Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Last Blog in Thailand
Well March was a pretty bad month for blogs, but with a serious lack of internet, it wasn't really my fault. Anyways, as you can read from the title, this is my last blog in Thailand because I am at the airport right in a VIP lounge for China Airlines. The reason I got into the lounge was becase they changed my flight from 5:00pm to 8:25am, without giving me enough notification, so I went to one of the counters and complained a bit and had to wait for about an hour, and the guy finally got clearance to let me into the lounge. It has all sorts of stuff in here, like a free massage chair, free food/beverages, and of course free internet access. It is pretty sweet. So since the last blog, I went back to Mae La because I was going to be going to visit other camps with Pastor Robert (the man in who sent me out to the refugee camp). That never happened because his truck was broken down, so I ended up staying a little longer at the camp. At the time I was disappointed that I wasn't able to visit anyother camp, but in hindsight I am actually glad I never went. It is not that I didn't want to go, but if I had gone then I would have never been able to work with the other missionaries that came to visit/work in the camp. It was very fun hanging out with these missionaries for the few days that I got to know them. They had all gone to a missionary/theological school together in the Philipines, and had been sent out by their school to the camp, and they were going to visit other countries as well. The group was made up of 5 Chinese (from China, 2 guys, 3 women), 1 Philipino (woman), 1 Naga (from Nagaland, India; woman), and one American (man). It was so sweet when we were eating a meal together because on top of the team that was from the Philipines, there was other missionaries as well. So we had Karen, Chinese, Korean, Canadian, American, Philipino, Naga, Scotish, English, Australian, New Zealander, and at one point Irish, all sitting down at one table in a refugee camp in Thailand. That's 12 different nationalities who are all family, brought together by the Lord our God, our Daddy to sup (KJV) with each other. Man our God is so cool! So I left the camp on Monday morning, but on Saturday night, they had a huge going away party, with around 150 Karen and all the other missionaries attending, for me, which was kind of a surprise party, because I didn't know that it was for me until like half way through it. It was also simultaneously a welcoming party for a Korean woman who will be staying in camp for 10-11 months. Anyways it was pretty cool. Then on Monday, the morning that I left the camp, Dr. Simon's wife had arranged a special breakfast for me. So we went to a pastors house in the market district with the team from the Philipines, and several Karen where they had prepared our breakfast. It was a very big meal and they even had lots of grapes, which wouldn't normally be a big deal, except for the fact the grapes are very expensive in the camp. Most things in the camp are cheaper than somewhere else in Thailand, but grapes are ridiculously expensive, so to see so many grapes, was impressive, at least to me. There was also alot of meat, and good meat too, which is quite hard to come by in the camp. Well needless to say I was quite blessed by just how far the pastor went out of his way to bless a foreigner he never met before. So it was a fantastic meal, one of the best that I have had in the camp. Then the team from the Philipines, started to give me all of these gifts. Things that they had made or bought in another country because it meant something important to them. Things that they had been hualing around in their bags for who know how long, simply to give them to some one they only knew for a week. One of the Chinese women had bought a Christmas card in the Philipines, not because she was saving it for next Christmas, but because it looks like a Chinese traditional card, so the whole team signed it and wrote an encouraging not in it too. Then the same woman also put a rabbit thing in with the card that she had made out a fabric in China. Another one of the Chinese gave me a heart shaped thing to put on my cell phone. It heart was made in China, says Korea on it, was bought by a Chinese woman in the Philipines, and given to me, a Canadian in a Karen refugee camp in Thailand to take back to Canada. The Naga woman gave me a braclet of hers (made from wood), and the Philipino gave me an extra braclet that she had made, and happened to be carrying around. One of the Chinses men gave me a necklace that he bought in the Philipines, that says "brotherly love" on it in Mandarin (Chinese). The Karen gave me some of their traditional clothing, and they also prayed for me, and prayed a blessing on me, and then sang me a Chinese blessing song in Mandarin (even the Naga, Philipino, and the American sang it). Needless to say, I was well bless when I left the camp. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way" (Psalm 37:22). So I went from the camp, up to Chiang Mai to visit Craig (a friend of the family), and also because China Airlines had cancelled my ticket and I was advised by people from home to go and stay with Craig because he would take care of it, which he did. So praise the Lord that everything worked out! Just before I came on my flight to Bangkok from Chiang Mai, Craig and I were invited to go and visit the Morse's (the family with all of the kids) one last time before I left Thailand for a while, which was an awesome time of fellowship yet again. I am so glad and blessed that God keeps putting such awesome people like the Morse's in my path. I am never disappointed to spend my time so well, as in the company of such awesome people of God. Our God is so FAANN-tastic! I guess He knows what He is doing, eh? Anyways, I am really starting to ramble on now, considering that it is 2:20am right now and I didn't sleep much last night. Well may the Lord our mighty and awesome God, bless you all, and thank-you for reading my blog (and for leaving a comment, hint-hint).
Saturday, March 3, 2007
An Overdue Blog
Ok so it has been like 3 weeks since I have made a blog, so I guess that I should put something together to keep my loyal audience reading. Well I had my final exam and everyone in the class passed the test, so that's always good. In fact, everyone passed my class with lowest mark at about 70%. Yeah, I kind of made it easy to pass my class but my class isn't the only class for the program so some students did fail overall, but whatever. After the exam I went to Bangkok for the Ethnos Asia conference, just like I said I was going to in the last e-mail. The conference was very good, and I enjoyed my time with all of the other people. The worship was fun because they let you dance, which is something that I haven't really been able to do since I have been in the camp. Oh and when I was at the conference, God gave me this word to share so I went over to the people that you are suppose to tell that kind of stuff to and told them it. They thought that I should share it, but when the song was finished the worship team just kept playing right into the next song, so they didn't really give a chance for anyone to say anything. It wasn't like they did it on purpose, but it seemed like the opportunity to share the word or whatever you want to call it had passed so I just went and sat down. Anyways, after the worship service the people that I told the word to called me up to share it, even though it seemed like the time to share had passed, so I went up to the front and said it. The word was related to a song that the team had sung, which was "Blessed be the Name of the Lord", by Matt Redman. It was about the last part of the song, I guess you could call it the bridge. Anyways, the part goes,
'You give and take away, You give and take away
My heart will choose to say, "Lord, Blessed be Your Name."'
So what God said about the song, is that He doesn't give goodness and then take it back, and then give some more, so that He could take it back. No He doesn't do that, but He does give and take away though, so the song is still true. He gives life, and takes death. Jesus said that He had come to give life and life more abundantly, and God takes our sins (the wages of which is death) away from us as far as the east is from the west, and places them in His Sea of forgetfulness. He gives goodness and He takes the badness. He gives freedom and takes away bondage. He gives peace and takes anxiety. He gives destiny and takes away hopelessness. He gives love in place of hate. He gives us crowns in place of our shame. He gives the oil of joy for mourning, faith for destitution, a home for the displaced, a family for the orphaned, and He give light in our darkness. He gives Truth for all the lies, and the Himself on the cross for all our sins. He gives and He takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Even when He takes something from us in the physical, He trades it in for something in Heaven, so then you store your treasures up in Heaven where nothing can happen to it, instead of on earth where it can be destroyed. So yeah that was the word that God gave me to share (well something along those lines). After this was coffee break, and people were coming up to me and saying that it was a good word, and that they had liked the song except for the one part at the end, until after I shared the word, and I told them to thank God for the word and not me. Well every good and perfect gift comes from God, so everything good and everything perfect is a gift, and they are from God, so don't thank the messengers, thank the one who sent the message (well I didn't say exactly that but anyways). This was all fine and good, but it wasn't the reason that God got me to share the word even after I went and sat down or why I am putting this story in my blog. So during the coffee break, I was talking with one of the other teachers from the refugee camp and this Irish man taps me on the shoulder and started to say thanks for sharing the word like everyone else. Then he starts saying, "this wee little girl in my church...", and then has to turn around as his eyes start to well up with tears. So I put my coffee down on some table where they were selling stuff, and went over to the man who was now fighting back tears like I am as I write this. Then he begins to tell about this 12 yr old girl from his church that had passed away from cancer that she had in the top of her spine and the bottom of her brain, if I remember correctly. The girl wasn't his daughter, but he is from a pretty small church so yeah. For three years she fought with cancer, since it was in the top of her spine, she ended up being paralyzed from the neck down, and as you can imagine since it was cancer, she was in a lot of pain all the time. On top of all that, where the usual things that comes with cancer and the cancer medication, but despite the immense amount of pain, the cancer wasn't her main concern. He told me that all that the girl really wanted to do and what she was most concerned with was not herself in her painful state, but all of her classmates at school. Despite the cancer and all its symptoms, she wanted and did go to school to tell her classmates that Jesus loved them. All the time that is what she was most worried about. I mean this was a little girl, aged 9-12 when this was happening, having her whole life slowly taken from her and all she wanted to do was go to school to tell her classmates that Jesus loved them. So as often as she could, and whenever she could muster the strength, she would go to school to tell the other students that Jesus loved them, up until the very end of her too-short life. The girl had died only 3 weeks before this man was telling me this. Anyways, the song, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord" was the funeral song for this precious, little girl, and I think the word that I gave meant a little more to this man and his wife than it did to me and everybody else at the conference, and it certainly meant a lot more to me after that. It is not that everybody else shouldn't receive something good out of it, but the word was most definitely for that one Irish couple. So the next time that God tells you to do something and it doesn't seem to fit right or doesn't really look as pretty as you want it to, just do it anyways, because He knows what He's doing, and that should be good enough for us.
So yeah the rest of the conference was really good, and then I went back to camp, hung around there till graduation (March 11th), participated in graduation and then went to Bangkok with Peter and Aleno (both from Nagaland, India). I stayed with them for two days there, and went back to Mae La (the Karen refugee camp) for only one day and, yesterday (Thursday, March 15) I took the bus up to Chiang Mai to visit Bonnie and Ray Emery before they go back to Canada. So I will be in Chiang Mai until Monday and then I will go back to Mae Sot (the town near Mae La), to meet with Pastor Robert (the man who sent me out to the camp in the first place) so he can take me to visit some of the other refugee camps. So this is my blog that tells the story I wanted to share and has very little for what I am actually doing. Well it kind of seems weird to blab on after sharing the story that I have. So may the Lord our God bless you all mightily in the name of Jesus Christ, and thank-you for reading my long overdue blog.
'You give and take away, You give and take away
My heart will choose to say, "Lord, Blessed be Your Name."'
So what God said about the song, is that He doesn't give goodness and then take it back, and then give some more, so that He could take it back. No He doesn't do that, but He does give and take away though, so the song is still true. He gives life, and takes death. Jesus said that He had come to give life and life more abundantly, and God takes our sins (the wages of which is death) away from us as far as the east is from the west, and places them in His Sea of forgetfulness. He gives goodness and He takes the badness. He gives freedom and takes away bondage. He gives peace and takes anxiety. He gives destiny and takes away hopelessness. He gives love in place of hate. He gives us crowns in place of our shame. He gives the oil of joy for mourning, faith for destitution, a home for the displaced, a family for the orphaned, and He give light in our darkness. He gives Truth for all the lies, and the Himself on the cross for all our sins. He gives and He takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Even when He takes something from us in the physical, He trades it in for something in Heaven, so then you store your treasures up in Heaven where nothing can happen to it, instead of on earth where it can be destroyed. So yeah that was the word that God gave me to share (well something along those lines). After this was coffee break, and people were coming up to me and saying that it was a good word, and that they had liked the song except for the one part at the end, until after I shared the word, and I told them to thank God for the word and not me. Well every good and perfect gift comes from God, so everything good and everything perfect is a gift, and they are from God, so don't thank the messengers, thank the one who sent the message (well I didn't say exactly that but anyways). This was all fine and good, but it wasn't the reason that God got me to share the word even after I went and sat down or why I am putting this story in my blog. So during the coffee break, I was talking with one of the other teachers from the refugee camp and this Irish man taps me on the shoulder and started to say thanks for sharing the word like everyone else. Then he starts saying, "this wee little girl in my church...", and then has to turn around as his eyes start to well up with tears. So I put my coffee down on some table where they were selling stuff, and went over to the man who was now fighting back tears like I am as I write this. Then he begins to tell about this 12 yr old girl from his church that had passed away from cancer that she had in the top of her spine and the bottom of her brain, if I remember correctly. The girl wasn't his daughter, but he is from a pretty small church so yeah. For three years she fought with cancer, since it was in the top of her spine, she ended up being paralyzed from the neck down, and as you can imagine since it was cancer, she was in a lot of pain all the time. On top of all that, where the usual things that comes with cancer and the cancer medication, but despite the immense amount of pain, the cancer wasn't her main concern. He told me that all that the girl really wanted to do and what she was most concerned with was not herself in her painful state, but all of her classmates at school. Despite the cancer and all its symptoms, she wanted and did go to school to tell her classmates that Jesus loved them. All the time that is what she was most worried about. I mean this was a little girl, aged 9-12 when this was happening, having her whole life slowly taken from her and all she wanted to do was go to school to tell her classmates that Jesus loved them. So as often as she could, and whenever she could muster the strength, she would go to school to tell the other students that Jesus loved them, up until the very end of her too-short life. The girl had died only 3 weeks before this man was telling me this. Anyways, the song, "Blessed be the Name of the Lord" was the funeral song for this precious, little girl, and I think the word that I gave meant a little more to this man and his wife than it did to me and everybody else at the conference, and it certainly meant a lot more to me after that. It is not that everybody else shouldn't receive something good out of it, but the word was most definitely for that one Irish couple. So the next time that God tells you to do something and it doesn't seem to fit right or doesn't really look as pretty as you want it to, just do it anyways, because He knows what He's doing, and that should be good enough for us.
