We bought a watermelon at the market today, and it’s in fact sparking a post. Call us easily amused, perhaps, but we’re studying another language for quite a few hours each day, so it’s inevitable.

First off, watermelons are fairly small here, more like cantaloupe-sized. This worries me for what they put in those ginormous watermelons in the states that are more the size of a small child.

When we purchased the melon, the guy picked it up, took his little spoon, and used the end of it to cut out a piece of the watermelon–like this:

He popped out the piece, showed it to us (assumably to impress us at the lovely color and delicious-looking quality).  He then put it back in the melon and handed it to us in a bag.

And we thought it was cool. That was about it.

Two other side notes equally as irrelevant to the world:

– This country is obsessed with plastic bags. They could very easily be using the same amount in Mae Sot as the whole of America, and it’s ridiculous. And they tend to get offended if you say you don’t need one and you’ll just stick whatever-it-is in your own bag. Today I bought some corn from a vendor that already had all the vegetables bagged–they were in tied plastic bags, divided in the amounts she wanted to sell them in. And even then, when I implied I didn’t need to put my already-bagged corn in another bag to go along with my six others I was already carrying, she looked shocked… ?

– Hula hoops are making a comeback in this country. They are in every store and market, with kids and adults alike bringing them back for both exercise and fun. It’s bizarre, like we time-warped into the 80s.

In an effort to lighten the recent mood of this blog, I thought I’d share a little about the Partners’ Staff Retreat that we were at this weekend.  Here are my thoughts and comments:

– The hotel is very nice. It’s more of a resort, really, with multiple swimming pools; sprawling gardens with ornate bushes, flowers, and sculptures; a lake with paddle boating; bicycles for rent; etc. We enjoyed an afternoon of paddle boating on Saturday and thought that was pretty lovely.

– It reminded me a lot of family camp at Miracle Camp. I’ll just leave it at that and let you read into the positives and negatives 🙂

– Friday night we did a “culinary endeavor” (not a craft, because this has been highly criticized in the past…).  The theme this year was Partners’ Garden, so we had to use vegetables to make a model of ourselves.  I’ll leave out comments and simply show our final products:

The worst part was really that all of the statues were placed on a table for the weekend, and I was stupid enough to sit near it during the last session. It was not a pretty smell.

– We really loved getting to meet all of the Partners’ staff. All of the national directors from Australia, New Zealand, America, England, and Norway flew in; the directors, Steve & Oddny (who started Partners and are now working from Norway and on global speaking tours), were there and it was nice to meet them! Even just to have all the international staff and national staff all together was fun. We have quite a few local staff hired for sewing, cleaning, finances, translation, visas, gardening, farming, etc. Some are Thai, but all are ethnic–so perhaps they are Thai-Karen, or Thai-Shan, etc. Others are completely ethnic and legal; and still others are ethnic and illegal. The entire conference was translated into Thai or Burmese, which is fun. The little table in the back with each of them having headphones is just fun to see–it feels like a minuscule UN conference! This is actually one of my favorite things about our Mae Sot office staff meeting every Monday–to have the entire thing translated. It excites me, for some reason!

– We got to do a little shopping in Chiang Mai (the big city for us, with all the amenities!). We managed to find both and oven and some speakers for Stephen to enjoy music and record with. The oven isn’t really a full size oven, which is pretty expensive here.  We opted for a HUGE toaster oven that will hopefully work alright. The advantage is it being electric (better here) and still being big enough to fit in a pizza pan or casserole dish.  Stephen’s very excited for homemade bread and fresh cinnamon rolls!

We also stopped by a pseudo-garage sale.  One of the Partners’ staff members lived in Chiang Mai for quite a few years before moving back to Canada with his wife about three years ago.  They had planned on returning when she finished school, so they stored some things here. It’s now looking like they’ll remain in Canada and he’ll continue as the national director there, so they cleared out their storage and sold some things while they were in town.

Worked out well for us!  We got some lovely pans for our new oven and even a few Pyrex dishes (real treasures in this country, particularly to be second hand and thus affordable).  Stephen bought his already-stocked toolbox so we now have a few basics in the house.  The best part, of course, was the free box, where we found this cell phone!

Now we don’t have to purchase another one here, but we can each have one when we’re in different directions. It comes complete with the theme from “Outnumbered” as a ring tone. (Did anyone else play that math computer game as a kid, or was that just my family?) It also has this in “Messages”:

And then you pick your smiley face. Pretty great.

– We had a talent show on Friday night that was hilarious for many reasons. Some of the staff kids did a few Justin Bieber performances, yet we also got a crowd-involving performance of “I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me” with motions. Oh my. And, my personal favorite, Sweet Home Alabama performed by an English guy (?), which Stephen loved whether he’ll admit it or not. It was also quite great that one of the Karen guys thought it was “Sweet Home, Come on Obama”…

It was really pretty wonderful, mostly to see what we’ve joined! We are encouraged to continue to learn more about what Partners is doing and see the incredible impact they have on the Karen and Shan people. It’s amazing to hear of the work that is being done through Partners all along the Thai-Burma border and well into the Karen & Shan states of Burma. I was again reminded of what a small cog in the wheel we are of something making such an impact, but thankful to play even a role at all.

