Last Night

I just awoke from my last night’s sleep in Ban Phrueksa 36.

Ingrid is not here to share the moment with me as she is already in Northern Thailand, preparing to move into our new place up there.

And so we are now in that in-between zone-having finished our work in one part of Thailand and not yet started in another. Another transition.  A period of time when one is extremely busy on the one hand but feeling a bit non-productive on the other.  And I use the term non-productive in the sense that we’re not directly engaged in what we came to Thailand to do.

The transition is hard because we have invested heavily into relationships with people here—and now we’re putting some distance between those while having not yet developed relationships in the area we’re moving to.



One of the interesting things is that our neighbor and closest friend, Pen (on left on the photo above) is from the next county over from where we are moving to.  She still has family that she visits about an hour’s drive from where we will be living.

Still, it is hard to say goodbye.

• Goodbye to our neighbors.
• Goodbye to our home.
• Goodbye to the narrow, pothole-laced roads along the canals.

But it is good that we will replace the goodbyes with hellos.

• Hello to friends we haven’t met yet.
• Hello to cool, smoky, winter mornings.
• Hello to narrow roads winding through the hills.

But whether Chachoengsao or Wiang Kaen, some things remain the same.

• I’ll still wake up next to my best friend each day.
• God is present in both places.

It Takes a Team

For the past two weeks, a team from Heritage Bible Church has been helping us with outreach programs in Chachoengsao.

The Heritage Bible Church Team at Bethel Church

They have gone into two schools to teach English using fun and games and have put on VBS programs in two different communities.  It was the first time for MB Mission and Bethel Church to do an outreach in one of the communities and it looks like it may lead to the beginning of a regular kids club.

The team had many opportunities to share the gospel, and several children and at least one adult decided they wanted to get rid of their bad karma (which is the Thai way of referring to sin) by the blood Jesus.  We also made a connection with a believer who is new in the faith and would like to be in a discipleship relationship with another believer.

One of the greatest things this team did was to hang out with and hug kids, many of whom come from broken homes where there is not a lot of love to be had.  My heart breaks for many of these kids and I’m glad that these children were able to receive some loving attention, even if only for a brief while.

Bri giving some attentio to someone in need

The team also helped us build some bridges with two schools in the area.  One of those schools does not get a lot of attention from the outside world.  It also happens to be where many of the children from our neighborhood go who cannot afford to go to private school.

Talad Pak Khlong Cao School

Khlon Cao School

Thanks to Heritage Bible Church for sending this great group of people to come and love on our neighbors and share with them the even greater love that is found in Jesus Christ.

But this team, like us, could not do what they did by themselves.

The more obvious team members that were involved were members of our Missionary Team here in Chachoengsao: Dave, Louise and Sandy.

Then there were members of the Bethel Church that played critical roles in all this, most notably Ajan Naat, Phi Chin, Knot and Kaew.

Beyond that there are somewhat less visible members of our team-those folks in our home offices in Canada, Fresno and our local offices in Chonburi and Chachoengsao that make it possible for us to be here.

Then there are the almost invisible members of our team: those individuals and churches in the US and Canada that pray for the work here and give financially to help make it happen.
It is great to be a part of the body of Christ, and when we all work together in our various roles, great things can happen.

¹⁴ Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.
¹⁵ If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
¹⁶ And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
¹⁸ But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be?
²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"
²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,
²³ and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,
²⁴ while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,
²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
1 Corinthians 12:14-27 (NIV)

Provision that comes to you

One of the interesting things we have found living in Ban Phrueksa in rural Chachoengsao Province, Thailand, is that you don’t have to really go anywhere to buy the essentials of life.  Traveling vendors selling goods of all kinds come into the community throughout the day.
Fresh meat, fresh produce, fish swimming in tanks in the back of a pickup, new and used pants, brooms, eggs (duck or chicken), miscellaneous hardware and household goods.  Even cooked food is sold on the street by stationary or mobile vendors (best way to get our Isaan style chicken and papaya salad is from a motorcycle with a side car modified with a grill and mini-kitchen.)
And while the prices may be a bit pricier than what you find in the market—it saves driving 6 kilometers to a convenience store and the nearest market that only functions twice a week.