So yeah the rest of the conference was really good, and then I went back to camp, hung around there till graduation (March 11th), participated in graduation and then went to Bangkok with Peter and Aleno (both from Nagaland, India). I stayed with them for two days there, and went back to Mae La (the Karen refugee camp) for only one day and, yesterday (Thursday, March 15) I took the bus up to Chiang Mai to visit Bonnie and Ray Emery before they go back to Canada. So I will be in Chiang Mai until Monday and then I will go back to Mae Sot (the town near Mae La), to meet with Pastor Robert (the man who sent me out to the camp in the first place) so he can take me to visit some of the other refugee camps. So this is my blog that tells the story I wanted to share and has very little for what I am actually doing. Well it kind of seems weird to blab on after sharing the story that I have. So may the Lord our God bless you all mightily in the name of Jesus Christ, and thank-you for reading my long overdue blog.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The Blog I Don't Have Time For
I will keep this as brief as possible because I don't actually have time to write this. I have been so busy in the last little while that I haven't had time to make a new blog and I don't really have time right now, but I thought I would let everyone know that I am still OK and everything. I climbed two mountains in two days. The first with my entire class, on a class picnic, and the second with only one other Karen so I could take pictures from the top because I forgot the camera the last time I climbed it (we started as five, but one guy didn't have the proper footwear so 2 others went back with him). A team from Canada came to the school that I am staying at, and in fact one of the ladies was from Global Harvest, Helen Gagliano, also known as the 'flagging lady'. So it was nice to meet up with some Canadians, because all of the missionaries that come through here are either from the USA or Korea. Oh and another guy on the team, I had already meet in the summer in Kelowna, when some friends and I went up for the weekend to go camping. Luke is a friend of Liz's (one of the people that I went to Kelowna with), and he works in Teen Challenge in Kelowna, and when we meet we had a really good worship session with him, but I never thought I would see him again. Then to meet up with him in Thailand in a Karen refugee camp, that is almost weird if I didn't know my God any better, but it totally sounds like something that God would do. I love Him (of course for more than His good sense of homour, but it doesn't hurt). Anyways I am almost done teaching as tomorrow is the final exam and is also the reason why I don't really have time to make this blog. Right after the final I am off to Bangkok to meet up with Paul DeGagne and Anthony Chartrand, for a conference with their missions organization. Also the Canadian team that was here, has left to go to the conference as well, so I will know my fair share of people there. It will be for the rest of the week and then next week is to hand in all of my marks, which are updated except for the final and one assignment. Then graduation is on March 11th and then I have no idea what I am going to do till I fly home on the 28th (probably try and visit all the other camps, but we'll see). So this is my blog that I don't have time to write.
Monday, February 19, 2007
I Ran Up a Waterfall, and Walked Out of the Desert.
Pretty interesting title eh? The first part is literal, and the second part is figurative. Anyways I will explain what both mean.
After I recovered from being sick, I started teaching again, and I
don't think I realized what I had done to myself after just missing two days. In the one week, they had a writing exercise, and grammar exercise due, a spelling quiz, and a mid term on the Friday. I had planned ahead and spaced them out to give myself enough time to finish marking each thing before the next day, so I wouldn't get swamped. Then I was sick on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the writing and grammar exercise had to be handed in on the same day, and the spelling quiz also had to be on Thursday. On top of that I didn't even have the mid-term written for the students to take yet. Needless to say
I got swamped the exact way I had planned to avoid being swamped (did I mention that I have 46 students). Well I managed to mark all 40 or so spelling quizzes and finish making up the 6 page midterm, but that kept me up till about 11:00. On Friday I had the 3 hr midterm, and in combination with the other two assignments I had literally just under five inches thick of paper that I had to mark. This is the problem with having 46 students, you have 46 individual items to mark every time you assign something or have a quiz. It is Monday now and I have finally managed to finish marking the midterm after about 20 hrs of work, but I can't say the same about the two assignments. It was a really super cool 
fun time marking the midterm though. Well after such a boring intro I will get to the good stuff that you have been waiting for, and that the title had enticed you into reading.
So I ran up a water fall, and down and then back up, and I stopped at some spots in the middle to splash water at people younger than me. Well they started it (and I ended it). OK a little explanation. Judi Miller and Faith Black have come over to Thailand for a couple weeks after Craig Black (Faith's husband), so this past weekend (yes the one that I had 5 inches of papers to mark), I went to Chiang Mai again to visit them. It was the only time that I would get to see them, plus they had a package to deliver to me from my friends and family back in Canada. There was something from someone else too, but I can't remember who. Oh yeah, my girlfriend
who loves me, Elisa. Anyways... I got there on Friday night and left on Sunday after church, so it was a really quick visit. But it was Saturday that was the day of significance, for it was the day that gives meaning to both parts of the title. On Saturday morning, Bonnie, Ray, Faith, Judi, and I went with all of the women from the House of Hope, or Nuu Rain, and everyone from the BBF orphanage, to a waterfall that is about an hour away from Chiang Mai. We had rented a couple of song taos for the day, and all +40 of us left from BBF, and went with our delicious food to the waterfall. The only thing about this waterfall is that the rock on top is limestone, so after 
the water has eroded it enough, it is like sand paper. Seriously, I was standing in the middle of the crystal clear, warm waterfall, on a +60° incline in the middle of a tropical jungle in +30°C weather in the middle of February as if I was standing on dry, level pavement. Man, Thailand is rough. Well I ran up and down the sand paper waterfall so many times I wore out the finger prints on a couple of my fingers and got a couple of blisters on the bottom of my right foot, one of which opened. Did this slow me down? Well a little bit, but that was just because it was hard to run on the outside part of my foot. 
After being forced to endure such an awesome place that seemed as if we had transferred to the pages of some fantasy novel, my captors made me eat their delicious food, and pressured me into enjoy their pleasant company. I tell you I had been taken by my free will to enjoy such lovely place of God’s awesome creation.
After we had enjoyed running up the sandpaper waterfall, we went back over to BBF and bought some ice cream for everyone. We didn’t stay long because we needed to get some supper, before we headed out on the next part of our arduous journey, a prayer/worship meeting at
the same missionary family’s house that I visited the last time I was in Chiang Mai with Craig, the one with all of the kids. The only difference is that there weren’t as many kids this time. Three of the four boys were off with their dad on a Boy Scout trip, and only the youngest one, Josh (I think) was there. The two young ladies were there too, and their mom, along with two women who were visiting from China. Also, Ray wasn’t feeling very well so he stayed home. Oh and three women who were the neighbors of the family came over to join us too. So as you can see, it was a whole bunch of 
women, me and the youngest son, which doesn’t really mean anything. It was just kinda funny that it was a ladies worship night with Dave and Josh. I guess you could say that this where the walking out of the desert part comes into play, because this is where it comes into play. As Amber (oldest daughter that is in Thailand) and I where finishing up some basketball that we had been playing while we were waiting for the worship to get started, Faith started the worship on the piano. We came in and I grabbed the nearest guitar to join Faith. After that it was just worship song after dancing worship song, after slower worship song. It was great! I mean fantastic, I absolutely loved it, and it was exactly what I was looking for. Anyways, 
the desert part; while we were worshipping Bonnie came over and prayed for me, and said that God wanted to anoint me again or more (she wasn’t sure). It was really quick and to the point, and she wasn’t even sure what God meant, but I knew. I knew the moment she came over to pray for me, it was my ticket out of the desert that I had been in for 4 months. It was such a comforting relief to be out of the dry land of my spiritual walk that I had been in for those 4 long months. I wouldn’t change it though, if I could do it all over again. Maybe I would have let God go further with me instead of be as lazy as I was at some points, or been more diligent about some things like tithing and stuff, but whatever. Thankfully His merciful love endures forever, and His mercy is new every morning and His grace is sufficient. So I will get right next time. Anyways… after we got into the worship, then God lead us to pray for one another, which turned out to be really awesome. When we were praying for the Chinese lady, some one saw that God had given her a brand new set of armor, and another person saw that there was two heavenly figures standing very close on either side right behind her. These were angels from what I could tell, and then God reminded me of 
some scripture that He wanted me to tell her. It was that more important than the angels standing behind her, the glory of the Lord is our rearguard. Also that it is Him who walks where ever she walks, because He will never leave her or forsake her, He will never abandon her or fail her, because of His awesome love for her (this is true with all people who want God to love). I can’t say it was as prophetic as what the others saw but the testimony of Jesus, how much He loves us and what He did for us, is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10).
We also prayed for one of the neighbors, and I can’t remember all of what was said (it was all good), but I remember someone saying that she was walking on a rocky hard path, and God told me to tell her, that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. He is the truth that put her on the path, the light that guides her on the path, and He is the path that she walks on. The Solid Rock of our salvation, the Stone that the builders rejected, that has become the chief corner stone. Jesus doesn’t just light the path He is the path, the Way to God. Well the only other part that I remember of the top of my head is the part where
God wanted me to sing a word that He had for someone. The word was, “no longer your master, but you husband I will be”. So after everyone was there, I sang it like I was suppose to, which I think was a first time singing a word, aside from singing something prophetic in a worship service. Anyways the next day I went to church at the same place we were at 2 weeks before, and ducked out early to catch my bus back to Mae Sot. The next day I came back to Mae La, to find 58 Koreans staying at the school. The entire upstairs is full of make shift beds to accommodate the massive 
influx of people. On top of that there are other foreigners that have come to visit at the same time, and they have had to make room for them as well. I am really glad I to have my own room right now, and since the Koreans are occupying all of my students I am not teaching until after they leave tomorrow. Well that’s all that I have to say so God bless you all mightily and thank you for your prayers and/or for reading my blog.
Pics (top to bottom): A Bunch of People Eating; Me Standing in the Waterfall (some of the girls that I had the water fight with are behind me); Ray making
sure he didn't wreck his watch (it's waterproof/water-resistant till 200 ft); My Opponent (this is the girl that started the waterfight, I don't think she realized what she was getting into); My Angry Look (Faith Black in front of me, some of the BBF girls, and one of the managers of BBF (she is married to Prakit) behind them); The BBF girls (eating lunch); The BBF guys (also eating lunch, there are more than just this); Judi Like Eat Chicken (eating with the ladies and Prakit (the other manager of BBF) who is behind Judi's arm); Getting Ready to Eat (almost everybody that came is in this pic, except me, and Ray who was taking the pic); Mmm... Chickeny (Me, Prakit, and Judi); I Probably Splashed Water Up Her Nose (Some of the girls that I had a water fight with); Do You See How Steep it Is? (Me standing in the middle of the waterfall); Again the Steepness (Faith and me in the background splashing someone with water); Yeah Double Bouncing (on the trampoline at BBF, double bouncing a bunch of girls).
