Category Archives: life on the foreign field

Soul Food

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Someone asked me back in January, “Don’t you get lonely living out there?” Amy and I live in a town with barely any other foreigners, much less Mennonites. We are about 4 hours away from the nearest big city with a substantial population of people with our skin tone and hair tone.

I thought for a bit and said, no. Our lives are packed with relationships, some deeper and more fulfilling than others. We are both fluent in Thai and can connect in Thai on a deep level. The little Karen church we attend has become a family for us. We get hugs when whenever we drop by. We are celebrated and loved more than we deserve. Sometimes there are too many relationships and people, and I feel the need to flee alone into the mountains for a quiet rainy day. (I don’t mean that I don’t miss my friends and church family in Chiang Mai, or friends at home in the USA. But missing people is not the same as being lonely.)

And yet, when I think of it, I do get lonely. Perhaps a better way to say it would be, “I am lonely.” But it’s not the kind of loneliness people think it is. I believe that no matter where I would go and who I would be with, I would still be lonely. Sometimes I blame it on being single, but deep down I think that if I would get married, I would still be lonely. I don’t know. Maybe I should experiment. 🙂

But in the end, it’s that loneliness that drives me back to Jesus and his beauty. It’s Him I am forced to lean on and depend on because nothing else is enough. Yet sometimes it’s the glimpses of His beauty that make me lonely in the first place.

In the past few weeks, I have been struck again by the beauty of the place I live in. Coming out of the dry, brown of the hot season, life is green again and the sky is blue. Sometimes too brightly a blue. It has rained some, enough to color the earth again, but the real rainy season hasn’t started yet. I am ready for the rain, the coolness of liquid falling from the sky all day long. I am ready to be able to take off my clothes at the end of the day like a normal person, rather than peeling them off like I am peeling a potato. But while I wait for those days, I find soul food in the details around me.

And because I love it so much, I can’t stand not sharing it with others. So here are a few pictures of life. (Note: Now that I am ready to hit the publish button, I am surprised at myself. What I planned as a photo post morphed into a full-blown poetry post. 🙂 It makes me smile. Maybe I should have split it up into 5 or 6 posts, but I can always do that some other time. )

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon
The creeping cat, looked up. (WB Yeats)

Who loves the rain
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes. (Frances Shaw)

Do not hurry as you walk with grief;
It does not help the journey. Walk slowly, pausing often:
Do not hurry as you walk with grief.
Be not disturbed by memories that come unbidden.
Swiftly forgive; and let Christ speak for you
unspoken words. Unfinished conversation
will be resolved in Him. Be not disturbed.
Be gentle with the one who walks with grief.
If it is you, be gentle with yourself.
Swiftly forgive; walk slowly, pausing often.


Take time, be gentle as you walk with grief. (George MacDonald)

I am nobody.
Who are you?
Are you nobody too? (Emily Dickinson)

Four lovely ladies just visited us from Chiang Mai this Saturday and Sunday. They are the current Baanies. The name “Baanies” is a play on Thai/English words meaning the people you live with and is the name used to refer to the girls who work at Wisdom Tree Home in Chiang Mai. Read here about some of the original Baanies. The poem starts like this:

Oh, we live in a house of seven girls
And bonny lassies are we
Seven girls and a dog (who cries when we leave)
All footloose and fancy-free

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun. (J.R.R. Tolkien)

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 
I have been one acquainted with the night. (Robert Frost)

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. (WB Yeats) (I like to listen to this one on Spotify, read byTheWanderingPaddy)

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go (Robert Burns)

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. (Robert Frost)

THE LITTLE Road says, Go,
The little House says, Stay:
And O, it’s bonny here at home,
But I must go away. (Jospehine Peabody)

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. (Wendell Berry)

Some of these I love best read out loud. Often on my drive to Chiang Mai once a month, I listen to them on Spotify: here

Delta 7850/KE36

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Somewhere between Atlanta and Seoul I lost half a day.

I think it slipped out into the great infinity of sky– time leaking into the clouds, an hour here, an hour there,

The minutes dripping down like condensation pooling together onto the cumulonimbus floor of the sky, the seconds wisping into cloud dust.

I know they’ve tried to tell me many times how time works on international flights, but my mind cannot understand.

Perhaps the hours and the minutes and the seconds all find each other again, like a diaspora coming home, and quietly rain back down on my life later.

Or maybe those twelve hours are stored up somewhere in one of God’s bathroom cabinets behind where He keeps the vitamins in the same place he puts the tears that watered those lost minutes,

Lost minutes that ached of goodbyes, and pain that my hands cannot touch or heal no matter how much I long to span them around all the problems, and heal the hunger of hurting souls and the seduction of spiderwebbed thoughts.

