Updated on August 4, 2011
There’s no place like home
Unfortunately, getting home is not quite as simple as clicking my heels together. After three transit days, spent on boats, vans, buses, taxis, airplanes, and trains I am quite happily home again. I confess I was not excited to see the large brown crusty snow drifts, nor feel the frigid chill of the wind, but all that can be endured. On the docket today: laundry and hunting the still-closed-down-because-of-spring-festival city of Siping for an open grocery store. I’m so close to being able to cook for myself and yet so far away. Travel updates to come as I get life organized again!
Updated on August 4, 2011
The year of the tiger
Chun Jie Kuai Le! Happy Chinese New Year! The year of the tiger has now begun, and I have quite purposefully avoided its beginning in China. The few days leading up to Spring Festival are some of the craziest travel days in China as millions upon millions of people head home to celebrate with family. Instead of dumplings stuffed with candy and money, red lanterns, and fireworks, I rang in the New Year with a lazy day on a quiet beach on a small island off of Thailand. Today I took a boat back to the island of Samui and tomorrow I fly to Bangkok and then Beijing. By Tuesday evening, after what will seem like a tortuously long train ride, I will be back home again. I am beyond excited to not live out of a suitcase again, and after six weeks of eating out, I can’t wait to get cooking!
Speaking of tigers, yes, in the previous post that is a real live breathing tiger that I’m hugging. One afternoon during conference, a few friends and I decided to rent motorbikes/motorcycles and drive outside of Chiang Mai to the Tiger Kingdom, a park dedicated to giving people a hands-on experience with tigers. Most of our group chose the (expensive) package to see tigers of all ages. My friend Kirsten and I went the cheaper route and just bought a ticket for “the big one”. We had about 25 minutes to cuddle up to and take pictures with three tigers in a cage. We were a bit nervous and excited before entering…
But Kirsten warmed up quickly to the first tiger, named Meatball.
After I took my turn with Meatball, we moved on to meet Spicy Sausage. I never thought I’d be this close to these magnificent creatures.
Lastly, we met Sticky Rice. Who gave me a bit of a scare when he decided to change positions.
Kirsten and I posed for one last picture with Sticky Rice, and then headed out with all limbs intact.
After that, we sped into the mountains for one last drive on the bikes. Luckily (ummm…mom, you can stop reading), my chauffeur for the day had chosen to go the more expensive and powerful motorcycle route in his rental, which made for quite the fun ride through winding mountain roads. All in all, it was a day to take care of all the risk taking whims in me for awhile.
Updated on August 4, 2011
The curse of the Asian birthday
I’ve been hanging out in a Laos the past few days, which has been for the most part wonderfully enjoyable and relaxing. Until my birthday rolled around yesterday. Of the five birthdays I’ve spent in Asia, I’ve now had some form of stomach illness for three of them. It’s beginning to look a bit like a curse! However, I’m hopefully on the mend and slowly weaning myself back onto food. Tomorrow morning it’s back to Thailand for one last week of beach relaxation before heading back to frigid Siping. I must admit, I’m quite excited and ready to head home. Negative temperatures never sounded so good! More stories and pictures of travels to come once internet access is better. Thanks for all of the birthday wishes!
Updated on August 4, 2011
Sabbath
I’m in the midst of my company’s annual conference. It has been a great time of renewed vision, reconnection, and more than anything, standing in awe of the work the Father is doing across Asia. We come to share the incredible and impossible healing He is accomplishing, and we come with broken hearts longing for even greater healing in our cities. I have been reminded once again of the great privilege of working with my company; a company that has the humility to constantly reassess, change and be transformed as we seek to love and serve better in places across Asia. I’m also grateful that while there is great emphasis on doing our jobs with professionalism and excellence, there is also great emphasis on the need for simply resting at the feet of our savior. Beginning tonight through the remainder of the conference we enter into a time of sabbath rest. In this rest we anticipate and eagerly long for the much greater rest that awaits us once the Father has deemed our work complete on this earth.
Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.
You wrote a letter and You signed your name
I read every word of it page by page
You said that You’d be coming, coming for me soon
Oh my God I’ll be ready for YouI want to run on greener pastures
I want to dance on higher hills
I want to drink from sweeter waters
In the misty morning chill
And my soul is getting restless
For the place where I belong
I can’t wait to join the angels and sing my heaven songI hear Your voice and I catch my breath
‘Well done my child, enter in and rest’
Tears of joy roll down my cheek
It’s beautiful beyond my wildest dreamsI want to run on greener pastures
I want to dance on higher hills
I want to drink from sweeter waters
In the misty morning chill
And my soul is getting restless
For the place where I belong
I can’t wait to join the angels and sing
No, I can’t wait to join the angels and sing my heaven song“Heaven Song” by Phil Wickham
Updated on August 4, 2011
Love & Hate
One of the aspects I love most about my job is the incredible people I get to share life with. I have had the privilege of learning, living, and working alongside some of the most brilliant, beautiful, and inspiring people. One of the aspects I hate most about my job is the fact that there is a somewhat high turnover rate in people. Each year close friends, friends that in a perfect world I would gladly live out the rest of my days with, move thousands of miles away at the call of the Father. As I’ve returned to Thailand this year for the fifth time for our company’s annual meeting it’s been great to catch up with dear friends who teach around Asia. However, there are also noticeable holes left by friends who have been called to a different road.
Yesterday was a day of fellowship with old and new friends. My friend Kirsten (who teaches in Vietnam), her friend Victor (visiting from the states), and I rented motorbikes and headed up to the mountains around Chiang Mai. Let me clarify. Kirsten and Victor rented motorbikes and obligingly let me ride on the back. For some reason I think learning how to drive a motorbike in a country that drives on the opposite side of the road is not the best idea for me.