After I recovered from being sick, I started teaching again, and I
don't think I realized what I had done to myself after just missing two days. In the one week, they had a writing exercise, and grammar exercise due, a spelling quiz, and a mid term on the Friday. I had planned ahead and spaced them out to give myself enough time to finish marking each thing before the next day, so I wouldn't get swamped. Then I was sick on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the writing and grammar exercise had to be handed in on the same day, and the spelling quiz also had to be on Thursday. On top of that I didn't even have the mid-term written for the students to take yet. Needless to say
I got swamped the exact way I had planned to avoid being swamped (did I mention that I have 46 students). Well I managed to mark all 40 or so spelling quizzes and finish making up the 6 page midterm, but that kept me up till about 11:00. On Friday I had the 3 hr midterm, and in combination with the other two assignments I had literally just under five inches thick of paper that I had to mark. This is the problem with having 46 students, you have 46 individual items to mark every time you assign something or have a quiz. It is Monday now and I have finally managed to finish marking the midterm after about 20 hrs of work, but I can't say the same about the two assignments. It was a really super cool 
fun time marking the midterm though. Well after such a boring intro I will get to the good stuff that you have been waiting for, and that the title had enticed you into reading.So I ran up a water fall, and down and then back up, and I stopped at some spots in the middle to splash water at people younger than me. Well they started it (and I ended it). OK a little explanation. Judi Miller and Faith Black have come over to Thailand for a couple weeks after Craig Black (Faith's husband), so this past weekend (yes the one that I had 5 inches of papers to mark), I went to Chiang Mai again to visit them. It was the only time that I would get to see them, plus they had a package to deliver to me from my friends and family back in Canada. There was something from someone else too, but I can't remember who. Oh yeah, my girlfriend
who loves me, Elisa. Anyways... I got there on Friday night and left on Sunday after church, so it was a really quick visit. But it was Saturday that was the day of significance, for it was the day that gives meaning to both parts of the title. On Saturday morning, Bonnie, Ray, Faith, Judi, and I went with all of the women from the House of Hope, or Nuu Rain, and everyone from the BBF orphanage, to a waterfall that is about an hour away from Chiang Mai. We had rented a couple of song taos for the day, and all +40 of us left from BBF, and went with our delicious food to the waterfall. The only thing about this waterfall is that the rock on top is limestone, so after 
the water has eroded it enough, it is like sand paper. Seriously, I was standing in the middle of the crystal clear, warm waterfall, on a +60° incline in the middle of a tropical jungle in +30°C weather in the middle of February as if I was standing on dry, level pavement. Man, Thailand is rough. Well I ran up and down the sand paper waterfall so many times I wore out the finger prints on a couple of my fingers and got a couple of blisters on the bottom of my right foot, one of which opened. Did this slow me down? Well a little bit, but that was just because it was hard to run on the outside part of my foot. 
After being forced to endure such an awesome place that seemed as if we had transferred to the pages of some fantasy novel, my captors made me eat their delicious food, and pressured me into enjoy their pleasant company. I tell you I had been taken by my free will to enjoy such lovely place of God’s awesome creation.After we had enjoyed running up the sandpaper waterfall, we went back over to BBF and bought some ice cream for everyone. We didn’t stay long because we needed to get some supper, before we headed out on the next part of our arduous journey, a prayer/worship meeting at
the same missionary family’s house that I visited the last time I was in Chiang Mai with Craig, the one with all of the kids. The only difference is that there weren’t as many kids this time. Three of the four boys were off with their dad on a Boy Scout trip, and only the youngest one, Josh (I think) was there. The two young ladies were there too, and their mom, along with two women who were visiting from China. Also, Ray wasn’t feeling very well so he stayed home. Oh and three women who were the neighbors of the family came over to join us too. So as you can see, it was a whole bunch of 
women, me and the youngest son, which doesn’t really mean anything. It was just kinda funny that it was a ladies worship night with Dave and Josh. I guess you could say that this where the walking out of the desert part comes into play, because this is where it comes into play. As Amber (oldest daughter that is in Thailand) and I where finishing up some basketball that we had been playing while we were waiting for the worship to get started, Faith started the worship on the piano. We came in and I grabbed the nearest guitar to join Faith. After that it was just worship song after dancing worship song, after slower worship song. It was great! I mean fantastic, I absolutely loved it, and it was exactly what I was looking for. Anyways, 
the desert part; while we were worshipping Bonnie came over and prayed for me, and said that God wanted to anoint me again or more (she wasn’t sure). It was really quick and to the point, and she wasn’t even sure what God meant, but I knew. I knew the moment she came over to pray for me, it was my ticket out of the desert that I had been in for 4 months. It was such a comforting relief to be out of the dry land of my spiritual walk that I had been in for those 4 long months. I wouldn’t change it though, if I could do it all over again. Maybe I would have let God go further with me instead of be as lazy as I was at some points, or been more diligent about some things like tithing and stuff, but whatever. Thankfully His merciful love endures forever, and His mercy is new every morning and His grace is sufficient. So I will get right next time. Anyways… after we got into the worship, then God lead us to pray for one another, which turned out to be really awesome. When we were praying for the Chinese lady, some one saw that God had given her a brand new set of armor, and another person saw that there was two heavenly figures standing very close on either side right behind her. These were angels from what I could tell, and then God reminded me of 
some scripture that He wanted me to tell her. It was that more important than the angels standing behind her, the glory of the Lord is our rearguard. Also that it is Him who walks where ever she walks, because He will never leave her or forsake her, He will never abandon her or fail her, because of His awesome love for her (this is true with all people who want God to love). I can’t say it was as prophetic as what the others saw but the testimony of Jesus, how much He loves us and what He did for us, is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10).
We also prayed for one of the neighbors, and I can’t remember all of what was said (it was all good), but I remember someone saying that she was walking on a rocky hard path, and God told me to tell her, that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. He is the truth that put her on the path, the light that guides her on the path, and He is the path that she walks on. The Solid Rock of our salvation, the Stone that the builders rejected, that has become the chief corner stone. Jesus doesn’t just light the path He is the path, the Way to God. Well the only other part that I remember of the top of my head is the part where
God wanted me to sing a word that He had for someone. The word was, “no longer your master, but you husband I will be”. So after everyone was there, I sang it like I was suppose to, which I think was a first time singing a word, aside from singing something prophetic in a worship service. Anyways the next day I went to church at the same place we were at 2 weeks before, and ducked out early to catch my bus back to Mae Sot. The next day I came back to Mae La, to find 58 Koreans staying at the school. The entire upstairs is full of make shift beds to accommodate the massive 
influx of people. On top of that there are other foreigners that have come to visit at the same time, and they have had to make room for them as well. I am really glad I to have my own room right now, and since the Koreans are occupying all of my students I am not teaching until after they leave tomorrow. Well that’s all that I have to say so God bless you all mightily and thank you for your prayers and/or for reading my blog.Pics (top to bottom): A Bunch of People Eating; Me Standing in the Waterfall (some of the girls that I had the water fight with are behind me); Ray making
sure he didn't wreck his watch (it's waterproof/water-resistant till 200 ft); My Opponent (this is the girl that started the waterfight, I don't think she realized what she was getting into); My Angry Look (Faith Black in front of me, some of the BBF girls, and one of the managers of BBF (she is married to Prakit) behind them); The BBF girls (eating lunch); The BBF guys (also eating lunch, there are more than just this); Judi Like Eat Chicken (eating with the ladies and Prakit (the other manager of BBF) who is behind Judi's arm); Getting Ready to Eat (almost everybody that came is in this pic, except me, and Ray who was taking the pic); Mmm... Chickeny (Me, Prakit, and Judi); I Probably Splashed Water Up Her Nose (Some of the girls that I had a water fight with); Do You See How Steep it Is? (Me standing in the middle of the waterfall); Again the Steepness (Faith and me in the background splashing someone with water); Yeah Double Bouncing (on the trampoline at BBF, double bouncing a bunch of girls).
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
A Quick Update
Hello everyone and may God bless you all. This is just a quick update to let everyone know that I am feeling much better. If you received my e-mails then you know that I was sick, and now I am better. Anyways... so it started with some diarrhea, which dehydrated me, and which made me lose of control of my body temperature. Once my temperature was changing quickly, it made me feel nauseous, which of course lead to vomiting, and further dehydration. I asked for some of the Karen to pray for me, which they very diligently did so. One of them actually stayed and prayed at the foot of my bed, kneeling on the hard ground, for at least a half an hour. He stayed until sometime after I feel asleep (which is why I am not sure how long he prayed). Well prayer works, because I woke up a couple hours after all of the Karen prayed for me, and I wasn't sick anymore. I was still dehydrated, and since I was vomiting and didn't sleep that much, I was hungry and tired, but not sick. The next day they took me into Mae Sot, the nearby small city, to a clinic for some rehydration via IV needle, and the doctor gave me some medicine, and sent me on my way. Now I am feeling much better (the next day after the sickness), so praise the Lord for the quick healing. May the Lord, our God of the heavens, who is our daddy, bless you all, and thanks again for reading my blog.
P.S.- I picked up my 'lost' bag from the bus station too, so now all my stuff is together again. The person who was suppose to pick it up for me never did, and didn't say that he wasn't going to, so I thought it was lost.
P.S.- I picked up my 'lost' bag from the bus station too, so now all my stuff is together again. The person who was suppose to pick it up for me never did, and didn't say that he wasn't going to, so I thought it was lost.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Back in Mae La
Well after a week-end long break, I am back in Mae La Karen 
refugee camp doing the same thing I was before I left, teaching English. I was a nice break though, although probably not needed that much, it was good to see some familiar faces and talk to people that speak English as a first language. It isn't that the Karen can't speak it well enough, it is usually them not being able to understand me. Anyways... where did I leave off? Well I did have a good birthday party (on Saturday, Feb 3rd) at the House of Hope with Bonnie and Ray and all of the women that live there. Craig came and so did Avis and Roy, and we had
some banana cake that Bonnie put together, and some ice cream on the side. We bought the banana cakes (banana bread in the shape of a cake) at a grocery store and then when we pulled them out of the box, they were much smaller than we had expected. So there were two cakes instead of the three we thought we would get out of the 6 banana cakes. On Saturday night (the same day as the party), we went into downtown Chiang Mai to go to a walking market, one that Ray and Bonnie had gone to the week earlier. The only flaw in our plan was the fact that they didn't have a walking market this week, because apparently the one they had week earlier was the 
last on for a while. So after our disappointment, we went to a nearby restaurant and had some dessert, and sat around and talked for at least one hour, which made it not so disappointing after all.
The next day (Sunday), we were going to go to the same church that Avis and Roy go to, but took to long getting ready, and we were going to be late, so we (or more accurately Ray) decided that we were just going to go to the Thai speaking church that the women from the House of Hope go to. When we got there the song
service had already begun, and all of the tunes sounded very familiar, and that's because they were of course. They are all English worship songs translated into Thai, which is no problem once you remember what song it is. Besides the language barrier, the worship was really good, and more importantly, lead by God, considering you could feel His presence so strongly. Even in the sermon part of the service, I got something out of the Scriptures that the pastor used, and along with his vivid demonstrations, I understood the just of what he was preaching. Anyways... after that we went out for lunch, to celebrate another birthday, 
perhaps a little more significant than mine, Roy's 60th, on his actually birthday as opposed to mine being two days early. We had a good time at the restaurant with the Rideout (I hope that's spelled right) family and it was even quite anointed conversation, talking about being vessels of God's glory, and how He is always with us.
After lunch, I went with Craig, Ray and Bonnie over to a missionary
family's house and we talked with the father and his mid-twenties aged son, who recently went to China on a missions trip for a bit before we headed out for are actual destination, which was another missionary family's house further out of town. They are a family of 9, with 3 daughters, 4 sons and of course the parents to make 9. They are a very friendly family, so friendly in fact that they almost overwhelm you (if they are reading this, I am just messing around). Well they might overwhelm a normal person, but not me of course (yeah I am so humble sometimes, its amazing; "I really take pride in that" (quote from Josh Clark joking around about the same thing)). 
