Merry Christmas from Thailand

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you all had a great Christmas with friends and family. We had a wonderful Christmas here in Chiang Rai - or should I say a number of Christmases. Besides our village Christmas, we also had an evening with House of Joy and a missions group who were visiting from Singapore - Akha food, skits, singing, Akha dancing (simalar to what you might think of Native American dances - a lot of percussion and synchronized dancing around a fire) and roasting Hot Dogs over a bonfire. There is nothing like Christmas with seventy children!
Christmas eve was spent with friends at a local hotel in Chiang Rai which puts on an American-style buffet every Christmas, and we spent Christmas day at home as "just Paul and Lori". We watched White Christmas and had a generally relaxing day. Also, thanks to the convenience that is Skype, we were able to speak to our families.
For those of you we haven't called, we just wanted to send you our Christmas greetings as well and send along a picture of our Christmas decorations.
We hope you all had a blessed holliday & look forward to seeing you in the coming months!

Tags:

• Akha
• Christmas
• holidays

The World the Child changed

As missions minded Christians, we cannot help but see the story of Christmas as a missionary story. "For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotton Son". We have been sent by our families, by our friends, by our church bodies to serve the Akha hilltribe, but today our thoughts go so much broader - to those who have been sent all over the world. Although our call has brought us to the Akha, it is for the World that Jesus has come.
A missionary, when you pull off all the Christian lingo, is quite simply "one who has been sent" and today we want to recognize and think of all of you who have been sent. The Burroughs, who were sent to Boulder. The Dalys who have been sent to Mexico. The Hickox who are being sent to India. Adriel, who has been sent to Perth (and beyond). All the MTS's (now interns) and Associates we have met and worked with from FMI. All those who we have built friendships and relationships with here in Thailand and the Akha missionaries who are being sent to reach their own people. All those who we have "met" from missionary blogs, and all those who I have not added here but should have. It is the season to celebrate the sent ones. The season to celebrate Christ.
Whether you have been sent by an organization or by a simple word from God, we want you to join us in celebrating the work that is being done for His kingdom. Remember in this time those who have gone before us, and those who are giving their lives even now.
We also have set up a map through Frappr under a group called missions and would love for you to come and join it. When you join you can show where you are serving (in whatever capacity you have been sent) and post a picture of yourself or those you are working with. We are also setting up a forum for discussion of all things missions, from furloughs to methods to culture shock.
Rejoice! for the Child who changed the world is STILL doing amazing things.

Tags:

• missions
• Web2.0

An Akha Christmas - Part 2

We just returned from an amazing experience. Tomorrow is Christmas in our Akha village. Pastors and Bible students have already begun to arrive for the festivities. Tomorrow we will have dancing and eating and singing and a Christmas message - but tonight was the kickoff of the holiday.
I don't know how many of you have ever been caroling - Lori went a few times growing up, and I might have gone once or twice, but it was nothing like our evening tonight.
Once it was dark, everyone bundled up (it's probably 40 degrees in Mae Salong right now) and took off with flashlights and lighters towards the nearest village. After walking about a mile, we left the paved paths and began weaving our way up a deer trail on the mountain. After (carefully) walking for another half hour we came to a bamboo hut. Out came the occupants who lit a candle in their doorway. We then sang three or four "carols" in Akha (not carols you might recognize, but Akha songs with Christmas themes) and all shook hands with everyone in the home. Off we went to the next hut, and the next. Sometimes perched on a stilt porch, sometimes gathered around a small fire inside a home, sometimes scattered across the side of a hill we sang of a baby born in Bethlehem. After a few hours Lori and I called it a night - but we can still hear those Akha men and women's voices ringing through the valley. As someone once wrote long ago Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.

Tags:

• Akha
• Christmas

Best laid plans of mice...

No, this isn't another post about our house rats. Rather it is a note on the constant changes of life in a village. In Akha Christmas we talked about our plans to rebuild our house. A few days of rain and a big "give rice" (a party in an Akha village when someone is getting married, or leaving or celebrating something) later and all we had gotten done was a little work on the new bathroom. We had to come back to the city to get some work on our home in town done and pick up Christmas gifts for some orphans in a village near ours (amazing story for another time).
It's getting to the point where we just shouldn't say anything that we are going to do because it always changes. Who'd of thought? Anyway, we are heading back up to the village in the morning (Lord willing) to celebrate Christmas, and we'll see if our pastor (who lives with us) got any more work on the house done. Either way, we're looking forward to an Akha Christmas.
For more info on what has already happened and (tentative) plans for the future see the new release of our Newsletter, now available on our homepage.
Merry Christmas!

Tags:

• devotional

Unto them a child is born

You may remember us mentioning our deaf friend A-Ju. During the nine months that we have lived in the village his family has been a constant support and have become good friends. Also during the last nine months, his mother has been growing steadily bigger.

This morning, A Do Za (A-Ju's father) came over and invited us to breakfast. As we walked to his home, we were wondering what the occasion was - assuming someone had come to visit. But, when we peeked our heads into his home, we saw Atsu Mi-Tsm (A-Ju's mother) sitting on a short stool holding a newborn baby girl. She had the baby sometime during the night in her home (a bamboo hut) with help from one of the village grandmas. When we asked her how she was doing she said "It didn't even hurt" (we told you these Akha women were tough).

Slowly, several village elders drifted in and we began breakfast. After a prayer of thanksgiving and blessing, Atsu Mi-Tsm took her chop sticks and touched each dish and then gave her baby girl a "taste". We then began eating (beginning with the mother, then from the eldest on down). During the meal, the woman who names the babies in our village asked Lori to name the baby. She refused, saying "I am not an elder". She then tried to get Paul and Salah (Pastor) A-Tu to name her, they also refused. Finally she said "Her name is Ma-Li (Mary)" and everyone said it was a very good name. Just like in America, all the grandmas took their turn holding baby Ma-Li. We finished breakfast and left the family to rest for the remainder of today. Tomorrow we will take mother and baby to the clinic for a check-up and vaccinations.

