Bookends 2022

One way I like to look back at the year is to compare the beginning of the year with the end of the year using photos. They aren't necessarily the first and last photos of the year, but will be within a day or two.

We started off the year with a bike ride. I took Ingrid on a journey to show her some of the places I discovered on some of my morning bike rides. About 6 kilometers west from our house there is a temple located close to the Pao River. Like many of the temples around here, there is a forest associated with it. Someone put a paved walkway through part of the forest. We decided to take our bikes down the trail, but it was a bit challenging because of all the vines crossing the path—the one's pictured here weren't the worst. A few times we had to get off our bikes to get around the convoluted stems crossing the path.

Path Through the Forest Temple Grounds

Later in the day, we went to Doi Chang Coffee that it is on the eastern edge of Kamalasai District. Their coffee is a bit more pricy than some places (though not near as much as Starbucks), but they have the best blended mocha around. There are lot's of pretty plants at Doi Chang coffee, and here we found another vine over the "trail." This time it was the pretty clusters of lavender-colored blossoms of Queen's Wreath (Petrea volubilis).

Queen's Wreath at Soi Chang Coffee in Dong Ling

After leaving the coffee shop, we took a detour down a dirt road that runs along the edge of a nearby community forest. We parked the car and walked down a trail that we spotted. Here we encountered even more lengthy (and knotty) lianas.

Vine Maze

Sometimes the vines seem to bypass the tree trunks on the way to the canopies above, at other times, they seem to want to choke the trees like a woody boa constrictor. Or maybe it's just a love-hug.

Hanging on for Dear Life

Maybe the vines were supposed to be a metaphor for the year ahead—lots of twists and turns in the road but beauty to be found along the way.

• We began the year working on our own, but in May and intern came to join us and help with the work.
• We have periods of excitement when so many people are participating in our activities that it is hard to keep up. Then there are other times when there are just three or four of us gathered for times of worship and prayer.
• On some occasions we are so frustrated we want to just go back to the "normalcy" of North America. And there there are times when we can't imagine leaving our adopted country.
• There are times that we think we have identified a potential leader. And then comes the time when that person decides that there are better things to do than try to follow Jesus.

Amidst all the changes in activities, there is one constant, and that is my companion of the past almost 40 years. I don't know how my wife manages to get more beautiful each year, but somehow she does it. So it was only fitting that we end the year by checking out this new coffee shop:

Gorgeous Coffee in Khong Chai

I'm not sure why they chose this English name for their coffee shop. They don't even have a Thai equivalent or Thai phonetic anywhere. But I suppose our going here also shows another constant in our life: coffee. Both our first and last day stories involve that wonderful beverage.

The flavor of the blended mochas at Gorgeous Coffee are as good as Doi Chang, but they were more watery. They also came in these weird pop-top containers that did not hold as much coffee, though the cost the same. While the idea of this sealed coffee is kind of cute, I don't really care for the resource heavy nature of it with heavier plastic and the aluminum lid.

Blended Mocha from Gorgeous Coffee
Resource Heavy Packaging

Here is the blended mocha from Doi Chang for comparison.

Blended Mocha from Soi Chang

So was last year. While I can't guarantee that the coming year won't have as many twists and turns as the last one—in fact, it will probably have more—the important thing for us is to be following the path God sets before us. And so we echo the prayer of the psalmist:

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Psalm 25:4-5 (NIV)

And we trust in the promise of God:

This is what the LORD says-- your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. Isaiah 48:17 (NIV)

Put It In Your Pocket

It was probably the year 1992. We had taken a trip in our Ford F-150 to visit one of the Baptist Haiti Mission churches near St Michel de L' Atalaye, Haiti. Some people there were wanting some advice about capping a spring.

While I was I the area, I stopped at an open market.A woman was selling what appeared to be large seeds. I asked what they were, but the name, kakòn, meant nothing to me. I asked what they were for, and she told me they were for treating hemorrhoids. Intrigued, I asked, “how do they work?” She replied, “you carry them around in your pants pocket.

If you don’t ask, you never know.

I bought a seed from the woman and I probably still have it in storage in California.

This past week, Ingrid and I went bike riding down a track through a forest.

Cycling in the forest

Ingrid spotted the remnants of a very large bean pod lying on the ground. I busted a piece open, and there it was—the magical method for treating hemorrhoids.

I don't know if they really cure hemorrhoids or not, but if you swallow this thing, you might get them.

I have since found out that the bean is known as “snuffbox bean” or "sea bean" (Entada phaseoloides). Apparently, the beans were used for toting around one’s stash of snuff in days of yore.

Snuffbox bean pod, high up in a tree--about 2 feet long

Some of the tribal peoples of Northern Thailand use the large seeds for games or for medicinal purposes.

I've never tested the hemorrhoids treatment (and I hope I never have to want to), so I can't say for certain that it doesn't work.  But field of ethnobotany (the study of how indigenous people use the plants around them) has always fascinated me.  God gave us an amazing variety plant resources for us to use for food, tools, medicine and other things.  How people even came to know the beneficial properties of plants is amazing.  And it saddens me when I see these plants lost to needless destruction.  Many plants may have properties which can be used in the world of medicine, but if those plants become extinct, the resources are lost.

Recently, a verse in Revelation 22 caught my attention for the first time.  The Tree of Life, we read in Revelation 22:2, has leaves that are used "for the healing of the nations."  What an interesting picture.  The old world is gone and there is a new heaven and a new earth.  But there is still water and there are still trees that contain healthful benefits for mankind.  (I'm not sure why the nations will still need healing in New Earth but I'm sure it's related to a metaphorical aspect to this passage.)

From the very beginning, God gave us plants for our health and well-being (Genesis 1:29, 30).  And in the New Earth, He does the same.

Praise God for the amazing way he provides for us.