the rose of the north

“Good night, what is that dog barking at?!” is what I was thinking about twenty minutes ago.  Jon was reading the kids a bedtime story and I was, well, checking my Facebook account.  Rufus doesn’t really bark so much, and since he’s still a pup (almost six months now?) it’s not an impressive bark either.  But this bark was all business.  And he was barking at something in our back alleyway behind the kitchen, not out front in the yard.  Cat?  Rat maybe?  Ooh, frog.  Probably a frog, most likely a frog.  So I head downstairs and turn on the back light to see what the fuss is about.

Not frog.  Snake.  Rufus and snake.  Dead snake?  It’s just lying there by the concrete wall with Rufus diligently circling the perimiter like it’s no big d.  A nice, serious pup bark every once in a while.  It’s all happening six feet from me, though I’m safely inside.  But nothing feels safe now.  Nothing ever does when there’s a snake six feet away.  Still not moving.  Odd.

I holler up the steps to Jon (ok, scream.  I screamed loud and I didn’t care who else heard) and just like the other times he flyies into action, grabs the “snake poles” by the driveway and sets to work.  I was watching from the window.  ACK, it moved!  It’s not dead, just nicely cornered by a brave little pup,  who is nonplussed and in fact trots off and joins me inside when Jon gets to work.  I’d say two feet long, ish?  No distinct patterning, the head isn’t diamond shaped, but it’s tough to tell.  All he generally likes to do is have a look and toss it over the wall into the field if it’s harmless.  Well, it moved to strike at Jon.  It shouldn’t have, because it then met with the business end of a bamboo stick.  And that was that for the poor fella.  We snapped a few photos and it got the heave ho.  We still don’t know if it was poisonous….we’ll consult the book tonight and our Thai neighbors tomorrow.  We need to know in case there’s more.

The kids came downstairs shortly after Jon; they know the snake drill and as much as I hate that they do, it’s a subject we talk about very seriously, especially Sean.  He knows the procedure to be safe, he knows not to ever move the snake poles so that if Daddy ever needs them he can get them quickly.  He knows to scream like crazy for us if he ever sees one, and to grab Anna if she’s there because she doesn’t quite get it yet.  It’s one of my least favorite things about Thailand.  Snakes.

Had Rufus not brought our attention to the late night visitor, it most likely would have been tucked away somewhere in our yard.  Where our kids play.  His extra sensitive eyes, ears and definitely nose keep us that much safer.  And I’m thanking God for this little pup tonight.  And I’m thanking God for my husband, uniquely crafted for this crazy life we lead!  And we always know that we are in the palm of His mighty hand.  There is no safer place to be, can I get an amen!!

(by the way….the pup earned a comfy spot at the foot of Sean’s bed for his brave deed tonight.)

Let’s try this….

-Anna, the little monkey, has learned how to crawl out of her crib.  Sigh.  Time for a big girl bed!  She’s not even two and a half yet!

-The preschool is flying along.  Enjoying the kids immensely, not so much the earlier hours.  Every child has a unique set of needs, let alone the fact that they’re three and four!  I am running out of energy for this project.  Pray for me friends!

-Sean is going through a time of testing.  Gotta love those “phases”!  He has a strong will yet he’s pretty sensitive, and is such a smart guy.  Pray we can correct and nurture him in a sensitive, loving way and not squash his unique spirit as we help him understand to respect authority.  We love the socks off this guy!

-Ran out of our good coffee last week.  Sad day.

-Jon has taken on some more responsibility within the Foundation, having to do with continued planning for the school projects, working with the admin, budgets and meetings and such.  He works so hard!

-Waves of homesickness continue to batter me.  Especially during the holiday season.  I haven’t seen my family in over a year and I’m starting to ache.

-We got a new pup!  His name is Rufus; a rescue dog from a nicely run shelter.  He’s really great; playful and frisky, happy-go-lucky little guy.   Everything you’d expect from puppy, great temperament, a definite keeper.  Especially great is seeing Anna play and interact with him, especially after the scary incident with our other dog.

-I joined the frenzy that is FaceBook online….and have found it to be a very cool thing.  Time consuming, but cool.  Have reconnected with lots and lots of people.  Love that!  It actually has moved me to tears at how curious, encouraging and sweet so many have been after years of no contact.  Huh.  Guess technology can be a blessing!

-Got in our first “fender-bender” last Sunday.  Don’t worry, our fender didn’t bender.  Someone tried to turn in front of us to get onto another road.  Thing is, they just decided to go for it without any warning and we bonked into the side of the car.  Their fault, no injuries, no damage to our truck (think we might have been going, maybe 15 mph?) and the other driver was so very obviously at fault she didn’t want to involve any authorities.  Fine by us.  We have impressively large bumper guards, just ask our friend Dan Moore.

