We were trained in “off road” driving this week.

I never thought I’d say that (and I’m fairly confident my dad didn’t, either).

This Wednesday, Stephen & I went about an hour outside of Mae Sot with Matt, Partners’ Development Coordinator.  On a side note, Matt and his wife, Liz, are wonderful. Really wonderful.  They’ve been here about five years, are raising three kids here, and organize & host home church each week.  And even after just knowing them a couple months, I’m sad that they’re headed back–today–for nearly three months of furlough.

This is why we needed to squeeze in the four-wheel drive training this week. And these are the things that ran through my head during the entire training:

I would have never guessed I’d ever be here.  It was bizarre to be discussing how to go through rivers and ditches, how to climb mud slopes, how to avoid sliding backwards down a steep incline. What?!  Where are we going?!

He probably wouldn’t have even considered training me in this if he knew how awful of a driver I was in the States–on the interstate, going straight on dry, paved roads!  And that’s the crazy thing about starting a new job in a new country, where no one knows anything about you, your family, your values, or your past. Full of opportunity, but also a little overwhelming when you feel like everything comfortable has been taken away and your response is everyone’s first impression.

My dad would be rolling if knew I was here. For instance, when Matt was telling Stephen (this was before my test drive) to line up his tires with such and such, I was immediately back with my dad as he shouted, “Stop aiming at things in the road!”  To which I replied, “I’m not! I’m just a really bad guesser!”

But we passed! Yes, both of us. It’s already been established, though, that I learned for more for necessary or occasional circumstances.  I’m self-aware enough to know that Stephen’s better in those situations requiring a calm, patient response.

And now we give it a go!  We’re headed to two refugee camps next week that are about eight hours north. They are the most difficult to get to and nearly inaccessible in rainy season (due to the mud).  We hear it’s about two hours of off-road conditions…hopefully we’re sufficiently trained 🙂

I just pulled out a cluster of green beans from the fridge to cut up for dinner, and as I carried them over to the counter TWO LARGE WORMS fell out onto the cutting board.

Let’s just say slight chaos ensued.

Stephen kindly took them from me and said, “Well, that’s what you get when they don’t use pesticides, I guess.” I chopped them in two while he took the beans out to compost. All of them.

We found two more worms in the vegetable drawer, so now all our vegetables are separately wrapped to see if anymore worms show themselves.

And I feel like worms are crawling in my ears now. Sick.

On a much better note: TWO BIRTHDAY PACKAGES arrived in the mail this week!  Stephen opened one of them, as he was instructed to, because this was what was inside: a) a gift from my sister’s family, which is now wrapped in a lovely bag on our table waiting to be unwrapped; b) a gift from Stephen that she was sent to pick up, also wrapped and waiting; c) a collection of things she sent because she knew it wouldn’t be fun to get a package in the mail and not have anything to open! How clever is she? I really loved this, because I didn’t have to wait for it!  I got some new razors (the nice kind that you can still use with cold water, very helpful and very expensive here), a whole box of Ziploc bags, a new toothbrush (a long story, but made me laugh), and some mints from Chick-fil-a (which we already ate up and enjoyed).  Anyway, all that to say my sister is a genius.

There has been talk in the news recently that Thailand will soon be closing the nine refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border now that “a nominally civilian government has replaced the military one” (VOAnews.com, Burma Sanctions Debated After Change in Government). This would send 140,000 refugees over the border into “persecution, torture, rape, and worse” (Human Rights Watch).

It’s still in the works, and it’s hard to say how it will all play out. The idea of closing the refugee camps has been discussed on some level for years, so it could remain an idea for quite some time.  But in 2009, when nearly 5,000 refugees crossed the border and formed a temporary refugee camp, they were also threatened to be sent back. International human rights groups protested, and time went by. And then slowly and under the radar, all 5,000 refugees were sent back over the border into the arms of the military, and the temporary camp was burned.

So it’s possible.

And it’s heartbreaking.

A million questions come into my mind. The first, being the selfish person that I am, is me wondering how that changes Partners, my job, and my role here. But that’s really such a small cherry in the pie, so we’ll just skip over that.

What does that mean for 140,000 refugees?  What does it mean to be sent back into a land you call home, but are unwanted? What does it mean to attempt to recreate life in a place you fled, and a place you would still flee if you could?  What does it mean to send in a flood of hungry people into a land where there is already food shortages?

It appears disastrous.

And so we’re praying against this, and I’d ask you to pray to. We’ve been praying for protection of these lives, and for an international recognition that this new “nominally civilian government” still remains one of the worst for violating human rights.  We continue to ask for peace and for Burma to be saved.