Perhaps he mixes the lost minutes with the tears where they crystalize into jewels in the bottle marked with my name in the bathroom cabinet of God’s house where they wait for sometime when they are redeemed and I dare to clasp my hands around them and learn they were never really lost.

Perhaps so.

Painted Deserts

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We walk our painted deserts on numbered days

In the shadow of mountains hemmed by time

We carry Your beauty crowned upon us

A tale that is told, a fleeting rhyme

We flourish as grass to fall and wither

Naked under wheeling desert suns

Lost in everlasting, a watch in the night

On captured seconds our course we run.

And this is our cry to the encircling sky

That girds our peregrine ways

Satisfy the yearning of hearts that are burning

And make us glad, oh make us glad all our days. 

For over a month now, I have been trying to give voice to what Psalms 90 means to me. I started to write it when I was still in Thailand in March, but somehow it didn’t seem to come together. Flying home, I traveled through Korea, landed in Los Angeles and then took the train from there to Hutchinson. This saved me money and gave me the time I needed to process and relax. It was just what the doctor ordered. I have irrevocably fallen in love with Amtrak now. We drove through a lot of deserts and grasslands and it served to give a bit of a frame for what I was trying to say. While the desert may seem boring to some, I find in it a wild beauty and tenacity that is impossible to find in most parts of the world. That, coupled with the wide open sky of my own prairie roots, makes it a place I actually find refreshing (for a short period of time, anyway).

Evening Palette

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The mountain swallowed the sun tonight

Tugged it down from the sooty sky

Into the smoky red of horizon’s shade

And west into the shadows of Burma

And for a moment there was a fire in the town

Titian on the water, low and light

Between the sandy banks of the Yuam River

Rain-thirsty in the smoggy gloaming

Then the sun slipped into the mountain’s pocket

And all was gray again, until the kindly dusk

Purpled the world and wrapped my town in its arms

And with an indigo lullaby, rocked her to sleep

When I See You Again

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There are some things about heaven I don’t understand

But some things I know to be true

That I will meet God when I get there

And that I will run races with you;

Maybe we’ll run to the green, green meadows

Tasting the fresh, clean air

Or walk by the river and talk of old times

And catch the bright butterflies there.

I know they say that you’ve gone far away

But I think it’s just through that door

That door where the shadows have been chased out of sight

Right beside the long river’s shore.

And it won’t be long till I see you again

Just a sunset and sunrise away

So, wait for me there on the edge of the water

Where the dawn of heaven breaks into day.

My Aunt Miriam passed away a few days ago from a 4 year long battle with cancer. Miriam had lived with my grandpa in the house next door for the past 10 years or so. Miriam contracted polio at a young age, so she always wore a brace for walking, and in later years, a walker as well. When I would go home for visits from Thailand, one thing I really enjoyed doing was going with her to her doctor and chemo visits. I look forward to running races with her in heaven.

Chonny doesn’t like Chokes

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( I wrote this two weeks ago around the time that my sister was leaving. After that, life showed up and got busy when I started my online teaching prep program. When I found this today, I decided to finish it up.)

When my sister Sara came to visit me last month, we needed a way for her to travel to Mae Sariang after landing in Chiang Mai. I also wanted her to have a bike for transportation for times I would be in school and unable to drive her around. 

Enter Chonny. 

Invest has several vehicles for staff use. One of them is Jimmy, (also called Chimmy) a manual truck that is known for his temperamental behavior. Recently, a former IGo staff donated his old bike to the cause as well. This bike has now been christened Johnny, or Chonny. (PA Dutch speakers will understand the need to add the CH). I thought about calling him Eli, but my sister protested vehemently. So, instead we called him Chonny, since he made a very good partner for Chimmy.

Chonny managed to make it to Mae Sariang intact. He is aged and slightly stiff, but we took it slowly and managed to make it without mishap. Sara got along with him superbly, even with his quirks, or perhaps because of them. 

Before I begin my story, there are several things that you need to know. Chonny only starts via kickstarting. Not only that, there are times when Chonny is loathe to start on cool mornings, and then you have to choke him to start him. Chonny also has only 100 cc’s of “oomph” to get him up mountains. 

Sara drove him around in Mae Sariang for a few weeks, and then before she headed back to the States, she wanted to go back to Chiang Mai to visit our friend Amanda. Our original plans changed several times so instead of both of us driving to Chiang Mai, she took the bus to Chiang Mai and left Chonny sitting forlornly at our house. 

