We’ve had absolutely lovely weather here the last three days, rainy, rainy, rainy. When sweltering, humid and hot days turn into rainy and 76 degree days, we adjust from being a slightly-irritable-in-the-late-afternoon-heat family to a relaxed-comfortable-non-sweating-happy-family. I think our lawn is officially saturated now and the trees look almost inches taller than they did over the weekend…it’s wonderful. I’m going to miss this place while we’re home.
I’m starting to think more about what it will be like to be away from Thailand for 6 months and am starting to get familiar with the routine. It goes something like this; As soon as I am in America, I become homesick for Thailand. The opposite is true as well, as soon as I am in Thailand, I am homesick for America. Something happens when you live overseas for an extended period of time. Somehow the smells, the scenery, the thoughts and way of life become a part of who you are. I get that feeling whenever I step out of the airport in Bangkok onto the city streets. The powerful smell of fish sauce assaults my nostrils, and yet smells almost sweet, familiar in a strangely foreign way. To me Thailand symbolizes a lot of things. It’s the first country outside of the U.S. that I’ve really truly experienced. I’ve learned the language, developed a taste for the food, become familiar with a portion of the myriad of cultural complexities. Thailand is also the first place where I felt called by the Lord to serve, to follow Him here despite leaving so many precious people behind. Thailand is where I met Jeremy, where we dated, became engaged and now where we’ve lived as a married couple for more than 5 of our 6 years of marriage. Thailand is where I became a mom for the first and second time. It’s where I’ve raised my children for almost the entirety of their lives. This country holds such dear memories for me.
I’ll miss the smell of humidity, the wetness that permeates every fiber of our home and every pore on our person. Right now it’s 76 degrees. I almost feel a little too cool. Last night when I went to bed I noticed the temperature in our bedroom was about 84. “It feels cool”, I thought, “we can go without the fan tonight.” I’m having these visions of myself in 3 layers of long underwear in the first month of October. It feels as though even my internal temperature has changed after living here for the better part of the last 8 years.
I’ll miss the people. We have lots of acquaintances here. Many people know us as the “foreign family” or the “family who likes bike riding”. There are a few whom we’ve poured precious time and energy into, and it’s those friends who we’ll think of and miss the most. There’s Sing and his family who live up on the mountain. Their house sits on a precipice that affords a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys where our family lives and also into the surrounding countryside of Laos. It’s not a luxury house that they live in though, nor are their lives easy and comfortable. I’ve learned a lot from Sing’s family about contentment. Could I learn to be happy in a simple cement block house, with not a stitch of paint? Would I be content with a kitchen that has bamboo for walls? What if my bathroom floor was at a pitched angle and there was no shower stall, only a bucket of cold water with a dipper? Am I mature enough to rejoice in the Lord, enjoying life no matter what kind of home I’m living in? I still ponder these questions whenever I visit this family because there’s a part of me that longs to be above the trap of comfort and yet I so often can’t quite get past myself. I’ll miss that family and what they’ve taught me about simplicity, dignity and their own trust and faith in Christ.
I’ll miss the sense of purpose that we have while we’re in Thailand. Our day to day job is almost stripped from us when we return to the States and we spend our time talking about our time here, rather than living it. It’s a facet of our life that seems to go on the shelf for the majority of our time at home. We have multiple opportunities to share in church, with our supporters and our family about our life and ministry here- and yet we know it becomes old hat to those who hear it over and over again. So when we miss life here, Jeremy and I open up and chat in the Thai/English dialect that we’ve developed between ourselves.
Thailand is a part of who I am now. I’ve experienced some of the greatest joys and trials of my life here, and those memories are inextricably wound up in the tropical humidity, the rice and rainstorms of northern Thailand.
But what will I miss the most? The mangoes……they just don’t make them the same in the Americas……..
We’ve had absolutely lovely weather here the last three days, rainy, rainy, rainy. When sweltering, humid and hot days turn into rainy and 76 degree days, we adjust from being a slightly-irritable-in-the-late-afternoon-heat family to a relaxed-comfortable-non-sweating-happy-family. I think our lawn is officially saturated now and the trees look almost inches taller than they did over the weekend…it’s wonderful. I’m going to miss this place while we’re home.
I’m starting to think more about what it will be like to be away from Thailand for 6 months and am starting to get familiar with the routine. It goes something like this; As soon as I am in America, I become homesick for Thailand. The opposite is true as well, as soon as I am in Thailand, I am homesick for America. Something happens when you live overseas for an extended period of time. Somehow the smells, the scenery, the thoughts and way of life become a part of who you are. I get that feeling whenever I step out of the airport in Bangkok onto the city streets. The powerful smell of fish sauce assaults my nostrils, and yet smells almost sweet, familiar in a strangely foreign way. To me Thailand symbolizes a lot of things. It’s the first country outside of the U.S. that I’ve really truly experienced. I’ve learned the language, developed a taste for the food, become familiar with a portion of the myriad of cultural complexities. Thailand is also the first place where I felt called by the Lord to serve, to follow Him here despite leaving so many precious people behind. Thailand is where I met Jeremy, where we dated, became engaged and now where we’ve lived as a married couple for more than 5 of our 6 years of marriage. Thailand is where I became a mom for the first and second time. It’s where I’ve raised my children for almost the entirety of their lives. This country holds such dear memories for me.
