A mighty fortress is our God
A sacred refuge is Your name
Your kingdom is unshakeable
With you forever we will reign

We will keep our eyes on You, we will keep our eyes on You

lyrics taken from Christy Nockels’ A Mighty Fortress

Now that we have the community space, the kids are in our home more and more. This requires house rules.

The main ones that have to be repeated are:
stay in the community space, unless you have permission
no hitting
no standing on the tipsy tables

We have also started implementing apologies. We have been teaching “sorry,” as well as “okay” to serve as a shorter and simpler version of forgiveness.

And the best new rule was implemented by Stephen just today: Leave your weapons at the door. Fake guns, plastic swords, sticks, rubber knives: whatever you have that appears violent or is being used violently against others remains in a pile at the door until you leave.

I love this for a lot of reasons. One being that there are less sorrys; another being that I don’t have to fake getting stabbed or shot and collapsing to the floor all afternoon. And last, I love hearing Stephen enforce it, standing at the door saying, “Awh Awh Lay, leave your weapons at the door.” And then later, “Saw Eh Say, you forgot your sword! Saw Eh Say!”

I just wanted to send out a quick post asking for prayer.

We took a man to the hospital this morning.  We learned that he got sick a few days ago with a stomach bug, and in not feeling well stopped eating and drinking for the past two days. He also drank alcohol regularly before this, and quitting suddenly put him into detox.

We started him at the Burmese clinic in town, but he was moved to the public Thai hospital. He has three friends there with him, but he isn’t doing well. We went by to see him, but weren’t able to learn much other than simply seeing that he is in the ER with a nurse with him. He has been intubated.

He is much worse than he was this morning, so I just wanted to ask for prayers.

Sickness is always difficult, and of course it is always hard to see people in the hospital. If I can say it without being crass, it is harder when I know death is a possibility. It brings back the urgency of us being here, and the urgent aching for them to know and experience the Kingdom and the King that enables us get out of bed every morning.

Most days are a sorrowful experience here.  It is not that every day isn’t a miracle: every day is filled with joys and smiles and laughter. We had a dance party in the street just last night, and there was much, much laughter. Our God is good and gracious. But every day is also filled with sights of poverty and brokenness, whether it is in local hierarchies, corrupted systems, sick children, drunkenness, factories…the groaning for the Kingdom is so tangible.

But in groaning, Romans 8 reverberates in our souls, and we hope!  We hope for language, we hope for life change, we hope for our sweet friends to know the Lord and experience truth. We hope for countries to change and world systems to be overturned.  We hope for these things, we pray, and we wait.

And then there is something about a man in the hospital, with death closer, that makes it feel like we don’t have the time to wait. We do, and God is still good. He is still gracious. But I do want to ask you to pray. Please pray for this man, and the number of days the Lord has counted for him.

“I have learned to kiss the wave that slams me into the Rock of Ages.”
Charles Spurgeon

There are about a million titles for this post, too: “mortified” or “most embarrassing moment ever” are on the list.

We knew it was going to be a long Monday. Stephen was up working on a video until 3:30am and the alarm still went off at 6:30am. I needed to head out by 8am to get to the Burmese clinic, where a sweet little ten-year-old boy was scheduled to get a tetanus shot and more antibiotics after the dog attack yesterday. They couldn’t provide rabies shots, so we were going to go to the public Thai hospital afterward to begin his five rounds of rabies vaccinations.

I was greeted at 8am by a birthday party for one of our neighbors. I will still argue that birthday parties in this culture are not a highlight for me. This one in particular involved me eating a second breakfast as they heaped my plate with rice, cashews, pickled cabbage, and spicy meat. I don’t eat much meat here at all, and my gag reflex was kicking in full force.

I used the little boy as an excuse and the two of us headed off to the clinic by 8:30am. It went fairly smoothly, amidst waiting and getting his bandages changed. The vaccination room was our last stop, and that is where it all fell apart.

He freaked out. It started with him firmly denying the shot, but quickly escalated into his hanging on to the barred windows with his hands and feet, crying and flailing as three grown men tried to pry him off the wall. After half an hour of attempted bribes and rational argument and dramatic screams, he was pinned down to the table by three grown Karen men and given the shot while I looked on absolutely embarrassed and lost as to what I was to do.

Having been given the shot, I thought it was over. One of the men sat him in a chair next to me; I apologized to him, rubbed his back, and then turned to the nurse to finish up paperwork so we could just go home. I didn’t think I wanted to tackle the public Thai hospital, where the rabies shots would be more painful and I was able to communicate less.  I didn’t think I wanted to go through that again.

And then it somehow got worse.

He got up and started to walk away while I was talking to the nurse. As he left the immunization room, I apologized to her and ran after him, trying to tell him we were going home and he needed me to get there, since it was a good five kilometers away. Somewhere in there, he flipped. He took off running toward the road and away from the clinic, at which point one of the male medics joined me to run after him. He caught him, which only resulted in heinous kicks and screams and thrashes. The medic took him over to put him a chair to calm down, handing him to me.

There wasn’t a chance in the world I could hold him. Even at ten he was far stronger than me, and he was gone from my grip within seconds.

There was another chasing game, a few more thrashing attempts to control him, another chase to the road. All of these were at the center of the hospital entrance in puddles of grey mud, surrounded by huge crowds of people, all watching the ridiculous white woman attempt to corral the ten-year-old boy that obviously hates her.

I don’t know how to describe the insanity, the shouting, and the scene we created.

In the end, three more men held him at the entrance while I was told to get the motorbike to go home, now covered in mud and obviously disheveled.

He thrashed about as they put him on the motorbike. I was told to go, so I grabbed on to his leg and drove with one hand, trying to ensure that he didn’t bail off the back.

I dropped him off, translated his antibiotic dosages, and then went off to the office to try to catch the end of staff meeting. I looked like I had been beat up, with kick marks on my legs and splashed mud covering my jeans, my adrenaline pumping.

Happy Monday, friends. May you not get in a wrestling match with a really strong ten-year-old today!