Our greatest prayer is that God will be glorified, and that’s probably the hardest to pray. God being glorified may not look like peace, protected lives, or an end to human rights violations. What if God is the most glorified in the camps or temporary shelters; in the heart of suffering? If that is true, I would rather see God glorified and other prayers left unanswered. I would rather see eternity changed in people’s lives than see the temporary sorrows erased for momentary peace.

As Stephen and I were talking through this last night, we were processing what this could mean for the border area. What would it possibly look like for the refugee camps to close? How would things change?

We immediately see the negatives that I mentioned earlier.  It seems so obviously disastrous.

But I think that’s where hope comes in.

I began to wonder: what if it is God’s way of answering our prayers? (It doesn’t appear to be, I’ll admit that. This is overtly optimistic and hopeful.) What if closing the camps is the next step for God receiving the most glory and more people coming to know him?

It’s easy for us to assume we can be the judge. That we can’t see the positives, so they don’t exist. And even if the pain, suffering, and even death appears more obviously, there’s something deep in my soul that wants to hope.

And I think that’s what hope is. Today. [It’s constantly changing for me.]  It’s choosing to believe that God is innately good. That his is sovereign. That God has promised to hear the cries of his elect (and thus heard our cries) and will “give justice to them speedily” (Luke 18:7-8, ESV). That God “has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, ESV). That we have seen things meant for evil used by God for good (Genesis 50:20).

And somehow, this all comes together in my head. I hope because God has not intended for me to understand.  But he has given us this ache for eternity to push us forward with hope.

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”  (Romans 8:22-25, ESV)

I wake up a lot in the night here.

I rarely did in America. I’m a hard sleeper, and some may call that an understatement. It was only occasion I’d wake up to go to the bathroom, and usually I could stay asleep enough to crawl right back into bed. I was probably back into REM sleep before my head hit the pillow.

Here, on the other hand, I don’t get out of bed with the light off unless it’s necessary. Absolutely necessary.

And even, then, when I decide I really won’t fall back asleep and need to get up to go to the bathroom, I lay there a little longer. To make sure I’m really awake.

The trick is to be awake enough.

I have to put my feet down in my room, of course, but I take as few steps as possible in there.  It stays very dark in the room, but once I’m in the hallway I can see a few things from the streetlights while I turn the light on as fast as I can, and wait for it to flicker a few moments. A few moments of fear that something might crawl across my toes.

There’s no telling what comes out in our house at night. I’ve seen the many little lizards, I’ve seen enough big spiders, and I’ve seen enough ant infestations during the day to want the light on before I go walking. And I’ve heard enough [horror] stories about the snakes, big geckos, mice, rats, and ginormous cockroaches, all of which I’ve seen outside of our house and it seems like only a matter of time until they find their way in…

Once the light flickers on, I have to take in my surroundings. There’s inevitably a lizard or two, which is fine, as long as 1) they are on the wall or ceiling, not the floor, and 2) moving away from me and not toward me in their skittish ways.

From there, I actually walk to the bathroom (which involves turning on the kitchen light, a few more moments of flickering light and a brief panic of what might be moving or munching in there). But, yet, you still have to check if you’re awake enough: the squatty potty takes some balancing.

And by the time I get back to the room and I’ve shut off the hall lights and jumped into bed, I’m wide awake for at least another hour.

[It’s a fine line between awake enough and wide awake.]

Food, particularly cooking, has been one of the larger adjustments in Thailand. We’re not simply eating rice, but we do want to be eating rice enough that we are welcoming it as the culture that surrounds us. Western food is also generally available in town, but at a price, and often one I’m not willing to pay when there is next-t0-nothing rice offered alongside it.

Either way, it’s been an experiment. I’m learning to make things from scratch, including

bread: Delicious and relatively easy. And the extra dough gets made into cinnamon rolls, so you can’t go wrong…

falafel: Amazing, and when you make it yourself you can stuff it full of veggies, including carrots, cabbage, green onions, onions, and corn. and Stephen loves it, too 🙂

hummus: A little taste of home, but it requires tortillas or naan to go with it, and chickpeas soaked overnight and cooked for about an hour. quite an effort.

tortillas: So easy! even if I didn’t have to, I’d probably make these from scratch. I know what’s in them (and that it’s not preservatives), and they taste wonderful.

salsa: Not as good as Gena’s, but I stole a few techniques. I used fresh tomatoes, onions, and cilantro from the market, and aside from chopping everything up, it’s easy…

brownies: Easy to make, but hard to cook evenly in a toaster oven. It’s a good thing Stephen likes the raw batter.

cookies: Easy, but didn’t taste too good. Something between the Thai-tasting chocolate chips, using a oil-butter combo because butter is so expensive, and using the Thai version of brown sugar–it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. The peanut butter cookies were better, but peanut butter is too expensive to enjoy them too often!