I’ll miss the smell of humidity, the wetness that permeates every fiber of our home and every pore on our person. Right now it’s 76 degrees. I almost feel a little too cool. Last night when I went to bed I noticed the temperature in our bedroom was about 84. “It feels cool”, I thought, “we can go without the fan tonight.” I’m having these visions of myself in 3 layers of long underwear in the first month of October. It feels as though even my internal temperature has changed after living here for the better part of the last 8 years.
I’ll miss the people. We have lots of acquaintances here. Many people know us as the “foreign family” or the “family who likes bike riding”. There are a few whom we’ve poured precious time and energy into, and it’s those friends who we’ll think of and miss the most. There’s Sing and his family who live up on the mountain. Their house sits on a precipice that affords a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys where our family lives and also into the surrounding countryside of Laos. It’s not a luxury house that they live in though, nor are their lives easy and comfortable. I’ve learned a lot from Sing’s family about contentment. Could I learn to be happy in a simple cement block house, with not a stitch of paint? Would I be content with a kitchen that has bamboo for walls? What if my bathroom floor was at a pitched angle and there was no shower stall, only a bucket of cold water with a dipper? Am I mature enough to rejoice in the Lord, enjoying life no matter what kind of home I’m living in? I still ponder these questions whenever I visit this family because there’s a part of me that longs to be above the trap of comfort and yet I so often can’t quite get past myself. I’ll miss that family and what they’ve taught me about simplicity, dignity and their own trust and faith in Christ.
I’ll miss the sense of purpose that we have while we’re in Thailand. Our day to day job is almost stripped from us when we return to the States and we spend our time talking about our time here, rather than living it. It’s a facet of our life that seems to go on the shelf for the majority of our time at home. We have multiple opportunities to share in church, with our supporters and our family about our life and ministry here- and yet we know it becomes old hat to those who hear it over and over again. So when we miss life here, Jeremy and I open up and chat in the Thai/English dialect that we’ve developed between ourselves.
Thailand is a part of who I am now. I’ve experienced some of the greatest joys and trials of my life here, and those memories are inextricably wound up in the tropical humidity, the rice and rainstorms of northern Thailand.
But what will I miss the most? The mangoes……they just don’t make them the same in the Americas……..
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I |
t’s about that time, furlough time. It’s hard to believe that the two and a half years of our term are coming to a close. Years have turned into months. Months into now just mere days before we board an airplane and journey back home.
Some people have wondered if I’m sad to leave, if saying goodbye for 6 months is difficult. At times I have certainly felt the difficulty of saying goodbye to life here and closing the door on the work that has become such a part of our daily lives. At this particular stage, though, excitement, happiness and relief would be a more fitting description of what I’m feeling as we wait in expectation of this next chapter.
The anticipation of an upcoming furlough tends to make me rather reflective. It’s certainly an excellent time to look back on the past term, relive the struggles, remember the joys and pray about how the Lord would continue to direct us. It’s almost impossible not to have these recollections as constant companions during the final weeks of our time here.
Looking back on the past 30 months or so, it’s clear that there have been mountains and valleys, although the mountain passes often seemed too short, and the valleys seemed so long. I personally continued to struggle with tiredness, feelings of being overwhelmed, loneliness. Some might hear those concerns and say, “Get that girl back home, she’s not doing well!” And believe me, I had many of those thoughts myself. There were many times that I was literally on my knees asking the Lord to either take us out of this situation or provide some kind of lightening bolt of provision that would ease my daily struggles. Even in the midst of those prayers though, I sensed from the Lord that He was not ready to relieve me. I knew that good things were happening in the midst of this season and yet I sometimes wondered why I was called to this. I looked at the lives of others and saw the comforts and encouragements they enjoyed daily, things that seemed worlds away from mine.
At a point of intense difficulty the Lord placed in my hands some books written by a missionary who served in Asia about 50 years ago. As I read about Isobel Kuhn and her story, I was amazed at how similar our struggles were. An amazingly Godly woman who is already with Jesus has taught me much in this past year and I am thankful. One thing that struck me about Kuhn’s book, as well as books about Hudson Taylor and James Fraser (men who were missionaries to China and Burma in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s), was the personal battles that they faced in their early years of mission work. I’ve seen how the struggles they faced are still present in the lives of believers today and that passing through those early trials actually made them more effective witnesses of Christ throughout the rest of their lives.
Reading in 2nd
Corinthians just a few months ago, I was also amazed at reading words which
seemed to speak to me directly, words which brought clarity and light to my
darkness.
“We do not want you to be uninformed , brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” (vs. 8-11)
If I could choose a verse that would summarize this past term and what I have learned it would from the above passage, “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”If my God can raise the dead, then surely He can see me through anything. I can now conclude with this thought regarding the struggles I faced in this last year:
-Our family
had case after case of sickness and struggles with our health, “But this
happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”
-A lack of
encouragement and true friends who lived close by often brought loneliness and discouragement, “But
this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the
dead.”
-Concerns about lack of clarity and direction within the church and in how the Lord would lead us in the future, “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”
(Here’s a picture of Ray looking concerned about the lack of clarity and direction within the church…)
Besides that, what have I learned? That when I have the Lord and His Word I can face anything. I don’t think I have yet had to learn a lesson that valuable or that difficult. But then again, growth comes in the storm doesn’t it? Not usually in the calm.
There is another aspect to the above verse that I have seen powerfully too,"On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers." I am so thankful to those who have prayed for us, especially in the times we have been struggling. Truly there is no more valuable support that we could ever receive, ever. Thank you. It has been a blessing to partner with you.
