The sunflower fields are amazing!
One of the many waterfalls in Thailand!
Infertility? - Part 2
3 months ago
Friday, November 28, 2008
Puppies!
We have a mommy dog and three puppies that are adopted into our family now. This is one of them. At first this one was terrified of us, but now he is such a sweety! We have wone their hearts with lots of love and rice.
A Karen kitchen
The food that Emily and I made for the village church members. We had a little feast over at our house, then had worship, etc. They seemed to love the food. It was all cleaned up!
What is this? you may wonder! It is a whole bunch of chilis out drying in the sun, and rice in the other container! This is a typical Karen meal. You have to have the chili paste (Nam prick) or else the meal isn't complete! (I know that mom and nana would love it! Don't worry, I know how to make it for you when I get home. :D)
Hanging out!
Emily and I hanging out the back of a Songtel! This is the common mode of transportation in these areas!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Trekking!
The week before last, we had the amazing opportunity to go on a 3-day trekk. We thought that it was to be a 3-day elephant trekk, but it ended up being more like a 3-day backpacking trip with about 2 hours of an elephant ride. We started out on a boat going down the river between Thailand and Burma. (Ying & I getting to our boat)
The next morning, we left and headed out walking across many streams. After that, all of us with chacos got great big blisters! Lol, oh well. We made it back safe and sound.
The trail was quite intense the first day. We didn't realize we would be hiking 5-6 hours, so we had lots of stuff! Thankfully I had my chacos, (sandals) otherwise, I would have died in flipflops! We went up one hill that went up 1,000 meters, or about 3,000 feet! It doesn't seem that much, but it sure did then. :D We crossed over many bridges (and many bamboo sticks across the river). This was one of the nice bridges!
We saw a poisonous snake about 30 minutes into our trekk. It was so different than backpacking in the USA, because we would be hiking through the jungle, and then come out on someone's rice field!
We spent the first night in a small Karen village. We were able to do some health teaching and some hydrotherapy there as well. The next morning we left on our elephants. We only had 2 elephants for 5 of us! So, 3 of us rode on the big one.
I actually got to ride on its neck! Very prickly hair, though.
We spent the 2nd night in another Karen village, right next to a beautiful stream! This was the last picture taken with my camera before it went swimming! Thankfully it works now. :D
We spent the 2nd night in another Karen village, right next to a beautiful stream! This was the last picture taken with my camera before it went swimming! Thankfully it works now. :D We visited a little school, and hopefully will get to go back and teach there. They are open to having us, especially as foreigners, go and teach health & English. (we could also teach about the Christianity, too;) This was an adorable little girl at the school!
The next morning, we left and headed out walking across many streams. After that, all of us with chacos got great big blisters! Lol, oh well. We made it back safe and sound.
The most lasting part about the trip were the friendships we made, especially with our guide. Before we left, we had been praying especially for the Buddhists. This young man is Buddhist, and had a bitter taste about Christianity from an ex-girlfriend. We had prayer before leaving, before eating, etc. and that left a deep impression on him. Just in little things that have happened since the trekk, God has opened the doors for us to meet up with him again. We rented some motorcycles from him and after we were finished, the guys forgot to leave the keys (so he had to come get them); we've been able to go out to eat with him, and he suggested that we pray (before we mentioned it). He seems to be opening up and trusting us! I pray that God will continue to use us to reach him. He said that we were a special group. It is awesome to watch God working on his heart. God had a purpose for us on this trekk, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, our prayer is that our guide will get to know Him through our friendship. (Our group that went. Our guide is the one beside me, and the one in blue was a guide in training to this forest. The man in red in the back was from Belgium.)
Kin Kaw, mai?
Literal translation: eat rice, yes? When people ask if you've eaten, that's what they say. As before mentioned, we got to harvest rice. Here are a few pics. Enjoy. :D
Fun fun!
This is how you do it: you grab a handful of rice, and take the scithe (sp?) and cut off the section! Not too hard. The hardest part is walking into the ankle-deep mud bare-footed. (with lots of leaches!)
The after affects-our dirty feet.
The rice field after we finished! Beautiful, yeah?
Fun fun!