I’ve been mulling these thoughts around in my head for some time now and trying to form cohesive thoughts. I’m not sure if I’ve arrived at that stage yet, but we’ll give it a go.

Maybe I’ll begin with the assurance that we aren’t completely remote here, in the middle of nowhere without amenities. There is much more to eat than rice, so all your fears that Stephen will starve can be quelled.  We have bread every other day or so, cereal and cheese maybe once a week, plenty of ice cream, and the far better fruits and vegetables than you can find, I assure you!  We could have Western food more often, but we’re trying to be smart about the  prices.  Truth be told, there’s wonderful Mexican, Italian, and Indian in town, and we ordered take out pizza for our date night last Friday (granted, my vegetable pizza had little corns and green beans on it, so it’s a little different…but we’ll take it!).

Our house isn’t made out of bamboo. We’ve had steady electricity, plenty of water, and our windows only let in a few lizards and spiders. We do have a squatty potty, but we’re coming to love it.  It’s less drastic changes than we expected; perhaps more slight adjustments: learning to deal with the huge amounts of dust, the heat, the small refrigerator.  Simple things, really.

We’re not suffering.

But there is suffering around us.

There is war within miles; there are illegals living here and working here because they have fled their homes.  There are land mine victims walking the streets. There are hundreds of mothers willing to give up their children in hopes that they find a better life.  There are children begging for money; there are deportation trucks taking people back to the border each Monday.

And to be honest–the ones here, living in Mae Sot–they are called lucky.  Yes, lucky, to live here as the poorest of the poor, with the risk of at any point being taken advantage of–for money, for your bicycle, for your life.  And you are lucky, because the others, they live in a war zone. They have their villages burned, they watch their families killed, they see their sons taken off to fight.

And we live here.

What kind of house do you rent if you live in that?  What kind of groceries do you buy?  What kind of car or motorbike do you drive? What kind of money do you put in savings, for this so-called wisdom that sometimes feels more like storing up for yourselves treasures on earth?

I’m not sure.

And I’m learning how to reconcile that. We’ve been trying to find this balance where somehow we live here, try to help the suffering, try to make sacrifices, and still stay afloat ourselves.  And maybe the hardest part is that I don’t even know the goal. I don’t want to “adjust” and not be bothered by these things. I want to always have my heart broken by the children in the market, by the man missing a limb, and by the crowded deportation truck.  But somehow, I don’t want to simply have my heart broken constantly, because where are we then, if we have compassion for suffering but do nothing to alleviate it?

What, then, am I doing to alleviate suffering here?

The role of global missions seems idealized–as if we are able to make a grand change in the world simply by being in foreign place, often where there is suffering of some kind and those who don’t know truth.  But really, I find myself simply in another location, struggling with so many of the same battles I fought in Conway and Oklahoma City–Am I truly making an impact? How do I love people well? How do I live in such a way that others might live, know Christ, and see the kingdom?

And I’m finding that really I’m still asking the same questions here; it’s just that I ask them from here because God told us to be here rather than there.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been mulling over this quote I saw at the Winston Churchill War Rooms in London:

There are many nights that I lay down and let this roll through my mind. I’m very proud to have been only a very small cog in the wheel.  Perhaps it’s just been a day of learning Karen and buying a few vegetables down the street, but it is in effort of living here; in preparation of loving well and serving the people here.  And maybe it wasn’t making a grandious difference in the life of Mae Sot or Burma today, but maybe it was taking the steps in front of me for my life–on the whole–to be only a very small cog in the wheel, counting it simply a blessing to play even the smallest role in bringing the kingdom.

I suppose I love this most because it challenges me in both directions. It puts me in place of realizing how small of a role I play, while at the same time creating an image of the greater machine moving forward.

This Sunday was Global Day of Prayer for Burma, so I was praying for Burma and thinking, again, through Luke 18:1-8. I want to pray big things for Burma, and I want to ask persistently;  I want to ask for the kingdom to come and wait in expectation, even. But I don’t always want to be waiting for the kingdom to come and what that looks like on a grand scale of Burma being freed; I also want to rejoice in the little things–the little ways that His kingdom is coming now. And that brings me back to the small cog in the wheel that I am, and perhaps all of us are.  That maybe it’s all just little things we are doing that are somehow bringing the kingdom now in little ways, while we ultimately wait for The Kingdom to come.  Said better in lyrics: “it’s just a little thing, just a little thing; but it will make a change, it will make a change…I see His kingdom come and every small thing done” (Kaitlin Pflederer, “The Kingdom”; And can I just recommend the whole CD–Can You Hear Us?).

In another part of this same song she sings, “I see a crowded room of flies and restless kids praying for the guns to quiet down and the houses to be full again.  And as they run home, hand in hand, the peace talks come to an end and the wind blows through the empty war camps.  The Lord will reign forever; the Lord will reign forever…”  This gives me shivers each time I hear it. Perhaps because a war camp is where my heart was broken; perhaps because we live and love so many that have grown up and even now remain in these same war camps that litter the border around us.  Either way, I hope for this so deeply.  I hope for the small chance that I could be the smallest cog in the wheel of changing something; of bringing the kingdom of heaven to this place of darkness; of somehow watching wind blow through empty war camps here.