My friend Max was getting married in Omkoi on Saturday. Max was a police officer I had met at the station in Chiang Mai years ago when I was working as a translator. Max is also a Christian from a Karen village in Omkoi. Sara really wanted to attend a Karen wedding, so she planned to bring the bus back from Chiang Mai halfway, meet us at the Suan Son pine forest for the night and then we would drive to the wedding in the morning. We would then drive to Chiang Mai doubling up on Chonny. Sara would then board the plane on Sunday night, leaving for home. 

At first, I was leery of the plan. Driving to Chiang Mai on my well-maintained 150 cc bike is a long drive. Driving to Chiang Mai double on Chonny, who sounds like he is going to fall to pieces when you hit 80kmh sounded dubious. Not only that, I am attached to my bike and prefer to drive that. It irks me slightly to have to drive another one. (Don’t tell my sister).

But it made sense, and I needed to get Chonny back to Chiang Mai anyway. And it would be an adventure, I told my friend Abby, when trying to decide if we wanted to risk it. If you make something tedious an adventure with sisters, then it’s all good. 

Amy and I left for Suan Son after school on Friday night.  Before then, we stopped at the gas station to fill up with gas and fill our tires with air. At the air pump, a kind man offered to fill up my tires. He checked the front tire and was like, “Oh this doesn’t need any air. But…” his voice trailed off. “This tire is really worn. How far are you going?”

“Oh, to Suan Son,” I said airily. I didn’t mention Omkoi or Chiang Mai.  I tend to downplay my travel with Thai people because many people get worried when they see this farang driving that far. 

He got this funny look on his face. I thought maybe he hadn’t understood me correctly, but I was in a hurry and didn’t feel like I needed to clarify myself.

“The tire is very worn,” he said again. 

“Ok,” I said, “It’s not my bike. I will tell the owner.” Somehow I felt like I had to make sure he knew it was not my bike. 

I mulled over the meaning of the look on his face as Amy and I left for Suan Son, driving through the chilly mountains with the sun setting in resplendence on the right and a full moon rising over the mountains on the right. I was so distracted with the sun and the moon and keeping Chonny on the road that I forgot about the man with the funny look.

We arrived at our little homestay and then I left to pick up Sara at the Suan Son forest since that was where I had told the bus driver to leave her. I planned to pick her up there and drive back to our homestay.

But both Chonny and the bus driver had different plans. Just as I reached Suan Son, Chonny started limping and suddenly the look on the man’s face made sense. Chonny’s front tire was flat. Very flat.

Just like that my phone rang. It was Sara. “I don’t know where I am,” she said. “The driver didn’t let me off at the right place!”

Since Chonny was out of the running, there was no way I could go find her. And, it was rapidly getting dark. I figured out where she was and called Amy and Amy went to pick her up. 

Chonny had graciously decided to go flat right in front of the police checkpoint and the policemen just as graciously loaded up my bike on the back of the police truck and drove me to the nearest bike shop which was the only one close along miles of wilderness. I was very, very grateful.

That was episode one with Chonny. Now, with a new front tire I was a bit more confident that we would reach Chiang Mai in one piece the next day. 

The next morning came the test. It was cold so Sara offered to start Chonny up while I went to pay for the homestay. And then we started off for the wedding in Omkoi which was 55 kilometers away, with Sara riding behind me on Chonny and Amy driving behind us. The first hill we came to, Chonny groaned. 

I did too. 

If it took us this long to get up one hill, it was going to be a long drive to Chiang Mai.

We turned off towards Omkoi and I experienced a sinking feeling that sunk lower and lower the further and higher we went. Just before we got to a major pass, Chonny started going slower and slower. It felt like the more gas I gave him, the slower he went. Finally, I stopped. There was no way that we could make it up that hill in this condition. Sara jumped on the back of Amy’s bike and I decided to go up with Chonny by myself, but as I started off, I realized something was majorly wrong. Even with one rider, Chonny was struggling. 

The wedding was supposed to start at 10. This was a little before 9. What on earth should we do?

We went back and looked for a bike shop. The first person said, “That way,” so we went “that way” and the next one said, “that way,” too so we went “that way”, and then the next one said, “this way.” 

Our heads were spinning. I messaged P Tob, one of Max’s police officer friends who was coming to the wedding. 

“How far  have you come yet?” I asked. “If we leave the bike here, can you pick us up?” 

