MicahJohn

Hey

So, I’m back. Thanks to Aunt Mary for the email title. Thanks so much to all or you for your prayers and for the many notes of update from home and words of encouragement. Feel free to continue praying for me and for God’s guidance in my life. I had a good time. It is good to be back.

In closing I’d like to offer a few more quick stories from my final days in Thailand. The first story actually took place before email 9 but didn’t get included. One of my readers recommended that I go out and look at the stars and had asked if I could see the Southern Cross. Having gone out on my own early one morning I realized I wouldn’t really know if I saw the Southern Cross, not having ever learned to identify it. So I did a little Google research and found that at this time of year around 9:00 stargazers in Thailand can see both the North Star and the Southern Cross. So Joe and I tried this for a few nights but kept encountering clouds in the North or South. We finally saw both in one sky in one night. Pretty cool.

Next Story: My last day in Ubon, because Lynn was sick and neither of us had first period classes to teach at Benjama, we waited to leave until it was time for (little) Micah and Abby to go to school. We took them on the motor scooter (all four of us at one time). I was on the back and didn’t even hold on. I felt pretty Thai.

I (on the night train) arrived in Bangkok at 5:00AM from Ubon. Some Tuk Tuk driver was waiting at the platform so I went ahead and let him help me in to his Tuk Tuk rather than waiting for a taxi. A tuk tuk is a little like a three wheeled motorcycle with a little roofed place for people to sit in the back. It turns out a metered taxi (the meter tells the customer what they owe the driver) would have been a good deal cheaper. The driver realizing I didn’t really have any ability to argue with him, charged me rather exorbitantly. Oh well. It was still pretty cheep by American standards. He dropped me off at the gate of the church where I was staying. I waited there at the gate for an hour and twenty minutes for the gate to open. I then went in and took a nap.

During my time in Bangkok I went to the temple complex that houses the Emerald Buddha (made out of Jade not Emerald). I think I’ve said this before about other things, but I’ll say it again with apologies, I can’t really describe it. It was big. There was a lot of gold. There was fascinating architecture. There were beautiful murals. At the end of the time the heavens let loose and dumped a ton of rain on us (Randy and I). Randy, if I have not introduced him before, is one of the people I went to visit. He is in language school in Bangkok with his wife Jodi. Their two children, Levi (2?) and Julia (less than 1?), are also in Bangkok, but are not in (formal) language school.

The return flight was long, yet somehow I landed in DC earlier than I took off from Tokyo.

Again thanks

Peace

Micah

Greetings

I have left the village. Weird. It is strange to be so rapidly approaching the end. My mind is a bit of a blur at the moment, so excuse me if this message comes out in a blur. I dare not wait until my mind clears or you may not hear from me until the end of July. I do not think getting home will end the rush I’ve encountered since leaving the village.

My first night in Ubon we went out for Korean Barbeque (I think I got that right). It was amazing! They bring out a tub of coals. Over that they put a shaped metal sheet with a trough around the outside and a rounded island in the middle. The rounded island has slits cut in it. They also bring out a pitcher of water, a tray of vegetables and noodles, and a bowl of meat.

You put your own meat on the island, you put your water and veggies in the trough. The meat’s juices run into the trough and mix with the veggies and noodles. You take veggies and meat for yourself as they finish cooking. I am not sure how well I described the process. I know I cannot describe the taste. I will say again, amazing!

The last two days I’ve taught at Benjama school (The school where Lynn and Kris teach). I will teach there again tomorrow. I am filling in for Kris who is in the states with her father who just had brain surgery. She and her family could use your prayers. Teaching here is a whole different game from anything I experienced in the village. Here I am alone. I am not helping Joe or Ma. I am not being helped by Fon. I am in the English Program of a very nice school. The schools we went to from the village were operating on a much lower budget. All science, math, and English here is taught by foreigners, so coming in as a native speaker doesn’t make me instantly special. Here I am not just doing one class once a week per school. Here I am a regular feature in the day.

Saying yes to teaching was scary. I haven’t done it before. I will only be here for three days, not enough time to really get the hang of things. Doing the actual teaching wasn’t as hard in the ways I feared. I did, however, in one class manage to spell three words wrong on the board in quick succession. It is a little embarrassing to be teaching English and have non-native speakers correcting your spelling. Oh well. Also, I’ve learned how miserable grading a worksheet can be. Another challenge is knowing how long to let a question sit in silence, or how long to let students work on an in-class exercise.