This is how you do it: you grab a handful of rice, and take the scithe (sp?) and cut off the section! Not too hard. The hardest part is walking into the ankle-deep mud bare-footed. (with lots of leaches!)
The after affects-our dirty feet. The rice field after we finished! Beautiful, yeah?Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The Harvest!
"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest." (Matt. 9:37-38)
(unfortunately, the picture isn't of us, but later I'll post some)
These words have taken on a slight new meaning for me. As before mentioned, we went to help harvest rice yesterday! The experience was exciting, wading around in ankle-deep mud barefoot, with small leaches hanging around. The rice was a bit scratchy on the arms, the sun got hot, the bugs were flying around us, but we kept on grabbing and cutting the rice. As we talked about our day, the above verse came to mind. The harvest truly was ready! There are fields and fields full of ripe rice here, but there are only a few workers! Why aren't there more? Maybe because the work is hard, the bugs are annoying, the sun is hot, the leaches are disgusting, and the plants are scratchy! Friends, God's work is not always easy, not always fun! There may be days of discouragement, things that seem to take your energy right out of you. But this work must be done! Nothing is too difficult to do for one soul! Are you answering the call, "Here I am, Lord. Send me"?
(unfortunately, the picture isn't of us, but later I'll post some)
These words have taken on a slight new meaning for me. As before mentioned, we went to help harvest rice yesterday! The experience was exciting, wading around in ankle-deep mud barefoot, with small leaches hanging around. The rice was a bit scratchy on the arms, the sun got hot, the bugs were flying around us, but we kept on grabbing and cutting the rice. As we talked about our day, the above verse came to mind. The harvest truly was ready! There are fields and fields full of ripe rice here, but there are only a few workers! Why aren't there more? Maybe because the work is hard, the bugs are annoying, the sun is hot, the leaches are disgusting, and the plants are scratchy! Friends, God's work is not always easy, not always fun! There may be days of discouragement, things that seem to take your energy right out of you. But this work must be done! Nothing is too difficult to do for one soul! Are you answering the call, "Here I am, Lord. Send me"?
Hello from Mae Sarang!
This morning, a couple of the people here had to leave to go to Chiang Mai, and a couple more had to get their visas renewed in the city. So, we come down off of our beautiful little mountain into the polluted town. We have been staying in a small Karen village since Thursday. It is pretty primitive, but not as much as some places I have been. There IS electricity! but there is no phone service except up a huge hill. So we go and take a hike sometimes. :D We arrived here in the city and were informed that we would be staying in this city until tomorrow! I guess I wasn't too surprised. We don't have anything besides a purse with a jacket, camera, wallet, and a couple other necessities. (lol, like toilet paper, because here in Thailand, that is hard to find!) Anyways, that's how I get to check my e-mail!
We have been in a little Karen village that I can never remember the name of. We have been doing visitations, and meetings in the evenings. Yesterday was definitely out of the norm! We worked harvesting rice! I had always wondered what it would be like. Wow, was that ever exciting! I felt a bit unprepared, clothes-wise. I had only flip-flops (and skirts, lol). Well, we ended up taking our shoes off and walking around bare-foot in ankle-deep mud. Only a few of my friends ended up with little friends (called leaches) on their extremities! They were rather thrilled, to say the least. :D I will have to put some pics of this up later, since I have none with me now. We then went "jungle shopping". Ok, it was actually more like "compost-pile shopping". In the soy-bean fields, after the season is over, they leave all the left-over plants and that decomposes and little mushrooms grow. So, we went and picked hundreds of small and tiny mushrooms to eat. I must say that mushrooms are not as appealing to me as they were before. (digging under rotting soy-bean pods and cow patties. . . .) Lol, I know some of you already agree that mushrooms are not meant to be eaten. Anyways, it was quite the experience!