We had a wonderful day of soaking in the scenery around the waterfall, obligingly posing for lots of pictures…I can’t pass up photographing a beautiful face like this…
(I even posed for a picture…a very rare occurrence for me…)
Visiting a temple…
And drinking coffee by the river at sunset…
A day that reminds me it really is all about the people. And that I am incredibly blessed by the companions I’ve been given.
Updated on August 4, 2011
Up close and personal
After a week at the beach, the team headed to Chiang Mai this past Wednesday. There’s not really an update for the beach. I took about two pictures. The rest of the time I ate, napped, and read. That’s about it. It was entirely and completely wonderful.
Yesterday, since our team just can’t seem to be apart for more than a few days at a time, a bunch of us headed to the Chiang Mai zoo. This was my first zoo excursion in the city and it was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. This zoo allows you to get up close and personal with the animals. The kind of up close and personal that would guarantee a mile high pile of lawsuits in the states. Sometimes it can be quite fun to live and travel in lands that aren’t overrun with litigiousness. So exactly how close did we get? Here’s the photographic evidence.
This is one hungry hippo. Cartoons, stuffed animals, and board games would make you believe the hippo is a cute cuddly creature. Viewed up close, I would beg to differ.
Want to pet a hippo? Come on over to Thailand!
Next we moved onto an even more personal encounter with the giraffes.
Samantha was not a big fan of the close contact at first, and not happy with her father’s affection for the giant creatures.
But eventually she began to warm up, and agreed to feed the giraffe herself (take a look at that tongue!).
In fact, she was brave enough to keep a firm hold on that green bean post-tongue grab.
Others came up with more unconventional methods for feeding the giraffes.
And if one guy does it, the rest have to follow suit. Something about proving how tough they are. Something beyond my understanding. His daughter seems quite interested in the process, though.
Next it was on to the elephant and more dad and daughter bonding times.
Finally, the kitty cat.
Isn’t he/she absolutely adorable?
Ok, so the adorableness factor just dropped a few points and the ferociousness factor rapidly leaped up. But what do you expect when raw meat is waved in front of your face?
For all the show of teeth, he/she took the meat quite daintily.
And that my friends is the zoo experience in Thailand–a close encounter with the animal kingdom.
Updated on August 4, 2011
My Lijiang friend
Unfortunately, Kami spent a lot of our time in Lijiang cooped up in the hotel room with the flu. This left me on my own to explore the city, which those of you who know me well realize is not too great of a tragedy. Armed with a camera and/or a book, I’m quite skilled at entertaining myself. One afternoon I stopped in a little cafe simply because this was the view:
Little did I know, I would also make a friend. Most Chinese kids are shy and timid about approaching foreigners, but at a prime location in a tourist town, my guess is this little girl is quite accustomed to foreign faces.
As soon as she realized I spoke a bit of Chinese, she pulled a chair right up and settled in for a conversation. Luckily, my Chinese is probably about at the level of a two or three year old, so we were able to communicate fairly well.
We talked about our ages, what I had ordered, about the flower stem she was playing with, about the clothes she was wearing, about the message I was sending on my cell phone to check in on my sick friend.
All the while I snapped photos of her, which she was quite thrilled to look at. We chatted on and off as I sipped my strawberry milkshake.
After a bit she grew tired of my language capabilities and went off in search of a new diversion. I, however, was thrilled to find a companion (and willing photo subject) for a bit.
Updated on August 4, 2011
Only in China…
Before I headed off on my six weeks of traveling, the team celebrated Will’s birthday. Will is the fourth birthday in our crazy December-January holiday rush. This year, we threw him a Star Wars themed bash complete with a Darth Maul look alike.
It was quite the bash, but for me one of the most entertaining portions was the gift opening. First of all, Will makes the best faces.
Secondly, some of the gifts themselves were “tragilarious” (tragically hilarious) considering they were given to a four year old. Only in China would these gifts be deemed appropriate for a four year old. First, there was ham.
Then there was cereal. 
Lastly, there was cheese. I think by this time Will was tired of the food gifts.
Updated on August 4, 2011
WARM
After 10 days of traveling through southern China, I am finally completely and entirely WARM. Granted, southern China was much warmer than my China hometown (it doesn’t take a lot to improve on -25 degrees). However, southern China is also without indoor heating. Consequently, while outdoor temperatures were usually quite pleasant during the day, the inside of buildings were quite chilly. This fact meant that the one pair of long underwear I departed with was worn a lot. To the point where I cringed putting them on.
The good news is that I won’t have to pull those long johns on for a good several weeks. Kami and I completed our China travels today and safely arrived in Thailand where we met up with most of our team. We had an awesome time visiting her friends near Dali. It is always encouraging to see a bit more of the work that’s happening in China. Sitting in a packed train station in China, overwhelmed by the crowds, it’s easy to become discouraged about the work over here. There are just so many people. In light of that fact, the few hundred students I have the opportunity to impact at a university seems like less than a drop in a bucket. However, seeing people working in an entirely different region and with a different group of people was a reminder that the Father is sending out messengers of the truth across this vast population. After visiting Kami’s friends, we headed to Kunming for a day and a half–and were disappointed to find our reservation was at a less than ideal hotel that we soon thereafter nick-named “the ghetto”. In order to spend the least amount of time in the ghetto as possible, we splurged on movie tickets to see Avatar. The three hours of comfort and stunning visual effects were well worth the price.
This week we’re hanging out at a beach house in Thailand with the team. There’s thirteen of us crammed into the house; it’s a good thing we’re as close as family! All I can say is I’m THRILLED to finally be warm.
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