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After living here for nearly two years I suppose that I should be accustomed to these kind of errors (not to mention mature enough to refrain from posting them on the internet). Maybe it's the combination of "deep" and "imitation" that got me. In any case, I couldn't resist taking a picture of this menu at a restaurant in Songkhla.
-Tom
Well, it's hard to summarize a five week trip- don't worry I won't bore you with a day by day accounting!! Let me just share a few pictures and highlights and say that it's so awesome how God knows what we need. I feel so blessed by the time with our families and incredibly happy that I got to share the joy of my sisters on their wedding days! And we owe Him a lot of praise and thanks for safe flights and travel while I was in the States. It feels so good to be home and back together as a family!!
We spent our first week and a half in Delaware. Some highlights of our time with Tom's family......a trip to the boardwalk and Grottoes pizza and Funland rides, playing with the baby chicks that Grandpa ordered, riding Uncle Fred's old skateboard, playing with the cousins and carrying Owen around, a day at the beach, building a fort of old doors with Grandpa, a birthday BBQ at the pool for Grandma, and lots of shopping! It was wonderful to see Claire enjoying her cousins and grandparents and to have fun running outdoors.
In Virginia, the theme was weddings, weddings, weddings! We loved being there for all the preparation and excitement and are so happy for our two sisters who have found such great guys. Highlights.....Claire catching two trout on her fishing trip with Grandaddy, camping as a whole family in WVa, making monkey bread with Grandmom, playing with baby goats, more shopping, three wedding showers, arranging flowers for Rebekah's wedding, and an "international meal" prepared by us world travelers for the rest of the family.
On the camping trip we had fun talking around the fire, playing bocci ball, playing with cousins, boating on the lake, and lots of yummy camping food.
A giant mushroom the girls found by our campsite.
Dietrich and I preparing Spanish tapas and Thai Cashew Chicken for our family meal. Anita also made Isreali food and Carmen a beautiful couscous with vegetables.
And the weddings....
Two eager flower girls practice their part at the rehearsal.
Claire said that Aunt Rebekah looked "like a princess- more beautiful than all the other ladies at the wedding." :) Just how it should be!
The wedding party consisted of three sisters, three brothers, and two nieces.
And two days later....another!
After weeks of sunny weather, Anita's wedding day was a dreary, rainy one, threatening plans for an outdoor wedding. She and David decided to rent a tent and we were all glad for it later as the rains continued! The wedding was different and fun with a potluck picnic and a worshipful ceremony under the tent.
Philip practices for his singing role (he sang during the meal, along with Deitrich).
Claire is prepared for the rain! She enjoyed her job of handing out programs before the ceremony.
The big moment! Walking down the aisle to David.
Well, that's the best I can do narrowing down five weeks and 474 pictures into a nutshell!
I am so thankful for the time I was able to spend in the States and also for a safe return back to the rest of my family!
Candice
This picture pretty much says it all.
Candice said that the flight was as bad as you'd expect it to be at 8 months pregnant. She and Claire are tired but very glad to be safely home. Thanks so much to all of you who prayed for us, and to all of you in Delaware, Virginia, and Thailand who helped make the separation more bearable.
-Tom
Tonight our team had a going-away party for Raul. After a year in Thailand he'll be returning to Costa Rica on Monday. In that year, he as accomplished a lot. He was the first intern to come to Thailand from Latin America. So, in addition to all of the challenges and adjustments that all of us face moving to a new culture, Raul faced another whole set of difficulties. He came from a conference of churches that not so long ago was considered a mission field - with raising his support, they had to make the switch to becoming a sending church, and that's not alway an easy transition to make. He came to Thailand knowing only a little bit of English, and even though many of the Thai-learning aids (dictionaries, books, etc.) are written for English speakers, he's done an impressive job of picking up the language. For most of his time here he was the only native Spanish speaker on the team, and even though Dan did a good job of translating, Raul also put up with a lot of English at our team prayer meetings and worship services. In the early days I'd communicate with him in a mix of Spanish and English, but before long we were able to communicate mostly in Thai.
It didn't take Raul long to begin making friends in his neighborhood and he's had the privilege of seeing God use him to make a significant impact on their lives. We've appreciated his passion for working here and are glad that he is determined to return, hopefully even bringing a new team of his friends with him.
I'm sure Raul would welcome your prayers for his return to Costa Rica - that his adjustment would go smoothly, that he would be able to convey his vision for future work here with clarity, and that God would continue to work in the lives of the friends he is leaving behind.
-Tom
Eliza and I got back this morning from a 5 day trip to southern Thailand. I'd been wanting to see this area, and since it's a 17 hour train ride from Bangkok, I figured it's not a trip we'll likely be taking with three young kids. We both had a great time - Eliza liked the beach, the monkeys, and the hotel room. I enjoyed the food, the freedom of exploring on a motorcycle, and the people that we met. We went just about as far as is considered safe (because of the rebel groups that have been fighting for independence from Thai control for the past four years in the southern 3 provinces). While we were there I read in the paper that there had been an attack on soldiers and teachers in the southern part of Songkhla province - an area I had that very morning been considering exploring. So, we stayed closer to town instead.
Here are a few pictures...
Songkhla province has a series of long sandy beaches which were surprisingly empty. It's apparently not a popular spot with foreign tourists and Thai people prefer to sit under the shade trees to eat and talk instead of sunbathing or playing in the water.