One thing that has made the whole teaching thing easier is several classes (including some of mine) are away at Buddhist camp. I only have two one-hour periods a day.

Well, that about wraps it up, or at least that’s what my unlunched stomach is telling me.

Peace

Micah

I think all Christians are clearly called to live as Christ’s ambassadors, as agents of the king. I’m not as certain that the form of service, the agent’s cover, is as clear a calling. As a pastor’s kid I know there are hard things that come to those intentionally serving God. It helps in those circumstances to know that you are doing what God wants you to be doing. For that reason a specific call sure would be nice.

I tend to think, that at least to our perspective, God gives a great deal of freedom. I think he isn’t that worried about the specific things we do, so much as he is concerned that we fall deeper in love with him and that that shows in what we do. It is entirely possible that as we love God, there will be a single path that naturally emerges, but I don’t think we will always be conscious of the singularity of the path.

I think wholeheartedly serving God in any role in life is going to bring the hard times that make a clear knowledge that you are in God’s will comforting and sustaining. Therefore, it would seem like every Christian needs a specific call to whatever they do, if this specific call is necessary for anyone. But I don’t think God gives the kind of call we envision to very many people. I think it goes back to the relationship thing. If God gave us a clear “this is what I want you to do,” a lot of us would lose sight of him in our zeal to do that thing. That is perhaps one reason, the clearest calls seem more general, it is because the specifics that matter are true to all: Love God (and so love others).

Perhaps by keeping it vague, God can better keep our eyes on him. If we have not been given a life plan, perhaps we will more regularly seek God and ask ourselves and ask him if we are still following him, still falling deeper in love, still showing that love to others.

I think God can use this love to call us. As we love him and love others, we may become aware of a specific opportunity to share love that calls out to us. As we move forward in that we will certainly encounter hard times, maybe even hatred from the ones we love, but the love from God for the people (like a specific call) can help us stand under the attacks. In fact, probably loving enemies through the pain they cause us is much better than gritting our teeth and stubbornly clinging to some specific call that brought us there in the first place.

So, it may be that there is “one right path with one right job and one right mate.” But I think to us it may seem like “a plethora of good options that we have to weigh out ourselves.” I think though one key is not to worry and freak out about how well we’re weighing things out for ourselves. We’re told not to worry about tomorrow, to seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and let him take care of the rest. I think too, we need to not rush God. Moses was 80 before he started leading the people of Israel. And in case we write off his late start due to his humanness, we don’t hear much about Jesus himself until he’s thirty.

I think a lot of this preministry time might seem like wasted time to the American mind. Jesus was God himself. Why not share what he had in his perfection a little more before getting himself killed? Why not start his ministry a little earlier? Jesus came as a person, and as such needed preparation time. He (somehow) “grew in wisdom.” Is it possible that some of that time he was learning how to commune with God? Is it possible that God had to get to know himself? I think maybe this is part of the human experience Jesus submitted to.

It feels weird to just be going off without any dialogue. I think I’m going to stop now. I’m tired of hearing myself on this topic.

Hey

Monday (the day off at the center) Joe, Fon, and I embarked on an adventure. Our mission: get in the car headed towards Khon Kaen, look at the guide book, pick places to go in the area.

Our first stop was a 12th century Khmer temple, recently restored. There is a something about anything that has been around for nine hundred or so years. Not sure how to describe it in a fitting way. The stones it was made of where large. The lintels were carved into fascinating shapes.

Stepping away from the ancient grandeur, nearby we saw some buffalo standing around this water. Next thing we knew a buffalo’s head came up from out of the water. In then went back down again. I don’t know if it was doing anything more than staying out of the sun, but it was fun to watch.

Next stop was Chonabot. It’s a silk making village. We were given silk cocoons. We watched ladies weaving silk on looms. We watched other ladies sewing the material together to form clothes. I bought a shirt. We also had a very good meal.

Our final stop of the day was the King Cobra Club. This place evoked a mixture of emotions. The cages each containing a different kind of snake were a little sad. The signs on the cages were hilarious. Here are some examples: “Habit: kind but fierce,” “Habit: like to fight with man,” “Food: Young beautiful snake,” “Habit: friendly with young female snake and tourist,” “Habit: being a star, able to put around neck for photograph,” “Habit: fierce and like to take photo.” If any of you have doubts about these reports, I have photographic evidence.