Anyways... back to the story. So yeah the friendly family; while after question and answer period, the wanted to give me the 5 cent tour of their place, so I decided to indulge them (j/k). On the tour, I noticed with my very observant eyes, that they had alot of guitars lying around, and I mean alot for even a family of 9; too many for someone in the family not to like playing them. While of course my keen observation and initial assessment was indubitably correct, as the three oldest ones that were there (the oldest daughter, age 21, is in America 
doing stuff (yeah I forgot what exactly, but whatever)), all played guitar, and the second oldest daughter also writes songs, which were very nice, I enjoyed listening with my very good-at-listening little ears (pardon the silliness, but I think that I am into over tired). Well the main point about this story of the missionary family of 9, was that when we started getting into the guitar playing, we started getting into the worship, and when we started going there it made my whole trip to Chiang Mai more than worth it (visiting with Ray, Bonnie and Craig was good enough to justify the not really needed that much break). Man it was really good worship,
and if you know me ("can I say something", the people at Global that know me, knows what that means), than this also lead to really good, or should I say anointed conversation and then more worship (and if you don't really know me than I am not trying to be arrogant or showy or am joking around). The finale was a spontaneous worship session, and I loved it, it was totally what I needed (OK maybe I did need the break); even the adults came and joined us for a bit. After the spontaneous worship bit, we went and joined everyone else in the dinning room area 
for a couple more songs, and some Thai checkers (your king basically can more anywhere and do anything). After we were sang off, we got back late and went to bed.
On Monday (the next day) I went back to Mae Sot, but I got back too late to catch the line bus out to Mae La, so I slept over at Sean’s house and took the line bus back early Tuesday morning. When I arrived, I found that my class was already occupied by an Australian and his team, and all their power tools, who were building musical instruments from
industrial materials (like car rim bells). This meant my class got cancelled for Tuesday, but the only thing was, they were going to be there for a couple of weeks, so we couldn’t just cancel classes for the whole time. After I moved the class upstairs from the other classes, teaching English resumed as normal. Click on the pic to the right to read an extra story.
The rest of the week was pretty basic, except for Friday, when I went to Mae Sot to get my box that Bonnie and Ray had sent a couple of weeks earlier. The only result of this trip, after an hour of trying to explain my question was the location of my bag. Of course the office
that it was in was closed until Monday or later that night. The only problem with waiting until it opened at 5:00pm was that the last line bus to Mae La leaves at 4:00pm, and I would have to stay in Mae Sot, and since I didn’t know if Sean was in town or not, I came back empty handed.
On Saturday I went with the Australian, his Korean companion, and three men from the camp, to follow the nearby stream to the mountain, and then go into the caves where the stream goes under the entire mountain. Well we went to the source, and went in some caves, but we didn’t go in the stream all the way under
mountain because everyone besides me and the Australian didn’t want to and didn’t think it was a good idea. So after an hour of cave exploration in an extremely hot cave we decided to climb the mountain instead. It took and hour or so to get to the top (only a smaller side peak) and we had a picnic on the top. It was a really cool mountain, or I guess it is a volcano, because the entire top half (well probably the whole thing, just more protruding near the top) was made out of jagged, solid, volcanic rock, and made the rock climbing part pretty 
easy (except it cut my hands up pretty good, well only skin deep). It was an awesome view from the top. We could see all of Mae La camp on one side and all the way into Burma on the other. The only problem was that since we were originally going into water-filled caves under the mountain, the only person that brought a camera was the Korean because it wasn’t his. Yeah and he forgot to charge it so we didn’t get very many pictures. Oh well, next time we will just plan for climbing the mountain instead, and I will bring my camera. When we had our little picnic, and drum session with bamboo cups, we hiked back down. Well it was easier going up then climbing back down, because by this point my legs were kinda jellyish, and we ran out of water, so we were all a little dehydrated, but it was cool anyway. Yeah and now its Sunday and I'm making this much overdue blog which makes it incredibly longer than nessecary. I think incredibly long blogs have become habit. Oh well, at least you will all be well informed, and then not need to ask a whole bunch of questions when I get back (as if that is going to happen, it will probably generate more questions).
Pics (top to bottom again): Happy Birthday to Me (left to right: the legs of Nuu, two woman from the House of Hope, Tee, a couple more women from the house that I can't remember the names for, Avis, Bonnie, and me laughing at something Craig or Ray said); The Men from Canada (sitting in front of the restaurant that we ate at on Friday, Feb 2, left to right, Craig Black, myself, and Ray Emery (Bonnie almost got hit by a car as she kept backing up into the street to take the photo)); The Party of the Century (sitting around the table talking and eating Bonnie's delicious cake, left to right, Craig, Ray, me getting bored of my picture being taken, and Roy); A Rotti Stand (with good ole fashioned East Indian rotti (my new favourite dessert) being made); The New Ladies (the three new ladies to the House of Hope); A Secluded Corner (Ray and Bonita's outdoor coffee corner); Translating in My Head (trying to remember the words of the song, left to right, myself, our translator, Bonnie, Tee, and the rest of the congregation); Blowing Out 60 Years Worth of Candles (left to right, Avis and Roy); Worship in Thai (the worship leaders at the church that we attended on the 4th); Playing With the Fish (the daughters of some people visiting Ray and Bonnie, left to right, I can't remember right now); My Extra Little Story (click on the picture to read it); I love bad English (where this picture was taken, was where the walking night market was suppose to start); The Not as New Women from the House of Hope (left to right, the manager of the house, the three ladies from the house and Bonnie); My Banana Cakes (freshly made and ready to eat, left to right, I call that one Vanilla Coated and the other Chocolate Outside); View From the Top (the pic isn't here yet, but hopefully it will be soon).
Note: There are more pics coming (like from on top of the mountain), I am just experiencing technical difficulties.
refugee camp doing the same thing I was before I left, teaching English. I was a nice break though, although probably not needed that much, it was good to see some familiar faces and talk to people that speak English as a first language. It isn't that the Karen can't speak it well enough, it is usually them not being able to understand me. Anyways... where did I leave off? Well I did have a good birthday party (on Saturday, Feb 3rd) at the House of Hope with Bonnie and Ray and all of the women that live there. Craig came and so did Avis and Roy, and we had
some banana cake that Bonnie put together, and some ice cream on the side. We bought the banana cakes (banana bread in the shape of a cake) at a grocery store and then when we pulled them out of the box, they were much smaller than we had expected. So there were two cakes instead of the three we thought we would get out of the 6 banana cakes. On Saturday night (the same day as the party), we went into downtown Chiang Mai to go to a walking market, one that Ray and Bonnie had gone to the week earlier. The only flaw in our plan was the fact that they didn't have a walking market this week, because apparently the one they had week earlier was the 
last on for a while. So after our disappointment, we went to a nearby restaurant and had some dessert, and sat around and talked for at least one hour, which made it not so disappointing after all.The next day (Sunday), we were going to go to the same church that Avis and Roy go to, but took to long getting ready, and we were going to be late, so we (or more accurately Ray) decided that we were just going to go to the Thai speaking church that the women from the House of Hope go to. When we got there the song
service had already begun, and all of the tunes sounded very familiar, and that's because they were of course. They are all English worship songs translated into Thai, which is no problem once you remember what song it is. Besides the language barrier, the worship was really good, and more importantly, lead by God, considering you could feel His presence so strongly. Even in the sermon part of the service, I got something out of the Scriptures that the pastor used, and along with his vivid demonstrations, I understood the just of what he was preaching. Anyways... after that we went out for lunch, to celebrate another birthday, 
perhaps a little more significant than mine, Roy's 60th, on his actually birthday as opposed to mine being two days early. We had a good time at the restaurant with the Rideout (I hope that's spelled right) family and it was even quite anointed conversation, talking about being vessels of God's glory, and how He is always with us.After lunch, I went with Craig, Ray and Bonnie over to a missionary
family's house and we talked with the father and his mid-twenties aged son, who recently went to China on a missions trip for a bit before we headed out for are actual destination, which was another missionary family's house further out of town. They are a family of 9, with 3 daughters, 4 sons and of course the parents to make 9. They are a very friendly family, so friendly in fact that they almost overwhelm you (if they are reading this, I am just messing around). Well they might overwhelm a normal person, but not me of course (yeah I am so humble sometimes, its amazing; "I really take pride in that" (quote from Josh Clark joking around about the same thing)). 
Anyways... back to the story. So yeah the friendly family; while after question and answer period, the wanted to give me the 5 cent tour of their place, so I decided to indulge them (j/k). On the tour, I noticed with my very observant eyes, that they had alot of guitars lying around, and I mean alot for even a family of 9; too many for someone in the family not to like playing them. While of course my keen observation and initial assessment was indubitably correct, as the three oldest ones that were there (the oldest daughter, age 21, is in America 
doing stuff (yeah I forgot what exactly, but whatever)), all played guitar, and the second oldest daughter also writes songs, which were very nice, I enjoyed listening with my very good-at-listening little ears (pardon the silliness, but I think that I am into over tired). Well the main point about this story of the missionary family of 9, was that when we started getting into the guitar playing, we started getting into the worship, and when we started going there it made my whole trip to Chiang Mai more than worth it (visiting with Ray, Bonnie and Craig was good enough to justify the not really needed that much break). Man it was really good worship,
and if you know me ("can I say something", the people at Global that know me, knows what that means), than this also lead to really good, or should I say anointed conversation and then more worship (and if you don't really know me than I am not trying to be arrogant or showy or am joking around). The finale was a spontaneous worship session, and I loved it, it was totally what I needed (OK maybe I did need the break); even the adults came and joined us for a bit. After the spontaneous worship bit, we went and joined everyone else in the dinning room area 
for a couple more songs, and some Thai checkers (your king basically can more anywhere and do anything). After we were sang off, we got back late and went to bed.On Monday (the next day) I went back to Mae Sot, but I got back too late to catch the line bus out to Mae La, so I slept over at Sean’s house and took the line bus back early Tuesday morning. When I arrived, I found that my class was already occupied by an Australian and his team, and all their power tools, who were building musical instruments from
industrial materials (like car rim bells). This meant my class got cancelled for Tuesday, but the only thing was, they were going to be there for a couple of weeks, so we couldn’t just cancel classes for the whole time. After I moved the class upstairs from the other classes, teaching English resumed as normal. Click on the pic to the right to read an extra story.The rest of the week was pretty basic, except for Friday, when I went to Mae Sot to get my box that Bonnie and Ray had sent a couple of weeks earlier. The only result of this trip, after an hour of trying to explain my question was the location of my bag. Of course the office
that it was in was closed until Monday or later that night. The only problem with waiting until it opened at 5:00pm was that the last line bus to Mae La leaves at 4:00pm, and I would have to stay in Mae Sot, and since I didn’t know if Sean was in town or not, I came back empty handed.On Saturday I went with the Australian, his Korean companion, and three men from the camp, to follow the nearby stream to the mountain, and then go into the caves where the stream goes under the entire mountain. Well we went to the source, and went in some caves, but we didn’t go in the stream all the way under
mountain because everyone besides me and the Australian didn’t want to and didn’t think it was a good idea. So after an hour of cave exploration in an extremely hot cave we decided to climb the mountain instead. It took and hour or so to get to the top (only a smaller side peak) and we had a picnic on the top. It was a really cool mountain, or I guess it is a volcano, because the entire top half (well probably the whole thing, just more protruding near the top) was made out of jagged, solid, volcanic rock, and made the rock climbing part pretty 
easy (except it cut my hands up pretty good, well only skin deep). It was an awesome view from the top. We could see all of Mae La camp on one side and all the way into Burma on the other. The only problem was that since we were originally going into water-filled caves under the mountain, the only person that brought a camera was the Korean because it wasn’t his. Yeah and he forgot to charge it so we didn’t get very many pictures. Oh well, next time we will just plan for climbing the mountain instead, and I will bring my camera. When we had our little picnic, and drum session with bamboo cups, we hiked back down. Well it was easier going up then climbing back down, because by this point my legs were kinda jellyish, and we ran out of water, so we were all a little dehydrated, but it was cool anyway. Yeah and now its Sunday and I'm making this much overdue blog which makes it incredibly longer than nessecary. I think incredibly long blogs have become habit. Oh well, at least you will all be well informed, and then not need to ask a whole bunch of questions when I get back (as if that is going to happen, it will probably generate more questions).Pics (top to bottom again): Happy Birthday to Me (left to right: the legs of Nuu, two woman from the House of Hope, Tee, a couple more women from the house that I can't remember the names for, Avis, Bonnie, and me laughing at something Craig or Ray said); The Men from Canada (sitting in front of the restaurant that we ate at on Friday, Feb 2, left to right, Craig Black, myself, and Ray Emery (Bonnie almost got hit by a car as she kept backing up into the street to take the photo)); The Party of the Century (sitting around the table talking and eating Bonnie's delicious cake, left to right, Craig, Ray, me getting bored of my picture being taken, and Roy); A Rotti Stand (with good ole fashioned East Indian rotti (my new favourite dessert) being made); The New Ladies (the three new ladies to the House of Hope); A Secluded Corner (Ray and Bonita's outdoor coffee corner); Translating in My Head (trying to remember the words of the song, left to right, myself, our translator, Bonnie, Tee, and the rest of the congregation); Blowing Out 60 Years Worth of Candles (left to right, Avis and Roy); Worship in Thai (the worship leaders at the church that we attended on the 4th); Playing With the Fish (the daughters of some people visiting Ray and Bonnie, left to right, I can't remember right now); My Extra Little Story (click on the picture to read it); I love bad English (where this picture was taken, was where the walking night market was suppose to start); The Not as New Women from the House of Hope (left to right, the manager of the house, the three ladies from the house and Bonnie); My Banana Cakes (freshly made and ready to eat, left to right, I call that one Vanilla Coated and the other Chocolate Outside); View From the Top (the pic isn't here yet, but hopefully it will be soon).