Ingrid buying produce off a pickup truck

Grilling chicken on a modified motorcycle

It’s nice when something good comes to you rather than you having to go get it.
That’s one of the things that’s nice about Christianity.  It’s about God coming to us.
In most other religions, it is about how we can get to God.  What kinds of things must I do in order that God will hear me or let me approach Him?  What must I do to be a better person?
I think of so many people who are concerned about their eternal future that are trying to do good things in order that maybe, if they outweigh the bad things, they’ll be better off in some future life.  But there is no guarantee and certainly not a lot of hope.  Call it making merit, or doing good works, or whatever.  Not that there is anything wrong with doing good things, in fact, they should be done.
But with Christianity, it is about God coming to us.  It is about God sending Jesus to earth so that we can relate to Him.  And then it is about Him doing the work for us, on the cross, in order that we might be righteous in the eyes of God.  it’s not about whether we’re good enough—try as we might, we never will be—but about the fact that Jesus is good enough.
And so I do good works, not to attain salvation or to find my way to God, but as an act of love toward a God who drove His pickup into my community, offering all that I could ever need—and I don’t even have to pay for it.



⁹ This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.
¹⁰ This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.
¹¹ My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.
¹² No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!1 John 4:9-12 (MSG)

Deception

Father and daughter rinse toothbrushes
in the canal

As I watch this father and daughter rinse their toothbrushes in the filthy canal water, it almost makes my stomach turn. Indeed, if I were to do that--and then use the toothbrush--I'm sure my stomach really would start turning.

The canals here don't have the cleanest water. They are not only a source of irrigation water, but also the dumping grounds for all kinds of waste--be it biological or otherwise.

And then I think of the pristine waters formed by the melting snow in the Sierras. Oh how refreshing that water is--such a nice cool respite on a hot summer day in the mountains. (My body is transported to Pear Lake, nestled beneath the crags of Alta Peak in Sequoia National Park. Oh, how I miss those mountain escapes.)

Pear Lake, nestled below Alta Peak

Yet, even there, danger lurks. For even though the water is crystal clear. It can be the home of some nasty parasites: giardia, among other things. And the critters I might consume in that refreshing swig of mountain waters can cause me just as much grief as the stuff in the green murk of the canal in rural Chachoengsao, Thailand. (OK--so the risk is perhaps a bit greater in the murky stuff, but you get my drift.)

So we have to be careful how we judge things. Outward appearances aren't always letting us know what is going on.

This is the challenge we face in trying to start churches here in Thailand. Who are the leaders? Maybe the ones that we at first think are the next great leaders of the church, may not always be the best choice. It's hard to know what is going on inside someone.

And we want to trust, but sometimes it is hard to trust.

Only God knows what it going on deep inside us and so we need to lean on Him to show us who the next leaders are. It might be the unlikely-looking one.

O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
   You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
   Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
Psalm 139:1-4 (ESV)

Juan

Am I back in California?

We had just finished an outreach program at a Children’s Day celebration at a park in Ban Phrueksa.  Louise and the TREK team kept children occupied with games and crafts and singing along with a presentation of the gospel.

Afterwards, a young fellow came up whose name is Juan.  At least, that was my first thought.  Then reality hit that this was not California and the boy's name was more likely “Day” (Wan) than “John”  (Juan) (translating from Thai instead of Spanish), but I had not heard that name before, so it caught me by surprise.

Wan had bene watching our presentation and was interested in what he saw.  He expressed interest in learning to play an instrument, perhaps guitar.  We chatted a bit and then he helped load all of our stuff into my truck and later helped unload it at our house.  I thought perhaps I might next see him for guitar instruction on Saturday.