-Notes of encouragement have bolstered my spirits….I was beginning to feel like we were forgotten over here.  Feelings of lonliness and abandonment.  But it’s not so!  Thank you to those of you who have written either emails, left comments here and there, or chats online.  They all count, and they all have blessed and renewed me!

Think that should do it for now….Not sure what we’ll do for thanksgiving dinner yet, but we’re exploring some options!  God bless you!

I haven’t posted for a little over a week now, is that right?  My biggest and most legitimate excuse is that I haven’t been able to upload pictures to my photo website for some mysterious reason.  It’s just not working now and I need time to figure out why.  And the other reason is the generic yet just as legitimate reason is that we’re pretty stinking busy!!!  We wake up at six-thirty and don’t stop until our heads hit the pillows.  Teaching, meetings, phone calls, planning, eating, reading, lesson prepping, taking care of the kids, driving around and running errands, you know the drill.  Something, at some point, is going to give.  We are running at maximum rpm these days! I thought this blog would help keep more people informed, and I think it does, but at the same time, in my mind I KNOW that so much of what we do and see is left unsaid.  I can just barely keep up with our own life; and then retelling it all to the ones we love has really put me in this strange paradox of how to get it all done.

I’m not entirely sure this blog makes any sense and am seriously debating whether or not I should even post it.  Here’s what I’m saying.  Since starting this blog I have become a blog conessuier, if you will, of other people’s blogs.  And it seems that they’re all nice and neat and put together with proper titles and formats and pictures and such.  Sometimes I feel mine is such a funky hodge-podge of information, I wonder if it does more harm than good?  Should I take even more time and put more spit and polish on these posts before putting them out there?  Should I keep them raw and uncut?  I always give them a good read over, editing and such, but I mean content wise?  What do people really want to hear?  That’s always a tough one for me because I know that some people want to hear one thing and some could care less.  I only do this for folks back home, ditto for the photo website.  And I feel it’s super important.

I think I’ll post this one.  If you care to comment, please do.  I need some direction here! 

Yes my friends, last week was a doozy.  This week was also doozy.  I had two weepy, weepy breakdowns (which only Jon saw, as always).  Oh friends.  But I think I’m coming through it now.  And looking back over my years of teaching, I do remember that the week before the start of school, and the first week of school were particularly draining.  And whichever week fell around Halloween.  Yeesh, how I loathe that holiday!  Anything harvesty, Thanksgivingy, pumpkin patchy…. great!  Anything scary, vampirey, ghosty….yuck.  And I read online that Halloween is second only to Christmas in terms of merchandising, etc.  Not that I relish that Christmas is number one in merchandising.  Just sayin’.  What was I sayin’?  I’m off track.

Right.  Yes, well, we’ve come through the week now.  To add on to the fullness of our already full days, our Foundation hosted a week long church planting conference called the International Church Planting Summit at a hotel downtown.  It was really amazing….over a hundred faithful Thai nationals attended, ready for words of encouragement and community sharing of ideas.  Prayer.  Worship….which was Jon’s contribution, as well as attending some of the workshops.  It was, as I said, awesome.  The workshops were powerful.  To see all the men and women who gathered in itself was powerful; seeing God at work in their hearts and minds, ready and willing.  So beautiful.  Beautiful like the words from Isaiah 52:

“How BEAUTIFUL on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news,

who proclaim peace,

who bring good tidings,

who proclaim salvation,

who say to Zion,

“Your God reigns!”

Listen!  Your watchmen lift up their voices;

together they shout for joy.

When the Lord returns to Zion,

they will see it with their own eyes,

Burst into songs of joy together,

you ruins of Jerusalem,

for the Lord has comforted his people,

he has redeemed Jerusalem.

The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations,

and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.

….

The Lord will go before you,

the God of Israel will be your rear guard.”

You know that movie with Steve Martin called “The Jerk”?  I don’t even know if I’ve watched it more than once but there’s this one quasi-famous, oft-quoted scene where he has some sort of a breakdown after he loses all his fortunes.  He shuffles down the hallway in his robe and jammies, taking random things along the way.  He mutters things like “All I need is this stapler, that’s all I need.  And this remote.  And that’s all.  That’s it.  And this chair.  The stapler, the remote and the chair and that’s all.  That’s all I need.  And this phone book.”