“Send me a location,” he said. I will, as soon as I have one. The last guy sent us up over the hill, saying there should be an open shop past the hill. I held my breath and gave Chonny as much gas as I could and even put my feet on the ground to help him up. We got over, just like the little engine that could.

“Hmm, “ I thought to myself. Maybe we could get to the wedding. If we would just drive slowly and at least make it to Omkoi, we could leave the bike there at a shop and at least attend the wedding. 

So, I told P Tob that he didn’t need to stop and pick us up after all. “But,” I said, “Just keep an eye out if you see us beside the road somewhere.” 

About 2 hills later, I changed my mind. Saying “I think I can, I think I can,” may work in certain circumstances, but not in this one. We were not going to make it like this. It seemed every time I stopped Chonny, he did a bit better, but not for long. We decided that Amy and Sara would drive on. I would get Chonny checked out and then get P Tob to pick me up and  try to at least come for the last part of the wedding. I drove him back to the shop. 

As I drove in, there was the usual fearful apprehension about a foreigner coming into the shop. I spoke in Thai to one of the little Karen boys sitting in front and tried to explain what was wrong. I didn’t know how to say it, other than that it seemed Chonny had no power. He called the head guy. I went off to the side to figure out where I was and send the location to P Tob. 

The man came over. He went to start the bike, and then said, “Oh, the choke’s on!”

The little Karen boys in front of the shop went into spasms of laughter. 

I looked and couldn’t believe my eyes. I guess when Sara went out to start him in the morning, she forgot to turn off the choke and I never thought to check since the only thing I have ever driven with a choke was a lawn mower. It seemed like magic. Chonny was fixed. And I was escalating the embarrassment scale rapidly. I

I didn’t look at the Karen boys, who I am sure were absolutely splitting their sides with laughter. Instead, I got on the bike and raced away with surprising rapidity, howling and screaming with laughter myself. For the next 10 kilometers, I laughed out loud. And laughed and laughed. 

We made it to the wedding a little late, but it was fine. And after the wedding, we drove to Chiang Mai on Chonny without incident, making chokes about Chonny not enjoying chokes. 

And I am sure that evening several little boys went home and regaled their families around the supper table about the foreigner who came with the bike that “didn’t work.”

Above: Chonny safely in Chiang Mai

Kawthoolei Christmas

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December 14, 2022

Dawn slips over the river, sending silver light over the glassy surface of the River Salawin*. We walk down to the shore in the half-light, while another row of unrecognizable shapes moves down the bank a few hundred meters ahead. The boats are waiting. A few people wave their hands in a good morning, but for the most part we move silently. We climb carefully onto the boats. The three of us with long noses and white skin and lighter hair deck ourselves with long sleeves and hats and facial coverings.

The gray silence is broken by the roar of a boat starting. A man nimbly climbs from the front of the boat to the back, walking alongside the edge of the boat. The prow of the boat cuts through the water to middle of the river, going against the current of the water that used to be a frozen glacier in Tibet.

A ten-minute ride and we are there on the other side, the side that I have heard so much about, but never visited. Kawthoolei**, which in Karen means “the land without darkness.” The place where villages are looted and plundered day after day even now after decades of fighting and unrest.

There, on the other side, we are told to not take any pictures of immediate checkpoint. We climb the steep bluff. A Karen soldier is sweeping the ground around the checkpoint. He nods to us.

“Ghaw luh a ghay,” he greets us with the traditional Karen greeting.

We walk on, past a small hospital which currently has no patients. The patients are in a house closer to caves for when evacuations are needed when the Burma army flies overhead with planes, bombing the area. Recently, we are told, there were drones scouting in the area, which means that the residents of the area need to be extra careful.

The area is a medical training center where trainees come for 6 months and then leave. It is small, carved from the growth of the jungle, with a few spaces wide enough for a game of Takraw (a game similar to volleyball, using only feet and heads, and a smaller ball).  Passersby on the river would scarcely know that it exists. Surrounded by mountains on either side, we walk down to the makeshift church for the Christmas service.

The simplicity, not of the service or the church or even the hospital area, stuns me. What stuns me is how simple the line is that the River Salawin draws between two countries. Karen people inhabit both sides of the river. On the one side, they live in constant tension, not knowing when the airplanes might choose to sweep overhead, dropping their lethal cargo, or when a troupe of Burmese soldiers might come looting and raping and burning. Perhaps the worst of it is the not knowing. On the other side of the river, in the village Thatafang, they live in peace, under the protection of the Thai government. They travel freely without travel passes. When planes pass overhead, they may watch, but they do not run. They have identification and citizenship and rights.

