We our first guests in the guest room, enjoying the wonderfully Asian bedding! I know, pretty fast, huh?

Another couple just came on with Partners and moved over last week.  They have been in a guesthouse for the past couple days, and we just thought we could invite them into our home and lives for a week or so.  We had a hard time being in a guesthouse for about twenty days when we first got here; it’s hard to pay for the housing and eating out constantly, plus simply being squeezed into quite a small room.  We’ve gotten settled in and thought they could easily join us.

Ryan & Leah are from the states as well, and just got married–just got married. I think they’re going on two weeks yesterday. Wow.

Either way, we’ve enjoyed getting to know them and they’re wonderfully laid back, so not a problem at all to have around.  We were glad we could help them save some money and hopefully feel a little more welcomed into Partners 🙂

We made it to home church today and really loved it.  Stephen led worship today, which he really enjoys and is a great opportunity to be involved. I’m sure it was quite a sight to see us driving down the rode with a guitar standing up between us on the motorbike!

During the message today, Matt was talking through Sabbath and what God has been teaching him about rest here as he serves out of passion for Burma.  It struck me that in this room of about thirty people, all of us were here to love the people of Burma, really.  That is an assumption, but it’s generally true: if you’re a foreigner in Mae Sot, it’s generally to work with Burma in some way; and if you’re here and in a home church, you’re typically a missionary here to serve the people of Burma.

How odd.  For the past few years, we’ve celebrated the few people who love Burma around us; we’ve asked all of you to share in this passion. And suddenly, we’re surrounded by a community that loves the people of Burma, reads all the books, knows all the documentaries, and are learning the language, too.  It’s amazing to have someone in church say something about us, collectively, hoping for Burma to be free some day. It brought a new meaning to this community: better in some ways and perhaps bad in others, but a different perspective.

And we sang “Your Grace is Enough” as the last song, and I simply love the bridge:

“So remember your people, remember your children, remember your promise, Oh God.”

This is one of my repeated cries for Burma, that the Lord remember the Karen people, and all the hurting in Burma. That he would remember his hungry, wounded, and crying children.

I think of the promise in Luke 18:7-8, “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

This verse challenges me to my core.  Do I truly cry to him day and night? For me specifically, do I cry to him on behalf of Burma day and night? And further, do I believe that he will bring justice speedily, and that he will respond (and is responding) to these cries?  And the last line particularly strikes my spirit: even with his faithfulness, how faithless am I to not cry for these things?

Dreams are difficult things here. Obviously you can’t choose them, and then it’s odd to dream so vividly of people and places you aren’t in and won’t be for quite some time.

Last night, I dreamt I was at my parents house with four favorites from Oklahoma–Thay, Htoo, Aye, and Moo.  Dad was there, watching a baby (perhaps the new baby Helmick to come in just two weeks!?) and I was taking care of Laurel’s cat (which she doesn’t really have…).  And that was really about it.  We were just playing games and laughing.  The kids kept hiding the baby (very carefully, in closets and things) and dad would say, “Okay, I really need to know now where the baby is…” and they would laugh so hard and he & I would be trying not to.  And then they’d go open the closet and the baby would be sitting there in the little carrier, just fine; so we’d play more games and laugh some more. I could hear the laughter so vividly.

But then you wake up, so far away from so many people.  Stephen & I really are glad we’re here and do like it, but it’s still quite hard. I miss so many of the people we’d usually get to see; I miss the conversations and laughter that were familiar with.  And then it makes for really wonderful dreams that are a little sad to wake up from.

One of my favorite things in the past week of being in our house has been the cooking. It’s a challenge, but I love it.  It’s been fun to go to markets, discover new items, guess what vegetables & herbs are what, and then find recipes to work with various items.  I really love visiting the little vendors and finding all sorts of veggies at wonderful prices. Just down the road from our house, I got four potatoes, two limes, six small tomatoes, and a head of cabbage for a dollar yesterday!  It’s also been fun to learn what’s in season and how to work with those things together. We’ve also found the meat here to be a good price, which Stephen is thankful for.

The hardest part is that we only have one burner and a rice cooker to work with right now, but we’re hoping to add a large toaster oven before too long that I can use to make breads, cakes, casseroles, etc. It’s been difficult to get the timing right on everything with only one burner, and keep it hot with fans blowing everywhere (knowing you can’t turn the fans off while you’re standing over a hot stove).  Even so, I still really love the new items, instructions in another language, etc.  Our Karen teacher, Lavender, also taught us how to make chickpea tofu the other day, which is absolutely wonderful (Stephen even liked it!).  We ate quite a lot of chickpeas in the states, but I’m finding even more wonderful recipes here.

Oh, and by the way: it’s getting hotter each day now.  This can’t be good.

And, as they say, “It’s Thailand”: our internet is mysteriously down at our house, which we’ve been confined to for the past couple days as the landlord and some other five or so men are installing our washer, a sink in the bathroom, and fixing our door.

So, enjoy the newsletter update we’ve just emailed from a local coffee shop and hopefully we’ll have internet before too long!  If you didn’t get our newsletter and would like to please let us know, and you can view this month’s from our newsletter page. We’re getting quite organized with this handy website!

This is not important; I simply have a question. What are the differences between types of cooking oil? What are the health benefits or detriments of each type?  First, let me tell you what I have to work with:

– olive oil: Very expensive. VERY. Unless it will save our lives, we won’t be using it regularly. Just for hummus, really, because it is hummus and must be delicious.

– corn oil: Not cheap, but affordable.

– soybean oil: Cheaper, but not very prevalent. There was a big hullabaloo about Tesco getting a shipment in today. So we bought some. Not sure if it’s what I wanted or not…

Thoughts appreciated 🙂

It’s challenging to adjust to another culture. This is obvious, of course, but hard to wrap your head around. The smallest things can be so draining. And knowing how small they are and how challenging they are adjust to simply makes it more draining.

And certain days (like today) you just ache for everything to be familiar again; you ache to stop the game/adventure it feels like you are on. But you can’t simply “escape” to familiar things–and that’s maybe the hardest reality of it all: that this is reality.  And as such, it’s here to stay.