Note: There are more pics coming (like from on top of the mountain), I am just experiencing technical difficulties.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Update from Chiang Mai
I am not sure if what I have said in this blog makes any sense, because it is late here and I am tired.
Well it has been a while since the last blog, mostly because it took so long to upload the pics so I thought that I would make another one for my loyal readers (and for the not so loyal ones too). Now where did I leave off. Oh yeah, about it being hard to live in the camp, because I didn't know anybody, and didn't feel connected to God or the church. While I think it was the next day, that I realized that it was all true about God being there, even though I didn't feel Him, and I remembered something (probably it was God who reminded me) that I have told people in the past, that we walk be faith and not by sight, but we also walk by faith and not by feeling. We shouldn't make our spiritual decisions on what we feel like or don't really feel like, but on what we believe. "I don't feel like worshipping", "I don't feel like listening or obeying", "learning patience takes too long". If this is how (and I am not trying to make accusation or anything) we always reacted everytime that we are even slightly attacked, then I don't think much would be accomplished for the Lord. We must perserve, and doing all that we can to stand, just stand for what God wants us to take a stand for, and He will come through for us and He will show Himself to be faithful yet again. So basically, I decided that it was true I was being discouraged, but then I took the example of King David, when he encouraged himself in the Lord, and decided to swing the sword that I had, and to stand up and take back my inheritance and heritage that the Lord my Daddy has given to me, and to stop it from being taken any further. Now of couse this is with the strength that my God has given me, and it is my God that tied up the strong man satan, to enable me to ransack the enemy's house, but I just decided to finally let my God lead me. So I no longer feel like I am distant from God, because feeling close and actually being close are not necessarily the same thing and when I truly believe that I am close to Him (because I was the whole time), or more importantly, that He is close to me, feeling close soon follows after. Yeah so I'm good I guess you could say.
Oh, funny little story. Yeah so after I got back on track, or everything worked out with God, everything was going great. Then on Tuesday, an American woman came to visit Mae La camp, and wanted a tour of the camp to see what it was like, because she was coming back next year to work in the camp. So since everyone else was busy and I knew quite a bit about the camp already, I volunteered to be her tour guide. So I took her to the market and we got some really good, and really cheap rotti (a East Indian desert thing, that the Muslims make), and walked all the way to the end of the market to look at the brand new trucks the Karen Muslim refugee shop owners have. After that I took her up the windy confusing path to Lae Htee's house, so she could see what a refugee house looks like. When she had talked with Lae Htee and his family for a bit, we were off to see another college (we started in a college) that is right against the mountain and gives a good view of the rest of the camp. See the only weird thing was, that she would always walk a couple steps behind me, even when it was a wide path. I thought that maybe I was walking a bit fast or something, because she was wearing flip-flops, so they are harder to walk in and probably not the best thing for windy, uphill, dirt paths. So I tried walking slower but she still would walk behind me, so I asked if I was going to fast for her but she said that is was fine. This was kinda weird, but doesn't mean anything until, I kept seeing her checking me out every time I looked back at her. At first, I thought nothing of it, and when it was every time I looked back, I started to get suspicious. Then when I looked sorta looked back, but more at what seemed from her perspective to be the mountain, and saw her basically staring at my rear-end, I kinda knew it was coincidence anymore. And when we were at Lae Htee's house (before I saw her staring), she said kinda out of nowhere how impressive it was that I could find my way back to Lae Htee's house and how good of a tour guide I was being, and other weird things like that. Again, I thought that this was a little weird but thought that I shouldn't be so judgemental, so I brushed it off. Then when we were going up to the other college, where there is less people than in the market, (this is when I caught the staring) she started hitting on me, and complimenting me, and I am not talking about a little flirting, or a nice comment or something. I mean, out of the way compliments, and totally obvious flirting (so obvious that she was flirting, some of the stuff she said didn't even make sense). This is when I started wondering why I would ignore such obvious warning signs. I mean I can't really blame her, considering I never told her that I have a girlfriend (it never came up in conversation) in the five minutes that we talked before we started our tour of the camp. It also would seem like such a burn/insult to bring up at this point, so I just started walking faster, and if she wanted to get out of the camp, then she would have to stop talking and start walking. Well she kept up and cut back on the flirting, so that was good, but of course, after returning from the college (we where almost there when she started the flirting) she suggested that maybe we could go to the actual mountain, which was only 150 m away, and which there are absolutely no other people, because we could probably get a better view. Yeah she said it, 'to get a better view', because that is exactly what she meant. A better view behind some trees, where no one else is, far up the mountain. I kinda just stood there, and was a little freaked out, and suggested that we better get back because you are not allowed in the zone of the camp that we were in after 3:00pm, so we wouldn't have time to explore the mountain. It was only 1:00pm, and the mountain was right there, so we would have had plenty of time to 'get a better view', but I kindly declined, still a little freaked that it was actually happening to me. Stupid satan, right after I fight through a little oppression, there is some temptation right in front of me. The battle seems never ending, but thankfully it belongs to the Lord. Well I basically b-lined it (went straight back) to the college again and sorta avoided her for the rest of her stay. Praise God I made it through that one.
Well here is a little update on what I have, am, and am going to do in the next little while. Last Friday (Jan 26) I preached about worship and what it is, at the college that I took the American girl to, and taught them most of the song, "How Great is Our God", all except the last part because I ran out of room on the board. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Mae Sot, taught English on Monday and Tuesday, in both the college and at the camp office. Wednesday is a Karen statutory holiday (Karen Resistance/Revolution Day), so no school, and this is the same day that the American woman went back to Mae Sot (only one day). I also checked my e-mail on Wednesday, and found out that Craig Black, a good friend of the family, is in Thailand, and that he wanted to see me, so I e-mailed him back, and today, Thursday, I took the bus up to Chiang Mai to visit him. Oh and guess who was on the bus, the American who had been hitting on me two days earlier. They also had assigned seating on the bus and she was seated right behind me. The really messed up part is she told me that she was going to Chiang Mai, next week, and I never knew I was going until after she left, but then she must have changed her mind, and then she was sitting behind me. Anywho... tomorrow, Ray, Bonnie and I are going to Craig's place, to have dinner and watch a movie. Saturday, Craig is taking me out to a buffet for my birthday (maybe), and right after, Bonnie and Ray are having a party for me at House of Hope with the women that stay there, and some other people that they know. Sunday is when I go back to Mae La, and then on Monday, when it is my birthday, Lae Htee and his family are going to through a party for me, and I think that the school might be doing something too, but that is still suppose to be a secret. Lae Htee's mom has even made a tribal skirt thing (think kilt), and has arranged for a matching tribal shirt, backpack type of bag, and head band to be made from scratch for me, all for my birthday. I think that I will pay for most of it because that is a little expensive for them (I know they are giving the skirt thing to me, but I am not sure about the rest), especially since they hardly know me but hey whatever. Thank God for His favour that He has given me with the Karen. Well this blog is longer than I intended but hey, I hope that you have enjoyed it.
So blessings on you all, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, and please continue to pray for me, and thank-you for your prayers that you have already given for me. As you can see, your prayers are very important. Thank-you for the time that you spent reading my blog.
No pics, sorry.
Well it has been a while since the last blog, mostly because it took so long to upload the pics so I thought that I would make another one for my loyal readers (and for the not so loyal ones too). Now where did I leave off. Oh yeah, about it being hard to live in the camp, because I didn't know anybody, and didn't feel connected to God or the church. While I think it was the next day, that I realized that it was all true about God being there, even though I didn't feel Him, and I remembered something (probably it was God who reminded me) that I have told people in the past, that we walk be faith and not by sight, but we also walk by faith and not by feeling. We shouldn't make our spiritual decisions on what we feel like or don't really feel like, but on what we believe. "I don't feel like worshipping", "I don't feel like listening or obeying", "learning patience takes too long". If this is how (and I am not trying to make accusation or anything) we always reacted everytime that we are even slightly attacked, then I don't think much would be accomplished for the Lord. We must perserve, and doing all that we can to stand, just stand for what God wants us to take a stand for, and He will come through for us and He will show Himself to be faithful yet again. So basically, I decided that it was true I was being discouraged, but then I took the example of King David, when he encouraged himself in the Lord, and decided to swing the sword that I had, and to stand up and take back my inheritance and heritage that the Lord my Daddy has given to me, and to stop it from being taken any further. Now of couse this is with the strength that my God has given me, and it is my God that tied up the strong man satan, to enable me to ransack the enemy's house, but I just decided to finally let my God lead me. So I no longer feel like I am distant from God, because feeling close and actually being close are not necessarily the same thing and when I truly believe that I am close to Him (because I was the whole time), or more importantly, that He is close to me, feeling close soon follows after. Yeah so I'm good I guess you could say.