None of the people on either side chose what side they wanted to be born on. None of them even chose to be born.

The River Salawin flows on serenely through the middle, unchanging in the conflict over the past seventy-three years, ten months and three days.***

Then in that slice of clearing, shaped uncannily like a slice of pie, we celebrate the coming of a Savior who left his life in heaven to be born in a stable, to become flesh among a tribe of people who were caught under the tyranny of foreign rule. Our worship rises in the early morning air, up from the campfires and forests of the Burmese jungle, calling out to the God who became man and lived among us. The God who was light who came to give light to us who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace.

The God who is Immanuel. The God who is with us.

*There are two common spellings for the Salawin River, Salawin and Salween. I prefer Salawin, to match with the Thai pronunciation.

**Kawthoolei is the name that Karen people call their own country, hopefully named “land without darkness.” However, it is more commonly known as Karen State, Myanmar.

***According to Wikipedia (take it with a grain of salt) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_conflict

Dustbeams is Released!

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November wasn’t the kindest month of this year, with deaths, busyness, stress, and lots of cancelled plans. At the end, it threw the Covid bug at me, but I am grateful that I got Covid since it enabled me to spend hours finishing up my latest project. (Even though a large portion of the edits were done lying on my back.)

But now I am ecstatic to announce that my latest book, Dustbeams, is available on Kindle! Victory dance around the room while no one is looking!!! (No one should be looking because I am still in isolation).

The print version should be available on Amazon before too long, although I can’t give an exact date. I will send out another update when that is available. That will be available only on Amazon, but for those in the Hutchinson, Kansas area, there will be physical copies available in a few weeks from Blurb as well.

But for now, Kindle is available!! And because I love my Kindle and because this is my first book on Kindle, this makes me really excited (in case you haven’t noticed the surplus of exclamation points I am using. Normally I ration my exclamation points out quite conservatively).

!!!!

Dustbeams is similar to my last book, Through a Glass Darkly. It contains a mix of poetry and prose written over the past four years or so, with stories drawn from my experience in Thailand, especially in Saohin. One difference between the two books is the section dedicated to Kansas and home, called “Roots,” at the beginning of the book. The Kindle version contains 93 pages.

The edition is available here for $5.99. Below are some pictures of the book in Kindle version. Stay tuned to hear of the print release!

One of the main reasons I put Dustbeams together was as a fundraiser to help pay for my online course for teacher’s training that is coming up in January with Moreland University. After studying the course for nine months, I should, Lord Willing, be able to take the test to get my US teaching license, and then use that to finally get my Thai teaching license. So if you enjoy the book, be sure to leave a review and let friends know!

Feel free to share on social media!

Blessings and Merry Christmas!

The Road from Chiang Mai

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Bright as the day through darkest night

From valleys low to mountains high

You go before me, you go behind me

Untroubled under a troubled sky

Through clouds that unleash stinging rain

On roads under sunfire in aching blue

Where fog shrouds the road in wraithing white

Yet still, still, I am with you.

Only a sojourner in a transient world

Weary on a road ever so long

Only a speck on a river passing,

Only an echo, a fragment of song

Yet your heart yearns for me from the brooding sky

As I crest the mountain in rain-washed hue

All through the winding journey home

Still, oh still, I am with you.

I am not sure how often and how long I have tried to write this poem, but each time, my words failed me. (This is the Purple Poem I wrote about in an earlier blog post). How to explain that feeling of God hand cupping over me as I do the monthly trip from Mae Sariang to Chiang Mai and back on my bike? How to weave into a poem the different emotions of the ride, the different scenes and backdrops? Finally, this morning I was able to somewhat put a tongue to it. Besides the obvious inspiration of those drives, Psalms 139 and James 4:5 were also inspirations for the poem.

I am also currently working on a new book of poetry and essays. I think it’s far enough along that I can say it’s going to happen, but it’s impossible to give any release date right now. I do, however, want to get it finished before I start my online course for my teacher’s license in January, which will take up all my spare time.

Stay tuned! 🙂

Where the South Wind Blows

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Oh, give me the gray autumn winds of Kansas

That steal across the burnt sienna of tallgrass,

Down over rolling plains, close by the Ninnescah,

In November, in November, in gray November’s day.

I wonder if they would know me, those November winds

That ghost from river to prairie to grove,

Where dying Texas sunflowers await the dawning winter,

And Osage orange trees pencil black against the sky.

Oh, give me gray winds haunting shorn fields

And over the umber colors of the riverland grass,

When the sky cups over the brooding prairie world

On a day in November where the south wind dwells.