We are so excited and happy for our friends. We ask for your prayers for baby Ma-Li as her older brother and sister are both deaf and the family has also lost two children. Please pray also for us as we are taking care of two other children from the 8th through the 10th while their "foster mom" attends a church leadership meeting in Chiang Rai.

Tags:

• babies
• Akha
• culture

An Akha Christmas

It's "winter" in Thailand. This, of course, means it is 65 degrees instead of 95 degrees. Although we are very happy with the relief from the heat, our Akha neighbors are freezing. Last night they started bonfires all over the village. Despite how ridiculous that may sound, it was a lot of fun. The temperate weather also brings out the tourists. Mae Salong is usually a quiet little town, but its hopping right now. Yesterday we had an Irishman join us for lunch and a truckload of Thais came by after dinner. Today a few vans of Malaysians came through. Being the only pa la in Mae Salong we generally get to meet most everyone. It's kind of nice to meet people from all over the world without leaving our porch.
Christmas in Mae Salong will be on the 17th and 18th. The villages celebrate Christmas on different days so they can visit other villages. From what we can understand, they start the party on the 17th and sing carols late into the night - similar to our Christmas Eve service. The whole event will be a pretty big deal and people are doing all sorts of projects to get ready. The surprising news for us? One of the projects is going to be rebuilding our house. Apparently, our meeting area is to small, the layout is bad, our kitchen is too small, (our house is the "large meal" venue for the village) and our bamboo is bad (bamboo worms have been slowly turning our walls to dust). The great thing is, this time we get to be part of the process - and with the excess bamboo we are going to build a bathroom! I never thought I would be so happy about getting an outhouse for Christmas.
We'll keep you posted on these new projects and events as time goes on. Until then - Merry Christmas!

Tags:

• Akha
• Christmas

Turkey Day and the Eleventh Month

Let me begin by saying, half the fun of writing blogs is coming up with the title. This blog was originally going to be called "What we did in November", but let's be honest. That's pretty boring. I actually just read an article about the top ten blogging mistakes and number three told me to "avoid cute or humorous headlines that make no sense out of context", but I've decided to make an executive decision and go with "Turkey Day and The Eleventh Month" anyway!

(Sorry about that rabbit trail, something about blogging brings out my silly side! OK, back to the blog...)

The holiday season stirs a certain nostalgia in me. I've always been a sucker for holiday traditions, and as we approached our first Thanksgiving in Thailand, my little heart began to beat wildly with the impending doom of a Thanksgiving celebration that "just didn't measure up." However, I'm happy to report that I was far from disappointed!

This past month we learned that America is not the only country that celebrates Thanksgiving. The Akha also have a similar festival to celebrate the yearly rice harvest. Much like American celebrations, they decorate with pumpkins, corn stalks and other "harvesty" things and throw a huge feast! Although they don't eat turkey, their minced pork is "to die for"!

With so many Akha villages in the area, there many opportunities celebrate (they tend to schedule their festivals on different days so they don't interfere with each other.) We ended up attending festivals in five different villages. We had a great time meeting new people, eating excellent Akha food and giving thanks to God for his provision with our Akha brothers and sisters in Christ.

We also had a wonderful American-style Thanksgiving with some other missionaries who live in the Chiang Rai area. We had turkey, stuffing and all the fixin's. It was so wonderful and "just right" that I almost started crying as I walked through that buffet line! (No joke!) We even were blessed to celebrate with family as Paul's dad was in town visiting during Thanksgiving!

As with most American thanksgivings, each family was expected to bring a dish of thier choice. I declared myself in charge of the pumpkin pie. (After all, what is Thanksgiving with out pumpkin pie?!?) Then, I realized that pumpkin in a can doesn't exist here and pre-made pie crusts are equally rare. But as I said, I'm a stickler for tradition and I ended up making the whole thing from scratch. (Thank goodness for the internet!) It tasted pretty good, but I'm still trying to clean up the mess I made in the kitchen!

Tags:

• holidays
• Akha
• rice-festival
• food

Wisdom from the Star Trek archives...

When we did our missions training last January, we learned all about culture shock. They told us that we would inevitably go through various stages and may exhibit unusual behavior and extreme emotions as we adjusted to living in a new environment. However, we never thought that our unusual behavior would take the form of an uncanny addiction to cheesy Science Fiction TV shows.

Of course we don't have access to American television out here, but we can get American TV shows on DVD for unbelievably cheap prices! Anyway, we've made it through five seasons of Stargate SG-1 and we've just started on the more well known Star Trek: The Next Generation series. We were beginning to wonder at our increasing nerdiness, when we saw this conversation and everything seemed to become clear...

Picard to guest: "Please, follow Commander Riker's instructions so our ship can get back to its normal routine!"
(Riker Grins)
Picard: Whats so funny?
Riker: Well, the unexpected is our normal routine!

That last phrase caught our attention, because it just about sums up our life in Thailand. As we began to think about it more, we realized that our recent obsession with sci-fi is probably because the exploits of these fictional characters often seems oddly similar to what we're going through as we encounter more and more of Thai & Akha culture. In almost every episode, they encounter people (or should I say races) with different cultures & beliefs. Often the whole storyline is based on how the crew adapts & adjusts to these challenges. ...And the best part is that every situation & problem is nicely tied up & resolved by the end of the 45 minute show.

I guess we secretly derive encouragement from the cultural victories of our friends on the Starship Enterprise. Are we a little pathetic? Probably. But at least we can blame our nerdiness on culture shock!

Tags:

• missions
• TV