Oh, funny little story. Yeah so after I got back on track, or everything worked out with God, everything was going great. Then on Tuesday, an American woman came to visit Mae La camp, and wanted a tour of the camp to see what it was like, because she was coming back next year to work in the camp. So since everyone else was busy and I knew quite a bit about the camp already, I volunteered to be her tour guide. So I took her to the market and we got some really good, and really cheap rotti (a East Indian desert thing, that the Muslims make), and walked all the way to the end of the market to look at the brand new trucks the Karen Muslim refugee shop owners have. After that I took her up the windy confusing path to Lae Htee's house, so she could see what a refugee house looks like. When she had talked with Lae Htee and his family for a bit, we were off to see another college (we started in a college) that is right against the mountain and gives a good view of the rest of the camp. See the only weird thing was, that she would always walk a couple steps behind me, even when it was a wide path. I thought that maybe I was walking a bit fast or something, because she was wearing flip-flops, so they are harder to walk in and probably not the best thing for windy, uphill, dirt paths. So I tried walking slower but she still would walk behind me, so I asked if I was going to fast for her but she said that is was fine. This was kinda weird, but doesn't mean anything until, I kept seeing her checking me out every time I looked back at her. At first, I thought nothing of it, and when it was every time I looked back, I started to get suspicious. Then when I looked sorta looked back, but more at what seemed from her perspective to be the mountain, and saw her basically staring at my rear-end, I kinda knew it was coincidence anymore. And when we were at Lae Htee's house (before I saw her staring), she said kinda out of nowhere how impressive it was that I could find my way back to Lae Htee's house and how good of a tour guide I was being, and other weird things like that. Again, I thought that this was a little weird but thought that I shouldn't be so judgemental, so I brushed it off. Then when we were going up to the other college, where there is less people than in the market, (this is when I caught the staring) she started hitting on me, and complimenting me, and I am not talking about a little flirting, or a nice comment or something. I mean, out of the way compliments, and totally obvious flirting (so obvious that she was flirting, some of the stuff she said didn't even make sense). This is when I started wondering why I would ignore such obvious warning signs. I mean I can't really blame her, considering I never told her that I have a girlfriend (it never came up in conversation) in the five minutes that we talked before we started our tour of the camp. It also would seem like such a burn/insult to bring up at this point, so I just started walking faster, and if she wanted to get out of the camp, then she would have to stop talking and start walking. Well she kept up and cut back on the flirting, so that was good, but of course, after returning from the college (we where almost there when she started the flirting) she suggested that maybe we could go to the actual mountain, which was only 150 m away, and which there are absolutely no other people, because we could probably get a better view. Yeah she said it, 'to get a better view', because that is exactly what she meant. A better view behind some trees, where no one else is, far up the mountain. I kinda just stood there, and was a little freaked out, and suggested that we better get back because you are not allowed in the zone of the camp that we were in after 3:00pm, so we wouldn't have time to explore the mountain. It was only 1:00pm, and the mountain was right there, so we would have had plenty of time to 'get a better view', but I kindly declined, still a little freaked that it was actually happening to me. Stupid satan, right after I fight through a little oppression, there is some temptation right in front of me. The battle seems never ending, but thankfully it belongs to the Lord. Well I basically b-lined it (went straight back) to the college again and sorta avoided her for the rest of her stay. Praise God I made it through that one.
Well here is a little update on what I have, am, and am going to do in the next little while. Last Friday (Jan 26) I preached about worship and what it is, at the college that I took the American girl to, and taught them most of the song, "How Great is Our God", all except the last part because I ran out of room on the board. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Mae Sot, taught English on Monday and Tuesday, in both the college and at the camp office. Wednesday is a Karen statutory holiday (Karen Resistance/Revolution Day), so no school, and this is the same day that the American woman went back to Mae Sot (only one day). I also checked my e-mail on Wednesday, and found out that Craig Black, a good friend of the family, is in Thailand, and that he wanted to see me, so I e-mailed him back, and today, Thursday, I took the bus up to Chiang Mai to visit him. Oh and guess who was on the bus, the American who had been hitting on me two days earlier. They also had assigned seating on the bus and she was seated right behind me. The really messed up part is she told me that she was going to Chiang Mai, next week, and I never knew I was going until after she left, but then she must have changed her mind, and then she was sitting behind me. Anywho... tomorrow, Ray, Bonnie and I are going to Craig's place, to have dinner and watch a movie. Saturday, Craig is taking me out to a buffet for my birthday (maybe), and right after, Bonnie and Ray are having a party for me at House of Hope with the women that stay there, and some other people that they know. Sunday is when I go back to Mae La, and then on Monday, when it is my birthday, Lae Htee and his family are going to through a party for me, and I think that the school might be doing something too, but that is still suppose to be a secret. Lae Htee's mom has even made a tribal skirt thing (think kilt), and has arranged for a matching tribal shirt, backpack type of bag, and head band to be made from scratch for me, all for my birthday. I think that I will pay for most of it because that is a little expensive for them (I know they are giving the skirt thing to me, but I am not sure about the rest), especially since they hardly know me but hey whatever. Thank God for His favour that He has given me with the Karen. Well this blog is longer than I intended but hey, I hope that you have enjoyed it.
So blessings on you all, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, and please continue to pray for me, and thank-you for your prayers that you have already given for me. As you can see, your prayers are very important. Thank-you for the time that you spent reading my blog.
No pics, sorry.
Monday, January 22, 2007
I went to Myanmar (Burma)
I am sorry but this is a ridiculously long blog, but a lot has happened lately, so I hope that it is not too long for you to enjoy.
It has been one week since my last blog (well plus two days now that I had to take a break to finish it), and a little bit more than that since I started teaching at the KKBBSC (read the last blog to find out what that means) and I have still not taught at the camp office yet, although I have finally been able to speak with them. So I will be teaching at the office Monday-Thursday, at 6-8pm (3-5am on the same day in Vancouver), starting next week. Teaching at the KKBBSC hasn't been that bad so far, but considering English, especially grammar and all the other boring parts, was my least favourite subject in school, and that is exactly what I am teaching now, lets just say I grin and bear it. The students on the other hand, are much less reluctant to participate in the activities than students in Canada are, specifically when it comes to singing. The Karen love to sing, they sing all the
time, even when I am teaching vocabulary, so I thought that I would teach them worship songs in English. It has gone quite well, considering the songs that I have taught them have become favourites in the school already. I taught them a couple songs that I had memorized, considering I don't have any of my music here, which were "I'm Trading my Sorrows" and "Days of Elijah". Lah Htee, had lent me a music book which has 20-30 songs in it with the chords, so I taught them another song out of that book, which was "How Great is Our God". I think that singing is their preferred way of learning English. Anyways... enough about school.
On Friday I left the camp, and went to Mae Sot (sometimes spelled Maesod if you are trying to Google it) to do my laundry, and to get some
supplies. So Sean and I received a ride from Dr. Simon, to Sean's house (he rents from a mission organization in the USA), and that night we dropped our clothes off at the laundry mat, and then had some Western food (no rice) at Krua Canadian Steakhouse and Grill (its called something like that). After we picked up our laundry, we went back to his house and basically did nothing for the rest of the evening. Oh yeah, they think that dryers are a waste of money so you still have to hang dry everything. The next day we spent shopping, buying all of the supplies that we had come into town for, and caught the last line bus, or song tao in Thai, back to the camp at 4:30. We were supposed to be back earlier because on Sunday, the next day, we were going to a Christian thanksgiving/funeral ceremony in Burma (to honour the former general and leader of the Karen and to thank God for the previous year), and they might of
been leaving on Saturday to go. When we were in Mae Sot, we had called back to the camp to make sure Lah Htee and the others hadn't left yet, and since Dr. Simon hadn't seen Lah Htee in a while he told us that they must of left already. When we got back to the camp with our laundry and newly bought belongings we were greeted by Lah Htee himself, which brought the confusion to and end.
On Sunday we got up at 6:30 am to wait until 9:00am for our ride to Burma. When it finally arrived, all 18 of us (making 19 with the driver) piled into a small pick-up and we headed north for about an hour to where the thanksgiving ceremony was being held. We had to park the truck and walk about a half a km to the Thai-Burmese border river, and then cross by boat into Burma. Once on the other side, we walked by a group of armed Karen soldiers and
then we climbed up the dirt path, past another group of soldiers to an open field, that has a backdrop of jungle mountains. At the top, where the path comes out, if you turn to the right, that is where the late general lays, and to the left about 200 meters, is where the funeral service was being held. Straight ahead about 150 meters is a grouping of raised huts, where some of the villagers live, and where we ate lunch and supper. So we went to the service, which was in Karen, but almost the whole thing was translated into English as well. After we participated in the first part of the service (there was about 200-300 people there, mostly Karen but from all over the world as well), the thanksgiving part, we ducked out early to go and have lunch, well they continued with telling stories about the general in Karen only.
After lunch someone came and told us that our
river back into Burma and visit with some of the villagers, and couple of students went with them, where as I decided to to take a nap in the hut. driver had already left and had taken other people back to the camp, but that he would be back. This gave us the opportunity to take some pictures of the village, some soldiers and the burial hut of the former general (he is buried above ground and his casket is surround in cement). After the photo op, we crossed back over the river to find out that we missed our ride already, but that he would return for us, which meant another two hours of waiting. It wasn't that bad because some nearby Thai farmers let us sit in their hut while we waited. Most of the students decided to stay by the road, while a handful of others accepted the decision. Sean and Lah Htee choose to cross the After a 30-40 min power nap, I got up and crossed back over the river to see what Sean and Lah Htee were up to. This is where we had
supper, and I couldn't have been over there for more than 20 min when we decided to go back to Thailand to wait for our ride to come (so a total of 30 min, with walking and crossing the river both ways). When we got back, the students told us that we had already missed our ride, and that he wasn't coming back this time, so we where going to have to get a ride with someone else. So in a hour and ten minutes at most, our driver had gone to Mae La, come back to the border crossing, and left again. So what did we do? You guessed it, we waited some more. Finally an empty truck came that was going the right way, after 5 hours of waiting. The funny thing was, that the driver didn't really know how to drive too well beyond steering, and he wasn't that good at it either. For example, he would be changing into 5th gear at about 45km/h, and he wasn't to sure how to get it into 4x4 wheel drive either. Needless to say it
made for a long trip, considering we topped out at 70km/h, it doubled the length of time to get back, not including stops, of which we made two. The first stop was to get some gas, but the driver happened to know some of the guys that worked there and sat around talking for a couple of minutes, which was fine except for the fact that we had just waited 5 hrs for this ride and he was driving slow. So yeah I was getting a little impatient.
Well this is where everything got a little more exciting than I had bargained for. After about a half an hour back on the road, we got stopped at a Thai military check point, and the Thai's told him to pull ahead and park the truck. The driver got out and I couldn't really see much of what happened, as we sat and waited for another 40 min, a little more patient, and a little more tense this time. Lah Thee sat beside me in the front
seat, and had his head leaning out the driver side window to hear what they were saying. He can understand Thai, and every once and a while he would tell me things, but wouldn't acknowledge my questions, like "he has inconsistent answers", "they tied him up", "they beat him", and finally "they are going to kill him by slitting his throat". So meanwhile, I am thinking that Lah Htee is talking about our driver, but he is talking about another man that the Thai's arrested before we got there. The other man, had been giving inconsistent answers to the Thai's, but I don't know how much they really knew, because the reason that our truck got pulled over was because the Thai's knew our driver and wanted him to translate Thai to Karen, so they could question the man. This makes me wonder if the young man even knew what they were saying, and how exactly they determined he was giving inconsistent answers ("Where are
you from?", he replies,"Banana." Again they ask, "Where are you from?", with a reply of, "Purple". So then the Thai's think he is grabbed the large sword that happened to be sitting beside giving inconsistent answers, because that makes sense). Anyways, because he had giving inconsistent answers, they had bound him, then beat him, and they were about to kill him when we pulled up. The funny thing was, that about 5 min or so before we had been pulled over, I had this vision (or just I imagined it and it was coincidence that it was related to what happened, if you don't believe in them), that I was driving in the jungle at night by myself, and was going down hill, when at the bottom of the hill, I saw 4-5 fully armored demons (I know it was pretty messed) standing across the road. At about 15-20 meters away, I parked my truck, and got out. By the time I closed the door of the 
truck I was already fully armored, and then I charged the group of demons. After fighting with them for a couple of minutes, and when I had clearly defeated them, they just disappeared. Then I got back in the truck and keep on driving. As I was pondering this seemingly strange vision, that I thought that I had made up from scratch, we then got pulled over. So the vision, combined with me thinking that our driver was the one being bound and beaten, I was praying pretty hard at this point, and not being able to see what was going on didn't help much. Anyways... after our driver had translated for 40 minutes or so, the Thai's loaded their prisoner into the back of our pick-up and sent us on our way. A couple of km down the road, we pulled over to undo the man's bindings, and when we got to camp, we handed him over to the Karen authorities, so that they
could find a place for him in Mae La. So even when you have to wait 5 hours for a ride, don't get so grumpy and impatient that you don't allow God to use you. I mean if we had come earlier, when we were suppose to, then our driver probably wouldn't have been at the check point when he had (he actually lives north of the border crossing and he kindly drove us south when he was almost home), and the load of praying Christians wouldn't have been in his truck, and that young man would probably be dead. Well after 5 hours of waiting and almost 3 hours on the road, we finally made it back to the camp after a very eventful day. Of course the fun couldn't end there, as I was up all night with gastro-intestinal problems, with the occasional trip to the toilet, which I am sure you all wanted to hear about. I think it must have been some of the food that we had in Burma. When Sean came to wake me up on Monday morning, I told him my little sob story about being sick and not 
getting any sleep. So I skipped breakfast and intended on sleeping for the rest of the day, but then God told me to get out of bed and that I was tougher than how I was acting (basically He told me to stop being such a pansy, but in a much nicer way than that). Of course He was right and I lost the argument (man arguing with your Maker never works out in your favour), so I go up and prepared for my class, and I taught it and none of my students knew any different. Well by this point God had healed my indigestion, but I was still quite tired, so I had a nap after my class. Oh yeah, I taught the class the song "How Great is Our God", by Chris Tomlin (or at least I think it is him).
