Christians are praying and some are even fasting. Hundreds of people will become possessed by spirits, including teenagers and even children. The gruesome and bloody acts of self-multilation follow possession. It will begin this Thursday. At the same time we will be holding a half-day camp for our teens at the center who have professed Christ to help them avoid the community & parental/family pressure to cave and participate in the festival. Like a spiritual cloud decending on the provinces here that participate, the darkness is palpable. The presence of spiritual beings is oppressive and discouraging. We are in the middle of a part of the world that has been under the enemy's control for thousands of years and this festival is just the latest manifestation of the show of this control. We are teaching our teens and new believing ...