The village people are very sweet! They love inviting us over for meals, etc. One family invited us, and not knowing that we are vegetarian (at least in this program), they made us some fish (more like fish skeletons), and some chili sauce with canned fish, (some other REALLY hot chili sauce when they saw we were vegetarian) rice, and some steamed, bitter vegies! I did try to eat some of them, very hard though! Thankfully we had brought corn on the cob (so delicious!) and some other chili sauce. Another day, a man came running into our house at about 6:30-ish in the morning (after we had cooked breakfast) and invited us to come to his house for breakfast! We ran out, with a few noodles in hand, and followed him home. The food they fed us was VERY VERY salty! WOW! Ricky got sick from it and said that it reminded him of the salt flush we did to cleanse our systems. I do really appreciate the thought of these families, and the first family understood that we are vegetarians.
I have actually not even seen a chair since I have been in that village. I have seen a couple little stools, but that's it. They always sit on the floor (even in church) and they eat with their hands! They also sleep on the floor, with only a bamboo mat (or a little fatter mat if you are lucky, which we aren't;). Eating with my hands is taking a little to get used to. Sleeping on the floor is kind of hard, with a little back-pain now and again. The sitting on the floor is the one I think I'll never get quite used to! My legs are getting less and less comfortable with it! Every time I lower myself to the floor, it takes less time for my seated position to get painful! Lol, I feel like I'm getting old!
It is a very simple way of life, but I really enjoy it! They don't have many distractions, but they do have electricity and so TV is a big distraction. We really need to pray for these villages, because, despite the fact that they don't have a lot of open devil-possession the Hmong villages we were at, they are quite lukewarm and sleeping. I know the Lord has big plans for them, and we need to continue working and praying. Thank you all for your prayers!
We have been in a little Karen village that I can never remember the name of. We have been doing visitations, and meetings in the evenings. Yesterday was definitely out of the norm! We worked harvesting rice! I had always wondered what it would be like. Wow, was that ever exciting! I felt a bit unprepared, clothes-wise. I had only flip-flops (and skirts, lol). Well, we ended up taking our shoes off and walking around bare-foot in ankle-deep mud. Only a few of my friends ended up with little friends (called leaches) on their extremities! They were rather thrilled, to say the least. :D I will have to put some pics of this up later, since I have none with me now. We then went "jungle shopping". Ok, it was actually more like "compost-pile shopping". In the soy-bean fields, after the season is over, they leave all the left-over plants and that decomposes and little mushrooms grow. So, we went and picked hundreds of small and tiny mushrooms to eat. I must say that mushrooms are not as appealing to me as they were before. (digging under rotting soy-bean pods and cow patties. . . .) Lol, I know some of you already agree that mushrooms are not meant to be eaten. Anyways, it was quite the experience!
The village people are very sweet! They love inviting us over for meals, etc. One family invited us, and not knowing that we are vegetarian (at least in this program), they made us some fish (more like fish skeletons), and some chili sauce with canned fish, (some other REALLY hot chili sauce when they saw we were vegetarian) rice, and some steamed, bitter vegies! I did try to eat some of them, very hard though! Thankfully we had brought corn on the cob (so delicious!) and some other chili sauce. Another day, a man came running into our house at about 6:30-ish in the morning (after we had cooked breakfast) and invited us to come to his house for breakfast! We ran out, with a few noodles in hand, and followed him home. The food they fed us was VERY VERY salty! WOW! Ricky got sick from it and said that it reminded him of the salt flush we did to cleanse our systems. I do really appreciate the thought of these families, and the first family understood that we are vegetarians.
I have actually not even seen a chair since I have been in that village. I have seen a couple little stools, but that's it. They always sit on the floor (even in church) and they eat with their hands! They also sleep on the floor, with only a bamboo mat (or a little fatter mat if you are lucky, which we aren't;). Eating with my hands is taking a little to get used to. Sleeping on the floor is kind of hard, with a little back-pain now and again. The sitting on the floor is the one I think I'll never get quite used to! My legs are getting less and less comfortable with it! Every time I lower myself to the floor, it takes less time for my seated position to get painful! Lol, I feel like I'm getting old!
It is a very simple way of life, but I really enjoy it! They don't have many distractions, but they do have electricity and so TV is a big distraction. We really need to pray for these villages, because, despite the fact that they don't have a lot of open devil-possession the Hmong villages we were at, they are quite lukewarm and sleeping. I know the Lord has big plans for them, and we need to continue working and praying. Thank you all for your prayers!
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