In the last two days I haven't done anything special, except teach my students a couple of songs ("Here I am to Worship", and "Shout to the
North"), so I think I will just finish by adding some pics. Oh and if you wouldn't mind praying for me while I am here, that would be great. I have been having a tough time hearing and seeing God here, even though He has been here before I got here and He is still here now. It feels like I am totally alone in the midst of all these people, and that there are too many distractions to get focused again. I know it is just silly, but back in Abbotsford it was alot easier to be on fire for God, especially when everyone else wanted to be to, and they were seeking Him out all (well at least the majority) of the time. Here everybody are Baptist (which I do not have a problem with at all, just trouble relating to my Karen bros and sisters), and then there is the whole language thing (even with those who can speak English pretty fluently, must be the Canadian accent), and of course there is the completely different culture of the Karen. Well to say it in short, I feel out of place, and disconnected from God and the church even though they both surround me. It's like I am reaching out and grapping thin air when what I was reaching for is just inches away from tips of my fingers.
Pics (Top to Bottom): a Burmese mountain, Thai sand, and an international border river; a group of Karen rebel soldiers at the bottom of the hill on the Burmese side of the river; a Karen soldier outpost at the top of the hill, and yeah that guy has an RPG on his back; a Karen soldier, guarding the burial site of the late general; two Karen soldiers, one with a machine gun, and another with a RPG, I got my picture taken with him, but on another camera; Lae Htee holding a Karen National Union flag out (they don't actually have their own country yet); various decorations and whatever else you call them above the burial site of the late general, with a pic of Him in the center; the stage on which the ceremony was held; the cemented-in casket of the late Snr. Gen. Saw Bo Mya; close-up of the pic of the general; the bright sun over the jungle; the approach to the generals burial grounds; looking at Thailand from across the river; looking at Burma from the other side.
It has been one week since my last blog (well plus two days now that I had to take a break to finish it), and a little bit more than that since I started teaching at the KKBBSC (read the last blog to find out what that means) and I have still not taught at the camp office yet, although I have finally been able to speak with them. So I will be teaching at the office Monday-Thursday, at 6-8pm (3-5am on the same day in Vancouver), starting next week. Teaching at the KKBBSC hasn't been that bad so far, but considering English, especially grammar and all the other boring parts, was my least favourite subject in school, and that is exactly what I am teaching now, lets just say I grin and bear it. The students on the other hand, are much less reluctant to participate in the activities than students in Canada are, specifically when it comes to singing. The Karen love to sing, they sing all the
time, even when I am teaching vocabulary, so I thought that I would teach them worship songs in English. It has gone quite well, considering the songs that I have taught them have become favourites in the school already. I taught them a couple songs that I had memorized, considering I don't have any of my music here, which were "I'm Trading my Sorrows" and "Days of Elijah". Lah Htee, had lent me a music book which has 20-30 songs in it with the chords, so I taught them another song out of that book, which was "How Great is Our God". I think that singing is their preferred way of learning English. Anyways... enough about school.On Friday I left the camp, and went to Mae Sot (sometimes spelled Maesod if you are trying to Google it) to do my laundry, and to get some
supplies. So Sean and I received a ride from Dr. Simon, to Sean's house (he rents from a mission organization in the USA), and that night we dropped our clothes off at the laundry mat, and then had some Western food (no rice) at Krua Canadian Steakhouse and Grill (its called something like that). After we picked up our laundry, we went back to his house and basically did nothing for the rest of the evening. Oh yeah, they think that dryers are a waste of money so you still have to hang dry everything. The next day we spent shopping, buying all of the supplies that we had come into town for, and caught the last line bus, or song tao in Thai, back to the camp at 4:30. We were supposed to be back earlier because on Sunday, the next day, we were going to a Christian thanksgiving/funeral ceremony in Burma (to honour the former general and leader of the Karen and to thank God for the previous year), and they might of
been leaving on Saturday to go. When we were in Mae Sot, we had called back to the camp to make sure Lah Htee and the others hadn't left yet, and since Dr. Simon hadn't seen Lah Htee in a while he told us that they must of left already. When we got back to the camp with our laundry and newly bought belongings we were greeted by Lah Htee himself, which brought the confusion to and end.On Sunday we got up at 6:30 am to wait until 9:00am for our ride to Burma. When it finally arrived, all 18 of us (making 19 with the driver) piled into a small pick-up and we headed north for about an hour to where the thanksgiving ceremony was being held. We had to park the truck and walk about a half a km to the Thai-Burmese border river, and then cross by boat into Burma. Once on the other side, we walked by a group of armed Karen soldiers and
then we climbed up the dirt path, past another group of soldiers to an open field, that has a backdrop of jungle mountains. At the top, where the path comes out, if you turn to the right, that is where the late general lays, and to the left about 200 meters, is where the funeral service was being held. Straight ahead about 150 meters is a grouping of raised huts, where some of the villagers live, and where we ate lunch and supper. So we went to the service, which was in Karen, but almost the whole thing was translated into English as well. After we participated in the first part of the service (there was about 200-300 people there, mostly Karen but from all over the world as well), the thanksgiving part, we ducked out early to go and have lunch, well they continued with telling stories about the general in Karen only.After lunch someone came and told us that our
river back into Burma and visit with some of the villagers, and couple of students went with them, where as I decided to to take a nap in the hut. driver had already left and had taken other people back to the camp, but that he would be back. This gave us the opportunity to take some pictures of the village, some soldiers and the burial hut of the former general (he is buried above ground and his casket is surround in cement). After the photo op, we crossed back over the river to find out that we missed our ride already, but that he would return for us, which meant another two hours of waiting. It wasn't that bad because some nearby Thai farmers let us sit in their hut while we waited. Most of the students decided to stay by the road, while a handful of others accepted the decision. Sean and Lah Htee choose to cross the After a 30-40 min power nap, I got up and crossed back over the river to see what Sean and Lah Htee were up to. This is where we had
supper, and I couldn't have been over there for more than 20 min when we decided to go back to Thailand to wait for our ride to come (so a total of 30 min, with walking and crossing the river both ways). When we got back, the students told us that we had already missed our ride, and that he wasn't coming back this time, so we where going to have to get a ride with someone else. So in a hour and ten minutes at most, our driver had gone to Mae La, come back to the border crossing, and left again. So what did we do? You guessed it, we waited some more. Finally an empty truck came that was going the right way, after 5 hours of waiting. The funny thing was, that the driver didn't really know how to drive too well beyond steering, and he wasn't that good at it either. For example, he would be changing into 5th gear at about 45km/h, and he wasn't to sure how to get it into 4x4 wheel drive either. Needless to say it
made for a long trip, considering we topped out at 70km/h, it doubled the length of time to get back, not including stops, of which we made two. The first stop was to get some gas, but the driver happened to know some of the guys that worked there and sat around talking for a couple of minutes, which was fine except for the fact that we had just waited 5 hrs for this ride and he was driving slow. So yeah I was getting a little impatient.Well this is where everything got a little more exciting than I had bargained for. After about a half an hour back on the road, we got stopped at a Thai military check point, and the Thai's told him to pull ahead and park the truck. The driver got out and I couldn't really see much of what happened, as we sat and waited for another 40 min, a little more patient, and a little more tense this time. Lah Thee sat beside me in the front
seat, and had his head leaning out the driver side window to hear what they were saying. He can understand Thai, and every once and a while he would tell me things, but wouldn't acknowledge my questions, like "he has inconsistent answers", "they tied him up", "they beat him", and finally "they are going to kill him by slitting his throat". So meanwhile, I am thinking that Lah Htee is talking about our driver, but he is talking about another man that the Thai's arrested before we got there. The other man, had been giving inconsistent answers to the Thai's, but I don't know how much they really knew, because the reason that our truck got pulled over was because the Thai's knew our driver and wanted him to translate Thai to Karen, so they could question the man. This makes me wonder if the young man even knew what they were saying, and how exactly they determined he was giving inconsistent answers ("Where are
you from?", he replies,"Banana." Again they ask, "Where are you from?", with a reply of, "Purple". So then the Thai's think he is grabbed the large sword that happened to be sitting beside giving inconsistent answers, because that makes sense). Anyways, because he had giving inconsistent answers, they had bound him, then beat him, and they were about to kill him when we pulled up. The funny thing was, that about 5 min or so before we had been pulled over, I had this vision (or just I imagined it and it was coincidence that it was related to what happened, if you don't believe in them), that I was driving in the jungle at night by myself, and was going down hill, when at the bottom of the hill, I saw 4-5 fully armored demons (I know it was pretty messed) standing across the road. At about 15-20 meters away, I parked my truck, and got out. By the time I closed the door of the 
truck I was already fully armored, and then I charged the group of demons. After fighting with them for a couple of minutes, and when I had clearly defeated them, they just disappeared. Then I got back in the truck and keep on driving. As I was pondering this seemingly strange vision, that I thought that I had made up from scratch, we then got pulled over. So the vision, combined with me thinking that our driver was the one being bound and beaten, I was praying pretty hard at this point, and not being able to see what was going on didn't help much. Anyways... after our driver had translated for 40 minutes or so, the Thai's loaded their prisoner into the back of our pick-up and sent us on our way. A couple of km down the road, we pulled over to undo the man's bindings, and when we got to camp, we handed him over to the Karen authorities, so that they
could find a place for him in Mae La. So even when you have to wait 5 hours for a ride, don't get so grumpy and impatient that you don't allow God to use you. I mean if we had come earlier, when we were suppose to, then our driver probably wouldn't have been at the check point when he had (he actually lives north of the border crossing and he kindly drove us south when he was almost home), and the load of praying Christians wouldn't have been in his truck, and that young man would probably be dead. Well after 5 hours of waiting and almost 3 hours on the road, we finally made it back to the camp after a very eventful day. Of course the fun couldn't end there, as I was up all night with gastro-intestinal problems, with the occasional trip to the toilet, which I am sure you all wanted to hear about. I think it must have been some of the food that we had in Burma. When Sean came to wake me up on Monday morning, I told him my little sob story about being sick and not 
getting any sleep. So I skipped breakfast and intended on sleeping for the rest of the day, but then God told me to get out of bed and that I was tougher than how I was acting (basically He told me to stop being such a pansy, but in a much nicer way than that). Of course He was right and I lost the argument (man arguing with your Maker never works out in your favour), so I go up and prepared for my class, and I taught it and none of my students knew any different. Well by this point God had healed my indigestion, but I was still quite tired, so I had a nap after my class. Oh yeah, I taught the class the song "How Great is Our God", by Chris Tomlin (or at least I think it is him).In the last two days I haven't done anything special, except teach my students a couple of songs ("Here I am to Worship", and "Shout to the
North"), so I think I will just finish by adding some pics. Oh and if you wouldn't mind praying for me while I am here, that would be great. I have been having a tough time hearing and seeing God here, even though He has been here before I got here and He is still here now. It feels like I am totally alone in the midst of all these people, and that there are too many distractions to get focused again. I know it is just silly, but back in Abbotsford it was alot easier to be on fire for God, especially when everyone else wanted to be to, and they were seeking Him out all (well at least the majority) of the time. Here everybody are Baptist (which I do not have a problem with at all, just trouble relating to my Karen bros and sisters), and then there is the whole language thing (even with those who can speak English pretty fluently, must be the Canadian accent), and of course there is the completely different culture of the Karen. Well to say it in short, I feel out of place, and disconnected from God and the church even though they both surround me. It's like I am reaching out and grapping thin air when what I was reaching for is just inches away from tips of my fingers.Pics (Top to Bottom): a Burmese mountain, Thai sand, and an international border river; a group of Karen rebel soldiers at the bottom of the hill on the Burmese side of the river; a Karen soldier outpost at the top of the hill, and yeah that guy has an RPG on his back; a Karen soldier, guarding the burial site of the late general; two Karen soldiers, one with a machine gun, and another with a RPG, I got my picture taken with him, but on another camera; Lae Htee holding a Karen National Union flag out (they don't actually have their own country yet); various decorations and whatever else you call them above the burial site of the late general, with a pic of Him in the center; the stage on which the ceremony was held; the cemented-in casket of the late Snr. Gen. Saw Bo Mya; close-up of the pic of the general; the bright sun over the jungle; the approach to the generals burial grounds; looking at Thailand from across the river; looking at Burma from the other side.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Teaching English
Well so far, I have taught two classes to the Kathoolei Karen Baptist Bible School a
nd College (KKBBSC (yeah this will be the only time that I actually type that out)) students, and I have not been in contact with the leaders of the Karen since I got dropped off here last Thursday. They never told me what part of the English language I would be teaching the students, such as grammar, vocabulary, written English, etcetera, until about 5 minutes before my class. This left me rather unprepared for my first class, so I thought that I would go over some vocabulary, because I also didn't know how much English they have already learned. After starting with 'dog' and 'cat', we worked our with
just about all of my students is grammar and enunciation/pronunciation when they speak, which they are very reluctant to do in English, for fea way up to 'telecommunication' and 'acronym' as I discovered that the number of words in their vocabulary wasn't the problem. The main issuer of being wrong or something like that. Anyways... after going over grammar with all 55 of my students (oh yeah I forgot to mention that I have 55 students, or is it 56, I'm not sure), I got this brilliant idea to get them to write a small essay about themselves, like how long they have been in the camp, their families, favourite foods, ect. Well this was sort of a bad idea for two reasons, one being that I would have to mark the essays after
they were done writing them, which isn't really that bad once I decided to stop being so lazy. The main reason that I think it might be a bad idea, but still a good one at the same time, was that once I started marking and deciphered what they had written, it was what was written on the pages that made the notion regrettable. There are so many stories about their families that talk about the loss of siblings (one person lost 6 siblings at the hand of the army), parents, or spouses (one lady lost her husband six months after she had given birth to their second son), either from disease, famine or the Burm
ese army. There are also stories about family members being dismembered, or tortured. Well all that I can really say that it makes for a hard read (I have only finished marking 30), and that is where I am divided on the idea of the essay. On the one hand I get to know the students better, and on the other, they get to bring up the bitter past. Oh well, it is too late now, so I will just try to use this experience for good, or something like that.
