OceanicThai

I chose to wear a skirt for my first day of volunteer work at the center. Put together, capable, clean and professional. If I wear jeans I will look sloppy and unable to function in the role I will be taking there. I will wear jeans later. I love wearing jeans, soft old ones, with a soft old t-shirt. I will be sure to take a shower in the morning. Most Thais bathe their children before school and take a shower before they come to work or eat dinner. 2 showers a day is standard, 1 shower a day is barely hygienic , and not so hygienic in the hot months. It took me years to understand how sensitive the average Thai nose is to bodily odors. Especially ours, since we smell funny to them, being foreigners. My Thai friends still feel a bit miffed that my kids don't take showers before school, and I only take one shower a day unless it's really hot. It makes sense that a Thai kiss is a sniff.

Human relationships are so complex in general, and then the rules change in another culture. Starting a new partnership with a blend of both Thai and Western non-Thai and some-Thai speakers is a great example of a complex set of relational rules to follow. Verbal, non-verbal communication is a challenge-you must act one way around the westerners, another way around the Thais, and if you have a Westerner attune to both Thai language and culture, you must be aware of them as well. Eye contact, body proximity, appropriate facial expressions, appropriate body language, these are important things one must keep in mind. Then there is ultra-hygiene, so important in Thailand, and appropriate dress of course. It makes my head spin. So it goes with starting a new partnership, I am excited and I am nervous, too. I will be going to a place called The Centre 3 days a week to help take over discipleship of women there and possibly help teach English if I have time. There is quite a mish-mash of peop...

* Be faithful to do Thai language study from 9:30a.m. to 11:30a.m. Monday through Friday. * Take the OMF level 2 test and then begin studying for the level 3 test. * Continue to disciple the women at WonGen Cafe'. * Seek for more women who are ready to be discipled. * Continue to pray for all the ministries happening at WonGen Cafe'. * Nurture and love Kennedy, Poppy & Jasper. * Keep running. Run at least one 1/2 marathon this year.

Christmas is a time of frantic frenzied activity within the Christian community here in Thailand. It is a time of outreach, giant neighborhood parties and trying to explain to everyone we are not celebrating the birth of Santa Claus, but in fact are celebrating the birth of Christ. A typical party are tents and booths pitched outside on the dirt, sweaty crowds of people showing up for the food, treats & free presents. We play crazy games, kids are screaming, dogs are barking, there is trash everywhere and the sound system is so loud our ears are ringing. Through the years my ideas about what Christmas is supposed to look and feel like have morphed from the American ideal into something much stranger and hardly recognizable for us whities. I usually come home exhausted and half deaf, covered in dust and food. It's a grand and glorious time, always a funny new story, always the great feeling that you made Christmas for so many people. We still try to have a few hours Christmas mo...

I work 3 days a week during the busy hours at WonGen Cafe'. I take orders, bring food and drinks, and work the cash register. I also help clear and clean tables when the customers leave. I wash dishes. It's probably not exactly what our supporters envision their missionary doing. In all relationships, communication is essential, time together is important. Where I am from, getting together once a week to build a discipleship kind of relationship is seen as good enough. I brought that idea here and I don't think it works very well. Relationships here need much more time, trust builds slowly, change comes gradually. Seeing is believing, especially in the areas of love and trust. It is not enough that I am a Bible school graduate. It is not enough that I am fluent in the language and understand the culture. I am still an unknown foreign woman. Working at WonGen Cafe' enables the women who work there to get to know who I am & I get to know who they are. How we work with...

I dreamed about Wendi last night. We were at some kind of fair. We took a picture together and Wendi smiled her beautiful smile. We watched a gorgeous sunset together over an ocean city filled with water. The water was reflected in beautiful colors over everything because it was flooded. I kept crying and wanting to sing you songs, I knew I wouldn't see you again. You seemed distracted and kept walking away, getting further and further away. Oh Wendi. Why did it have to be you? I miss you so much.

It has been difficult to write since the death of my best friend, Wendi L. I miss her so much, and the easier days are the days I forget that she is gone. Sometimes I dream about her. In my last dream she was healthy and whole again, not thin like she was when she was on chemotherapy. She told us all she was ready to die the day before she passed, but we were not ready, those of us who loved her. I don't know if I felt more grief or more anger, even in the year and a half of knowing she had terminal cancer, we all believed, herself included, that she would be the exceptional statistic. Instead, she died earlier than the 2 years the doctors gave her. My world is not as bright and beautiful. Without you, Wendi, life is different and there is this pain that just sits there somewhere deep in me. I love you, I miss you so much, I still don't want to believe you are gone.