MicahJohn

I now have my plane ticket. I’ll be arriving in New York 2:00 pm on Saturday the 8th of August. I plan to be at Roxbury Sunday before heading up to New Hampshire for Nathanael’s wedding.

I went back to take more pictures after the entries for the international sculpture contest were completed. Below are the results.

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words and music by Micah Fickett

Keep me from simply surviving
in you may I find true life
Let your joy be overflowing
Even in the midst of strife
Give me strength and perseverance
Grant me wisdom in the night
Fill be with thy loving presence
And equip me for the fight

Cause Im not going to make it on my own
Cause Im not going to make it without you

And in times when all is peaceful
In the seasons free from care
Keep my spirit ever heedful
of your blessed presence there
Let me not forget the lessons
that you thought me through my pain
Rather let me always question
if you profit from my gain

I have had my times of plenty
Times of need Ive had as well
Thereve been days where Ive gone hungry
Thereve been nights I had my fill
I have found a deep contentment
Christ alone my spirits strength
Come abundance, come bereavement
At all times I will give thanks

Thursday I took advantage of the time off school to see a little more of the city where I live. I started off the day by biking over to the local museum. There were some fun things to see there. Most of what I saw, I’ve already seen other places. Probably my favorite things were some of the traditional tools (which I had not seen before).

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In my previous post I mentioned that Ubon is gearing up for its big annual Candle Festival. Another part of that preparation is an international wax carving competition. There are carvers here from, I think, eight different countries.

After checking out the wax sculptures I took the scenic route home. I ended up seeing several water buffalo (no, not everyone has a water buffalo). I saw some folks out working in rice fields. I stopped by a store that sells traditional silk clothing. By this time I was getting close to a famous International Forest Temple. I’d heard about it several times, so I decided to bike the extra few kilometers to see it.

It was worth the extra distance. วัดป่านานาชาติ is a temple in the forest tradition that was started for English speakers. Walking into the cool of the forest of the temple it made me wonder what Thailand was like 50 or so years ago before they got rid of all their trees. It was so much cooler there under the trees. I was there at noon, having just ridden my bike, and I was not hot while in the temple grounds. The other impressive things was the silence. I saw only four people in the hour or so I was there. I didn’t hear anything from any of them.

Not so impressive, but perhaps noteworthy in a twisted sort of way, the toilets (squatties) had a notice forbidding the use of tissue paper. Usually such notices forbid the flushing of such paper, and a bin is provided for disposal. This notice did not conform to the standard, and there was no bin for waste disposal.