I look like that some mornings.  Some of you have seen me like this in the mornings; shuffling along in despair, robed and bedraggled.  I looked like that this very morning, sadly enough.  Many mornings, as of late, as a matter of fact.  And in my head, I think things to get myself going.  This morning it felt very Steve Martin and I just thought I’d share.  “God, that’s all I need.  God and a cup of coffee and that’s it.  And Jon, and that’s all.  God, coffee and Jon, and that’s all.  And my kids.  And that’s all I need.”  And God, in His mercy, fills my proverbial “cup” as Jon fills my coffee cup.

Ah, me.  This week is going to be a doozy, I can see it already.  This week is a full week of planning meetings, aligning schedules, putting finishing touches on the curriculum, meeting new families, answering many questions.  To top it all off, there is an Open House this Friday night; nothing I like more than standing in front of grown-ups talking like I know what I’m talking about.  Give me a room full of children any day of the week.  But I digress.  This morning I woke up just wishing someone else was doing this instead of me….how easy would that be.  But no, this is my portion.  And I do love it, I care deeply for this project.  Maybe that’s why it’s so draining; I just can’t quit because I don’t want to.

Pray for me friends.  Pray that my mornings are less “The Jerk” and more “Morning Has Broken”.  Pray that I feel less daunted and more emboldened.

I’m so “sited!” (”excited”, when Sean is too excited to pronounce the whole word!)

It took us over two hours winding over mountains, twisting around on small roads, and yet we all stayed cheery, enjoying the glory of God’s creation.  Northern Thailand leaves me speachless, so often, so beautiful.  So jungely.

This is our little bungalow; we stayed at the Belle Villa Resort.  The reason we could afford such a nice place is that they are in the midst of massive construction.  From eight in the morning to five in the evening, it’s hammering and sawing in two different spots.  Loud, but then again, we have young children who are themselves noisy.  Didn’t bother us a bit.  Neither did the huge room discount and the 10% off food.

Amazing breakfast buffet, included, of course.  Tasty, but not at delicious as the view!  My lands.

Our favorite feature of the bungalow….A lovely window seat by day….

….and a snuggly bed at night for two sillies!  Actually, only one silly.  We brought a crib for the littlest silly.  They were just waiting for a bedtime story in this photo.

Ok….That’s enough for one blog.  There’ll be three, maybe four more blogs coming your way; the World War II memorial bridge, Sean’s fishing trip, Mo Paeng Waterfall and the Tha Pai Hot Springs.  We’ll see.  Hopefully.

Just in case you were wondering if you got the wrong blog, no worries.  I was getting tired of those yellow stripes and thought I’d find an easier design to work with.  Not that any of this is easy for me, but I am trying!  As soon as I can get some pictures uploaded I’ll start posting about our recent adventures in Pai.  Until then, here’s one from a recent trip to the zoo with our new friends Marie and Francois.  They helped us take some of the foster kids to the zoo; it was a wonderful, memorable day.  Thank you dear friends!  God bless you!

Love this little girl!

We had a great time in Pai; stories, pics and maybe videos to follow!

Tomorrow we head north to a small town called Pai.  I’ve been wanting to check it out for some time now, and since October is a break for us, and because we need it, we’re taking a mini family vacation!  We leave tomorrow (October 15th) and drive for about two and a half hours.  We’ll be home sometime on Saturday the 18th.  If you need to, you can still get a hold of us via cell phone.  We’re taking the computer and will be able to check and send emails, but we’re keeping it to a minimum!  It’s a vacation, after all!

The school year is different than in the States, and that has taken some getting used to!  It’s now October, half way through the school year.  And the entire month of October is a holiday for the students.  Teachers have a week break, but they are to be working during the rest of the weeks.

Here is what the school year in Thailand typically looks like (there are two terms/semesters):

First Term:  Mid-May to last day of September (There is a long weekend holiday somewhere in August)

Mid-Year Break:  October

Second Term:  November through Mid-March (There are two days off at the beginning of December and a two week holiday at the end of December to celebrate the New Year.)

Summer Break:  Mid-March to Mid-May (about two months)

So there you have it.  During this month I have been working with the Thai staff on some new ideas for curriculum at the preschool.  It has been wonderful, but such a challenge because my Thai language skills aren’t what I wish they were and we do all the planning in Thai. We’re laying it all out on big pieces of newsprint.  We want to spend the first term on Old Testament stories, helping the children to encounter an amazing Creator God and learning about the people God used to do big things.  We’d like to spend the second term helping the children to encounter Jesus.  Cool, right?  We’re trying to integrate learning skills with the stories.  It’s been a really good exercise for all of us!

Here is a picture of us, hard at work during October break!