naan: A handful. After you make the dough and let it rise, then roll out about ten pieces and cook them individually, it’s a pretty warm kitchen. But it does taste wonderful with hummus and falafel.

cinnamon rolls: When you make a pan out of left-over bread dough, it’s perfect.

babaganoush: Didn’t quite taste like home. Quite a lot of effort to cook up the eggplant and mash it up with all the seeds and everything. And you have to have…

…tahini: Impossible without Stephen. The effort of crushing sesame seeds with a mortar & pestle was too much for me, but Stephen did well!

taco seasoning: The handy-dandy pre-mixed packets run about $3 each, so I make it myself. Unfortunately we don’t have all the right spices, and the chili powder (a key ingredient) is very much Thai chilies. It’s a little different, but it works, and when served with fresh tortillas and salsa, it works.

peanut sauce: This is one of Stephen’s favorite additions to rice & curry, but I have to mix it up myself.  It’s pretty easy and tastes wonderful.

[After an hour or two of sweating in the kitchen with flour everywhere, I sometimes feel like I stepped out of Little House on the Prairie.]

On future menus: chocolate pudding, chili (I’ve been craving it, even in hot season), cornbread, root beer (?!…we’ve tossed around this idea because it’s so awful here, but I don’t think we’ll be able to pull off all the ingredients!).

I’m realizing how much meals have to be planned in advance, from soaking the chickpeas or black beans overnight, chopping up the pumpkin, letting the dough rise, etc.

[A side note: After I soaked the chickpeas overnight the first time, I had to pick out a few bugs and sticks that floated to the surface. This didn’t worry me too much since I’d bought them at the market. I did the same on Monday when I soaked my third batch of chickpeas…but that’s when I realized I didn’t do this the second time. So were there no bugs, or did we just eat them all?!]

I’m also finding that the simplest meal of rice and curry takes at least an hour to get all the vegetables chopped and into a curry consistency. And that’s only thanks to our rice cooker, because without that I’d have to take more time to make rice on our one burner.

And the most complicated meals, well, can take all day.  Stephen discovered this last Saturday when he helped me make tahini at 9am and then spent half the day over the mortar & pestle mashing sesame seeds, chickpeas, eggplant, garlic, and more chickpeas.

Some simple, easy things we’re discovering:

cabbage. Cooked or raw, plain or mixed into…well, anything. Stephen even likes it in curries or boiled as a side dish.

papaya. Yummm. So good, so easy. And we have a papaya tree growing in our yard! We’re faithfully watering it in hopes to have our own fruit next year. It could save us…well, like four dollars or something not-so-significant, but it would fun to have!

I’ll probably do a lot of these “random collection” posts, mostly because I think so many unrelated things and suddenly decide to declare them.

– We’re fairly certain at least some of our neighbors are Karen, and this gives us great joy–particularly when we understand them!  After we played soccer with two boys today, we understood them say, “Drink water”–and I was able to run get them water! We’ve also understood a few small phrases, such as “Go home,” that we hear across the street.  Though minimal, it promises us future relationships, and we’re excited to see what God will do with all of this studying. It’s keeping us motivated, at least!

– We had a wonderful trip to Chiang Mai last week, and really loved spending time with some friends there. We’re constantly realizing how different “the city” is from our little shady home in Mae Sot, but it’s a wonderful place to visit and rest, particularly as we develop friendships there! We also were successful at the US Embassy and we’re officially recognized as married in Thailand.

– Stephen was saluted by a neighbor as we started off on a run/bike ride (I run, he bikes) yesterday. Weird.

– We also had dinner this weekend and tonight with friends here in Mae Sot, and really, we’re just excited to be making friends. Especially ones that we like!

– Sometimes it feels like we’re just camping. (In a really nice tent, that is.)  It’s a combination of our neighbors building a fire to cook each meal, being so close I can hear them cleaning their dishes and talking together, the heat, and the feeling I just may never feel clean again. The lizards on our walls and the occasional large spider doesn’t tell me differently, either.

Hot season is upon us. In full glory.

It’s a holiday, so we’ve been around the house most of the week. We’re keeping up with our Karen studies and including a little more rest, reading, and recording. (I’ll let you conclude who did what.)

Today, after a run outside in the outrageous heat and humidity (particularly for 8 am), the sweating began. And from there, I sweat making breakfast, I sweat while we sat and studied Karen, and I sweat while we played soccer with the neighbor kids. I sweat cooking lunch, I sweat during my nap in front of the fan, and I sweat while I read in front of the fan. And then I showered, since we were having dinner with some friends–and sat in the aircon until we left. With goosebumps. My body might be going through shock.

They tell us April is the worst, and I’m just pleased we’ve already made it through the twelfth!

And by the way, it is the twelfth, so a shout-out happy birthday to my loved sister, Hope 🙂