Once we got organized, the TREK team, Louise, Ingrid and myself got into my pickup and headed off to Bethel Church.  Several people had to sit in the back of the pickup (at least there is AC in the camper shell).  When we got to the church and everyone spilled out of the back I saw, to my surprise, that Wan had come along as well.

Wan (left) prays to receive Jesus into his life

We made our way to the church, arriving just as the sermon was about to begin.  Ajan Nat was preaching.  One of the verses she shared was 2 Corinthians 5:17--where Paul writes that if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation.

After preaching, Nat asked it there were any who would like to trust Jesus as their Savior, and so become a new creation.  Wan, along with another first time guest (read Danae’s blog for that amazing story) went forward.
 
And so se welcome Wan into the family of God and pray that he will persevere and become active in the house church that will be starting here next week.

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:17--NLT)

Dagwood

When I was a child, our family would sometimes eat at at a restaurant (I think it was Litchfield Farm Shop, later bought out by Friendly’s) where they served a sandwich called “The Dagwood”.  The sandwich took its name from Dagwood of the Blondie cartoon strip.  Dagwood makes these extremely tall sandwiches made up of all manner of whatever.  But they all have a commonality—a piece of bread on either end.

The bread is not the most consequential part of the sandwich, but the two slices to give you something to grab onto as you eat.

As I did last year, I am focusing on the first and last photos of the year I took—that may not be of the most consequential events of the year but they serve as kind of a way of to grab onto the year.




January 2 is Ozz’s birthday.  On his birthday, he and his wife, Sara, came to join us for dinner at our apartment in Bangkok.  Sara is a good friend of ours whom we have known since our early days in Fresno, California.  Ozz is studying at a seminary in Bangkok.

Jus a few days ago, Sara and Ozz again joined us for dinner—only this time it was Christmas dinner at our new place in Chachoengsao Province.  With them was their 8 month old son Elijah.  Elijah is their first child (and kind of like our first grandchild), so their lives have been filled with a lot of change.



Our lives, too, have been filled with a lot of change—first a move to Chonburi and then to Chachoengsao.  Our lives have been filled with some births as well—first the birth of a vision to work in Northeast Thailand and then (when some complications arose), birth of a vision to start a church in an isolated community in Chachoengsao Province.

But even as people are born into this world, others leave it.  And so we bid farewell to my mom in late July.



The above picture of my mom and me I took back in 2007.  It is at the location of another birth, of sorts.  The Haystack Monument in Williamstown, Massachusetts marks the location of the birth of the world missions movement in North America—something that is significant in our lives as we have become part of that.  So even though my mom is gone, there is new life rising up in her place.  Pray that God will use us to bring new life in Jesus Christ to the people of Thailand.

December 31, 2012.  It is a few minutes before midnight and the main street in Ban Phrueksa is relatively quiet—belying the fact that there are a bunch of noisy parties going on on a lot of the side streets.



We seldom stay up to bring in the New Year, but since this was our first in Ban Phrueksa, we thought we would stay up and see what happens.  So we watched the final two episodes of season I of The Mentalist and then broke open a new deck of Uno cards to keep us awake.


Just before midnight we wandered out onto the streets and son the sky came alive with fireworks.



The abruptness of that moment—from quiet to loud explosions—is kind of what our December was like.  At the beginning of the month we were not even imagining living in Chachoengsao.  And then the timing seemed right and so there was an explosion of activity with a lot of praying and then house-hunting and participating in a multitude of Christmas outreach events and then moving mixed in with all of this.

And here we are—starting a new year and kind of a new live in Ban Phrueksa, Chachoengsao, Thailand.  As I reflect back on the year and see death and new life, I am reminded of the transient nature of life on earth.  But God and His work are not transient—His work will last.

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.  Ecclesiastes 3:14 (NIV)


I wonder what kind of sandwich we’ll have this year.