Happy New Year

Happy New Year from the Thai/Burma border! I can’t believe it’s been over 3 weeks already since my last post…the time has flown so fast and every day has been busy enough that I have gotten behind on a lot of things…including things I could have potentially written about. I’ll try to keep this short while touching on a few of the many highlights.

The "cloud forest" of Doi Inthanon--
considered the southernmost of the
Himalayan mountain range

Two weeks ago I finally relocated from Chiang Mai province to Tak province, which took two trips over four days (initially by bus) since I had to return to ride my motorbike over the mountains to Sunshine Orchard, an SDA vocational school/children’s home for Karen refugees. Since it was a long trip for the motorbike, I camped for one night at a campground at Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand (which was conveniently located near my route), and saw some waterfalls and a beautiful sunset and sunrise from a viewpoint on the mountain. The next day, some of the Thailand highways were extremely rough, steep (15-20% grades here are common), and treacherous for the motorbike during the looong trip, but I took it slowly and made it safely to Sunshine Orchard, praise God. My shoulders were very tense and sore for a few days after that!

Sunrise at Doi Inthanon

It took a few more days of adjusting to life here, since it is several degrees more “rustic” than in Chiang Mai where I was staying before. I learned things such as the convenience of hand-washing my laundry at night during my cold bucket shower in the Asian toilets…not really as bad as it sounds, but I’m glad it hasn’t been as cold here as it was north of Chiang Mai--so far. During my first two days at my new lodging in the IMM (Intensive Medical Missionary) building, I was filling my water bottle to drink from a 5-gallon jug of what was supposedly purified water. But when the jug got low, the water started looking muddy and I peered inside the small opening and saw a tadpole swimming inside the bottom of the jug! I then found out that someone had filled that jug with creek water to use for non-drinking purposes! Two weeks later after ingesting some natural remedies and probiotics, I haven’t gotten giardia that I know of yet...  

One of the younger students at
Sunshine Orchard

Located here beside the Moei River dividing Thailand from Burma, the school where I am staying is a volunteer-operated ministry which currently serves ~200 mostly refugee students in grades K-8 (British Standard), has a medical-missionary training program for the older students, and also cares for orphans and outcasts in a children’s home. Sunshine Orchard was formerly LayKloYaw School in Burma—you can read some of the history here: http://www.karenoutreach.org/about-us/history/. I am privileged to be able to stay here temporarily to help out in various ways while continuing to work on learning Karen and Thai, and working some with Brenda Steck with medical needs that come up with the students and nearby villagers.

Traveling to the hospital in Gayle's truck
on the chilly Christmas morning

The chapel at Sunshine Orchard

The full chapel, especially packed on Christmas
since we invited some villagers too! Everyone
sits on the floor, of course.

It's been a great experience so far, being able to meet some of the dear Karen children and young people when I am on campus, even though it can be a challenge since many of them are quiet like me and there is a significant language barrier. Christmas Eve found us all (nearly 200 students and teachers) walking to the surrounding villages, singing Christmas carols in Karen, Burmese, and English, and praying with the families who listened welcomingly from their dark wood and bamboo huts by candlelight. On Christmas morning I had the privilege of riding in with Gayle and some of the students to the Tha Song Yang hospital, to donate blood for a lady who needed 4 units of blood while recovering from malaria and a related medication reaction. (Here in this area of Thailand at least, you have to recruit blood donors anytime you need a blood transfusion—it isn’t like the blood bank system in the states!) Then in the afternoon, thanks to the hard work of lots of volunteers, we had a special Christmas lunch for everyone at the school, including pumpkin curry on rice (yummy!), mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, finger foods and specials such as dragonfruit and tapioca pudding for dessert. We also had a musical program by the students in the evening, and a gift exchange along with handing out the hundreds of wool blankets that we had bought in Mae Sot for the students. (There is no heat in any of the huts or buildings around here—except some Karen people have to burn open fires in their hut with no chimney!)

Bamboo huts on campus for staff housing
and temporary dorms (new dorms are coming
as soon as the costs are covered)

The day after Christmas, the school started classes for the new term, and I was able to start taking a Karen language class taught by the IMM students—my tutor is an 18-year-old Karen student named Saw Dee Yay. Like most of the other students, his original home is in Karen state in Burma (which has been a battle zone for decades, though recently there has been a supposed ceasefire which has been reported to be locally breaking down). After he finishes school, he wants to return to Karen state to help his own people and help spread the gospel. These students have many challenges ahead of them and really need our prayers and support!

JooJoo, one of the young children being
cared for in the Children's Home

With just starting Karen classes (and trying to learn more Thai also), I still have a long ways to go in communicating with the people, but it’s been a blessing to be involved with ministering in various ways interspersed with my studies. This weekend I witnessed my first case of severe malaria…a 12-year-old boy came down with it very suddenly, and by the afternoon it was evident that he was having cerebral symptoms along with a fever of nearly 105 F. (It would have gone higher, but we doused him with a lot of cold water which is one of the ways the temperature can be brought down in extreme cases.) He was delirious and refusing to take any medicine or water. We took him to the nearest small hospital about 45 minutes away, communicating in bits of Thai, Karen, and English to explain what was going on, and they did a spinal tap and confirmed that he had a severe PF cerebral malaria. After IV therapy and treatments, thankfully he’s doing a lot better now, but still has more recovery left.

The mountains of Burma, right next to the
river beside the school

Today I got to drive to a nearby mountain village to pick up leaf panels for roofing some of the bamboo huts here at the school. Driving the truck up the incredibly steep, narrow, rutty mountain roads in low gear was a bit of adventure, but I was glad that it wasn’t muddy since this is the dry season! The rainy season doesn’t start until May… By the way, I forgot to mention that the deep wounds from my little accident have basically closed up, after nearly 6 weeks! The tissue is still extremely fragile though, as the scar remodeling is in process.

As a closing thought, I want to share something relating to the new year that I learned from an unknown author in a My Manna email today:

Consider this: Our Milky Way galaxy is hurtling through space at 375 miles per second or 1.3 million miles per hour.

And within our own galaxy, the sun and its solar system are zooming along at 12.4 miles per second toward the star Vega in the constellation Lyra.

If you were to lie on your back in a quiet park on a cloudless day, you may feel as though all time and movement have stopped under the warm rays of the sun.

And when you're walking down the street, you don't notice the earth spinning beneath your feet.

But the scientist and the Christian know otherwise.

Students enjoying the Bible Story
books that were donated

Just as we are hurtling through the heavens at unimaginable speeds according to science, so, too, are we moving from here to eternity.

Our days and opportunities to live for the Lord and share Him with others pass so quickly that we cannot afford to waste any more time.

It is important that we remember our days are numbered.

And life is but "a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." James 4:14.

Time is God's gift to you-

- so worship Him, live for Him, and bring others to the saving knowledge of His grace and forgiveness in the days you have left.

Live dynamically for Christ today because tomorrow may not come.

Ask the Lord to help you live without desperation or futility-

- as you travel quickly from your earthly home to your heavenly home.