Day by Day

Day by day, little by little we are adjusting to this new reality, this new rhythm.  It is an adventure for sure, but it is not easy.  We are still in our temporary house and as a result have now been essentially living out of suitcases for about 4 months.  We are so excited to move in to a place that is more permanent, to create a space in which to live and be.  Monday through Friday we (Kevin, Caleb, and I) attend Thai language school.  Right now we go for 3 hours a day.  It doesn’t seem like much, but it is mentally exhausiting.  At home we study more Thai, explore the city, practice what we’ve learned by shopping, ordering food, and using public transportation.

Learning to grocery shop and feed the family has been a challenge.  Some of the foods we usually eat are unavailable or very expensive (beef and cheese and leafy greens in particular).  Peanut butter, a staple for Caleb, can only be purchased in small quantities.  Real maple syrup is like liquid gold.  Sandwich meat is all processed and bread is all “fluff.”  On the other hand… there are so many fruits and vegetables that we’ve never had access to before.  We just need to learn how to cook them, when to use them and sometimes what they are.  They don’t have most of our most common herbs and spices, but they have a wide variety of others that we can experiment with.  My boys (Kevin included) do love meat and rice and there is an abundance of that here.  There is also an abundance of MSG in food.  They seem to put it in almost everything.  I’ve never seen anything like it!  You can buy bags of it at the store for cooking.  It’s so strange to me.

Getting where we want and need to go is always a process.  It always takes time and usually more time than you think it is going to.  For the most part, we walk to the BTS station (about a 15 minute walk to the station) and then ride the sky train (BTS).  From there we can get to the MRT (subway) or a bus or taxi, depending on where else we need to go.  There is usually a short walk involved once we get off the subway or train.  We walk a lot.  We always have to figure out what will be the cheapest most time-efficient mode of travel based on where we are going and how many of us are going there.  For example, sometimes its less expensive to get a taxi for the four of us than for all of us to pay to take the BTS.  However, the BTS is never held up by traffic, but the taxi might be depending on the time of day.  There are many places the BTS just doesn’t go.  So, we have to decide if we take a taxi the entire way or take the BTS or MRT (or both) and then get on a taxi.  Can we walk to or from the public transit?  How far is it?  Is it raining?  How hot is it?  How much time do we have?

Last Sunday, we intended to go to one church but ended up attending another because we had a very hard time getting a taxi that would take us where we wanted to go.  This was not a communication problem, it was just farther than the taxis wanted to drive on a Sunday and not in a high traffic area where they could get more business after dropping us off.  When we finally got a taxi, we realized that we would be 20-25 minutes late for service, so we had to convince the driver to take us to a different church.  Thankfully we had just learned how to give directions in school the week before! This Sunday we finally made it Bangkok First Church and enjoyed a great time of worship and fellowship.  We told them about our previous week’s taxi experience; they replied with a laugh and a “Welcome to Bangkok.”

Of course, some of our day is spent doing the normal things… cleaning, laundry, etc. which is also different.  There are no clothes dryers so I line dry everything.  This is fine until I decide that the weather looks nice enough to hang things outside (and even check weather.com)—and then it usually rains and the clothes have to be washed or at least go through the spin cycle again.   We have good days where life seems like a fun adventure and not so good days when we really wish we were back home in Oregon with our friends.  Some days we are just plain tired.  Some days it’s hard to remember why we are here amid the endless adjustments and mind-taxing learning.  And then there are days like today.

Today we flew to Chiangmai to pick up our work permits (for the second time—they weren’t ready the first time we went up despite the written notice we’d received that they were).  We met a pastor there who drove us around and talked us about life in Chiangmai and about the hill tribe he’s from and his Karen village.  I had only read about the Karen people in a prayer guide designed for praying for unreached people groups.  Now these people are more than just a picture and a paragraph in a book.  When I pray for them, they are vivid, working, living people who need Jesus.

As we flew home, we were noticing the little villages tucked in among the hills and “mountains” and the not so little cities far off in the distance.  We wondered together about he people there, the Church there, if there even was one.  And then God opened my eyes and expanded my vision.  What if…  What if for the next two years we learn the language and learn the culture and what if while we study and listen and learn, we build relationships and encourage believers.  What if we help disciple and teach and cast Kingdom visions.  What if… what if some of the people we encourage and teach and love catch the vision to go further into their city and out into the countryside, into the other cities and further out into their country and beyond its borders and start new churches, reach unreached people.  What if…

If any of those ifs become reality then all of the adjustments, all that we’ve left behind, all the work of learning will seem like no price at all to pay.  The possiblilites are endless and always amazing with our Great and Awesome God and learning to dream His dreams is inspiring and exciting—because they are more than dreams, they are His plans and His purposes prevail.  So, day by day, I will choose to adjust my life, my attitude and my outlook and vision to His in order to be a part of something far more important than my convenience or even my own ambitions, to be a part of His perfect plan.