A second mixed bag of emotions was a show they put on for us. It opened with Thai dancers dancing with pythons around their necks. At one point they put the snakes’ heads in their mouths. Next came the impressive and sad part (FYI: my family has pet snakes). They took out three cobras one at a time, and one at a time three different men “boxed” the cobras. The cobra was set on the stage the man would poke at it. If it tried to leave, they’d pull its tail until it came back, hood flared. They’d then stab at its neck with their fingers again, the whole time the snake would have its hood flared, it would be half striking, not actually making contact, partly because the guys were dodging, but you don’t just dodge a cobra. The cobras usually didn’t fully run out of neck (striking distance). I didn’t understand what was exactly going on. I was impressed. But I felt a little bad for the snakes, especially when they pulled them backwards by their tale (this results in their under scales being pulled the wrong way).

It was a good day, a full day. I recommend seeing ancient ruins. I recommend watching people make stuff, even if it’s only on Mr. Rodgers or Reading Rainbow. I even think it is worth checking out the Cobras. I do not, however, recommend that you personally try boxing with venomous snakes in your backyard.

I only have five more consonants to go in the Thai alphabet. I have yet to learn any vowels. Today in the preschool class at the center Fon had a game where she wrote letters on the board and whoever said the letter first got a point. It took me a while to get going, but I pulled in to the lead, before Fon ran out of letters to write. Maybe I shouldn’t take to much pride in beating preschoolers in an alphabet game, maybe I shouldn’t have even tried to beat them. But it was a hard fought victory. I was pretty elated with my win.

Peace

Micah

Howdy

I approach this email with timidity and trepidation. I have heard rumors that these things are actually being read. That’s intimidating. To make public disclosure more frightening, life has been less eventful since last I wrote. Unlike past issues, I have not eaten anything that when described in an email to the West provokes shock, nor have I danced in the street. I’ve done things like learn and teach. Good things, great things, but they don’t always have the same kind of flare.

Yesterday I was able to talk with Dr. Nantachai (the man who started the center where I am staying). Earlier he gave me his dissertation to read (I have yet to finish the 430 pages). For his dissertation he looked at past missionary approaches to the Thai and suggested what he believes to be a better way: Meekness. To the Thai, those from the west often seem aggressive. Dr. Nantachai believes an approach of meekness is what will be necessary to truly communicate to the hearts of these people. It was good to sit and talk with him about what he knows as a Thai person, and what he learned through his research.

Being back in the village is good (and bad) because time is much more relaxed. The first day back I loved it. I loved having time to process what I’d encountered in Ubon. It is good to have time to process each day’s happenings. But I’m not good at not doing anything for extended periods of time. Doing nothing is hard after awhile. As I mentioned, I’ve started doing things like reading doctoral dissertations. I also spent some time the other day talking through a fan in a sustained voice. If you haven’t done it, you should try it.

I got a VERY small taste of what it has meant for Joe to be gone the year his first niece and his first nephew were born. This past week I missed Gabriel speak at his graduation ceremony (my Dad spoke at Baccalaureate as well). It is hard to miss big events.

Continuing on the moist-eye note, I’ve now been here long enough for the differentness to lose its edge of excitement. This has given me a little more free emotional space to miss friends and family at home. I’ve been here long enough that rather than being exciting, some differentness has started to be irritating. I’ve not been here long enough to adjust myself to face said irritations.

Some of my irritations have been down right ridiculous. I caught myself being irritated that Maa and Fon (the two Thai ladies who stay at the center) were talking in Thai. No kidding they’re talking in Thai! Like I said ridiculous! On the bright side my ridiculous irritation made me do some good thinking about exclusion, intentional or otherwise. I wondered how often I’ve left someone in a place where they could not participate. I wondered how I can prevent doing so in the future. I’m not sure I came up with a lot of answers. But I thought about it, so maybe next time when it’s happening something will trigger the exclusion alert button in my brain.

Of significant note is the celebration of the king’s 60 years on the throne. Kings from all over the world were in Bangkok. Everyone in the streets was wearing yellow to show support for the king. The Thai people’s love for their king is something I cannot grasp. This celebration only brought to the surface an underlying respect and love.

That’s all folks

Micah