Friday, however, was a school holiday and when we walked down the beach we attracted this crowd of kids - all eager to see Eliza and to practice their English ("Good afternoon!" "Welcome to my school." How old are you?" "My name is?" (that last one is apparently the way that many Thai kids learn to ask "What is your name?")) Eliza is used to attracting a fair amount of attention in Bangkok - but in Songkhla it went to a whole new level.
For two days we rented a motorcycle and had a lot of fun exploring on our own. The first day we visited an island in the middle of a huge lake and on the way back decided to follow signs for a mangrove forest and cemetery (unusual in our part of Thailand since Buddhists cremate their dead). We never found the mangrove forest, but we did find the cemetery in the middle of a small Muslim fishing village. This place was markedly different from anything else that I've seen in Thailand. The streets were narrow, there was a mosque on the hill in the middle of town, and there were goats and sheep running around all over the place.
While we were driving through the village, a man greeted us from the sidewalk and I stopped to talk with him. He quickly invited us out to a little house built on stilts over the lake to rest and talk. He brought us some food and water and told us more about that area.
To get to this house on the water we had to walk across a series of logs with only a very rickety bamboo fence to aid with balance. Surajai carried Eliza on his back - good thing for her, because I'm not sure if I could have gotten her there and back safely!
Another day we drove south of town and met Man, a squid fisherman who lives in a small house just across the road from the beach. He invited us back to his house and had his mother-in-law boil these huge shellfish for us. Then we went to the beach with a small gang of kids and hunted for crabs and crabs in the surf. Eliza stripped down to her underwear and joined the kids in the water. Then we sat in the sand and ate the shellfish (and Man ripped apart the crabs they had just caught and ate them raw). It was a privilege to enjoy this kind of hospitality.
We also visited the Songkhla Zoo (Eliza's reward for patiently putting up with all of our running around). It had the typical pros and cons of a Thai zoo. A lot of the cages were empty, but on the bright side you could strip leaves off of the bushes and feed them to the giraffe. And we got to watch a black panther being fed a piece of chicken dangling far above his pen from a pulley system. The zoo keeper made him jump and miss a few times before putting the meat within range of his leap.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable vacation - and Eliza was a good traveling partner. Here she enjoys a fried chicken leg at sunset.
Now we're looking forward to having Candice and Claire back at the end of this week!
-Tom
We're now 3/5 of the way through our time apart and I think that we're all very anxious to see each other again. Claire and Candice have moved on from Delaware to Virginia and are busy with all manner of family activities, wedding preparations, and shopping. It's been especially fun to talk to Claire on the phone and hear her excitement at rediscovering America.
Eliza and I have been living a bachelor's life here. Lots of meals on the floor (meaning we sit on the floor, not spill our meals), minimal housecleaning, and Eliza somehow manages to stay up later than normal. We've been able to spend quite a bit of time hanging out at our landlord's house; he really enjoys Eliza's company. For some reason he's not showing as much interest in the Bible study we started - but I trust that God is continuing to work in his life. You can continue to pray for him and for the trouble that he continues to have with his eye.
Eliza has been a good sport about tagging along with me to a variety of meetings and appointments. She loves to ride on the motorcycle with me and almost without fail will begin singing made up songs in her high-pitched voice as we ride along. Next week there's a two-day Thai holiday, so we're planning to take advantage of that and go on a short vacation in the southern part of Thailand.
Again, thanks for your prayers for our family. We really appreciate it.
-Tom
Thailand has a series of "Learning TV" channels that often show classroom lectures on subjects such as math or English. Occasionally, I'll watch an English lesson because, since all of the instruction and commentary is in Thai, it doubles as a Thai lesson for me. The basic pattern is to present an English sentence that uses a certain word or phrase the students are supposed to learn and then translate it into Thai. The sentences are often not quite right, even if they are technically correct and understandable. Today, for example they taught "Knock at the door before getting into the room." Not the way we'd actually say it in English, but it gets the point across.
But this sentence, which I also saw today, is not even close: "She attended to be an air hostage."
The teacher then went on to explain (in Thai) that "she intended to be an air hostess."
When I encounter mistakes like this it makes me wonder how many equally ludicrous things I say in Thai on a regular basis.
-Tom
In a previous entry I mentioned a book written about Thailand 100 years ago and quoted from a section dealing with Thai marriage customs. Later in the same book the author describes his impressions of Buddhism and how it was practiced (or not practiced) in Thailand in the late 1800's. From what we've observed, I'd agree with almost all of what he says - except for the comparison he makes to Christianity. Here's his description:
"Every single town and village of Siam is crowded with temples...their number seems to be out of all proportion to the number of the population...[T]he reason for this superabundance of religious edifices is not to be found in the immense number of people who are popularly supposed to believe in the teachings of Buddha...no one who has lived in a Buddhist country will venture to assert that...the vast majority of the people do anything more than passively accept the superstitions of their forefathers without ever inquiring or even caring whether they are the true teachings of Buddha or not...It is not possible to call them Buddhists at all, if the term is to be used as comparable to the term Christian as applied to the believers in Christ in Western lands."
I'd say it's exactly the same as the state of Christianity in "Western lands." Whether we're talking about Christianity or Buddhism (or probably any other religion), a sizable percentage of people who identify themselves with that faith could not justifiably claim to be active, sincere disciples who are truly dedicated to the teachings and morals of the religion. All cultures contain some level of religious symbolism and tradition (Thai culture happens to include a lot). And even though many people are content to practice or observe only that "cultural religion" it is never the same as a true faith and commitment to the original teachings.
There are "true Buddhists" in Thailand and they bemoan the widespread hypocrisy and watering-down of their religion in the same way that "true Christians" in the West do.
-Tom