After yesterday and writing about the not so pleasant past, I gave them a spelling quiz from the words we reviewed yesterday (yeah! more marking). After that it was all talk, all day. I started off with a basic g
reeting converstion, in groups of two (a script for person 1 and 2, and then they switch), and went on to a telephone converstion with the same format. I marked simply on participation, if you tried to speak English you got a 10/10. After these two small speaking exercises, it was on to making a script for a skit, practising the skit and then performing it in front of the class, which ended up taking the rest of the time of the class (a good way to chew time). The basic intructions were that they had to make the skit in some relation to a restuarant and each person in the group had to say at least 3 li
nes. It was very entertaining to watch all of the groups perform, from the shy and quiet woman's group, to the rowdy men's group, who were funny and entertaining but didn't follow any of the two instructions. Well all in all, it definitely beat having to mark more papers, and was alot more fun to watch. The one thing that I haven't got down yet (yeah I know there is probably more than one), is how to keep track of attendance, and the marks at the same time, so I decided that I can't really, so I am going to split them up, which seems to make more sense to me anyways.
Well since I don't know what else to ramble on about, I think I will call it quits for now
. Oh yeah, on Friday classes were canceled because only a third or half the students showed up. On Saturday I went to Mae Sot (the nearest Thai town) and bought a guitar and lost my guide, who got back to the camp about 5 minute before me (it was fun day). Sunday I went to the local Karen Baptist church (they have all kinds of churches in Mae La (the camp)), and listen to a service in Karen, and sang (well not really) Karen-translated hymns. Oh, one last thing, on Monday after class, I went to the market to buy myself some rotti (an East Indian desert thingy (yeah I said thingy and I am an Englis
h teacher (and yeah I am using triple brackets, because it's my blog and I can if I want to))), and that was all fine, except when I was coming back and I came to 7 way intersection, where most of the paths looked the same. I am sure you can guess what happened next. While I joyfully ate my rotti, and smiled at everyone in sight, I confidently went down the completely wrong path and got completely lost. I almost got even further lost on the way back, when I mistakenly retraced my steps down another path, but knew I had made a wrong turn when I got to a UN office (the office sticks out more than the huts do). Finally I made it back to the 7 way intersection a choose a path that was more right, but not completely, and
made the decision to ask for help from people who are fluent in Karen and not a whole lot else. I ended up being guided out by a 12 yr old girl, and her little brother (I think he was her brother), after I explained that I wanted to cross the bridge to Zone C by using a nearby little open sewage stream (it smelled g-r-eat!!); and that is the story of how I got lost (and found) in the largest refugee camp in Thailand. While that's all for now and all that, so God bless you all (I know I say that every time, but I do mean it sincerely).
Pics (top to
bottom as usual): The blackboard that I write on at the front of my open walled classroom; a third of the stairs that lead to my classroom; another pic of the mountain backdrop just for fun; a toilet in the ground, how we have to go to the bathroom/restroom/washroom (take your pick), so I am sure you can guess what you have to do when you have to go; my new bed in my new bedroom (it consists of three comforters as a mattress, and one more as a blanket, with overstuffed pillows that slide out from your head, and is even equipped with a mosquito net); the front of the church that I attended on Sunday, with the Baptist pastor preaching in Karen (it sounded like like a good sermon, but I am not really sure); my office (or more just a pile of chairs with my the students papers on them and a dictionary from the library for an even writing surface, all shoved in the corner of my new bedroom (the reason I like my new bedroom is that I actually have some privacy to do things like, I don't know, change)); a Karen Baptist hymnal (if you click on the pic, it should enlarge and you might be able to see that it is on pg 299-300); a water-over flow channel in Mae Sot, where I am right now well I upload these pics (at 10:25 pm, Friday, Jan. 19, 2007, Thailand time or 7:26 am Vancouver time, the same day (so good morning to you)); Sean Okelley, an engineer from north of Sacramento, California, who also stays in KKBBSC, Mae La (he works for Border Green Energy Team, and basically teaches students of a college in the camp how to set up solar power systems).
nd College (KKBBSC (yeah this will be the only time that I actually type that out)) students, and I have not been in contact with the leaders of the Karen since I got dropped off here last Thursday. They never told me what part of the English language I would be teaching the students, such as grammar, vocabulary, written English, etcetera, until about 5 minutes before my class. This left me rather unprepared for my first class, so I thought that I would go over some vocabulary, because I also didn't know how much English they have already learned. After starting with 'dog' and 'cat', we worked our with
just about all of my students is grammar and enunciation/pronunciation when they speak, which they are very reluctant to do in English, for fea way up to 'telecommunication' and 'acronym' as I discovered that the number of words in their vocabulary wasn't the problem. The main issuer of being wrong or something like that. Anyways... after going over grammar with all 55 of my students (oh yeah I forgot to mention that I have 55 students, or is it 56, I'm not sure), I got this brilliant idea to get them to write a small essay about themselves, like how long they have been in the camp, their families, favourite foods, ect. Well this was sort of a bad idea for two reasons, one being that I would have to mark the essays after
they were done writing them, which isn't really that bad once I decided to stop being so lazy. The main reason that I think it might be a bad idea, but still a good one at the same time, was that once I started marking and deciphered what they had written, it was what was written on the pages that made the notion regrettable. There are so many stories about their families that talk about the loss of siblings (one person lost 6 siblings at the hand of the army), parents, or spouses (one lady lost her husband six months after she had given birth to their second son), either from disease, famine or the Burm
ese army. There are also stories about family members being dismembered, or tortured. Well all that I can really say that it makes for a hard read (I have only finished marking 30), and that is where I am divided on the idea of the essay. On the one hand I get to know the students better, and on the other, they get to bring up the bitter past. Oh well, it is too late now, so I will just try to use this experience for good, or something like that.After yesterday and writing about the not so pleasant past, I gave them a spelling quiz from the words we reviewed yesterday (yeah! more marking). After that it was all talk, all day. I started off with a basic g
reeting converstion, in groups of two (a script for person 1 and 2, and then they switch), and went on to a telephone converstion with the same format. I marked simply on participation, if you tried to speak English you got a 10/10. After these two small speaking exercises, it was on to making a script for a skit, practising the skit and then performing it in front of the class, which ended up taking the rest of the time of the class (a good way to chew time). The basic intructions were that they had to make the skit in some relation to a restuarant and each person in the group had to say at least 3 li
nes. It was very entertaining to watch all of the groups perform, from the shy and quiet woman's group, to the rowdy men's group, who were funny and entertaining but didn't follow any of the two instructions. Well all in all, it definitely beat having to mark more papers, and was alot more fun to watch. The one thing that I haven't got down yet (yeah I know there is probably more than one), is how to keep track of attendance, and the marks at the same time, so I decided that I can't really, so I am going to split them up, which seems to make more sense to me anyways.Well since I don't know what else to ramble on about, I think I will call it quits for now
. Oh yeah, on Friday classes were canceled because only a third or half the students showed up. On Saturday I went to Mae Sot (the nearest Thai town) and bought a guitar and lost my guide, who got back to the camp about 5 minute before me (it was fun day). Sunday I went to the local Karen Baptist church (they have all kinds of churches in Mae La (the camp)), and listen to a service in Karen, and sang (well not really) Karen-translated hymns. Oh, one last thing, on Monday after class, I went to the market to buy myself some rotti (an East Indian desert thingy (yeah I said thingy and I am an Englis
h teacher (and yeah I am using triple brackets, because it's my blog and I can if I want to))), and that was all fine, except when I was coming back and I came to 7 way intersection, where most of the paths looked the same. I am sure you can guess what happened next. While I joyfully ate my rotti, and smiled at everyone in sight, I confidently went down the completely wrong path and got completely lost. I almost got even further lost on the way back, when I mistakenly retraced my steps down another path, but knew I had made a wrong turn when I got to a UN office (the office sticks out more than the huts do). Finally I made it back to the 7 way intersection a choose a path that was more right, but not completely, and
made the decision to ask for help from people who are fluent in Karen and not a whole lot else. I ended up being guided out by a 12 yr old girl, and her little brother (I think he was her brother), after I explained that I wanted to cross the bridge to Zone C by using a nearby little open sewage stream (it smelled g-r-eat!!); and that is the story of how I got lost (and found) in the largest refugee camp in Thailand. While that's all for now and all that, so God bless you all (I know I say that every time, but I do mean it sincerely).Pics (top to
bottom as usual): The blackboard that I write on at the front of my open walled classroom; a third of the stairs that lead to my classroom; another pic of the mountain backdrop just for fun; a toilet in the ground, how we have to go to the bathroom/restroom/washroom (take your pick), so I am sure you can guess what you have to do when you have to go; my new bed in my new bedroom (it consists of three comforters as a mattress, and one more as a blanket, with overstuffed pillows that slide out from your head, and is even equipped with a mosquito net); the front of the church that I attended on Sunday, with the Baptist pastor preaching in Karen (it sounded like like a good sermon, but I am not really sure); my office (or more just a pile of chairs with my the students papers on them and a dictionary from the library for an even writing surface, all shoved in the corner of my new bedroom (the reason I like my new bedroom is that I actually have some privacy to do things like, I don't know, change)); a Karen Baptist hymnal (if you click on the pic, it should enlarge and you might be able to see that it is on pg 299-300); a water-over flow channel in Mae Sot, where I am right now well I upload these pics (at 10:25 pm, Friday, Jan. 19, 2007, Thailand time or 7:26 am Vancouver time, the same day (so good morning to you)); Sean Okelley, an engineer from north of Sacramento, California, who also stays in KKBBSC, Mae La (he works for Border Green Energy Team, and basically teaches students of a college in the camp how to set up solar power systems).
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