Tuesday afternoon I drove, 90 km south of Chiang Mai, to Hod (a map for those looking to find it) with Pastor Sombat who runs a boarding home for Karen children attending the local school. Its holiday time at the moment but some of the children have returned early to attend vocational English classes with their new foreign teacher.
Stopping in Hod (which is sometimes called Hot due to the last Thai character which is actually a dt sound) which is a very small town with mostly local stores and a few westernised shops like 7/11 and Macro, I bought milk and yogurt before heading to the home. I forgot to check the expiry date of the milk! Too late! My two litres expired in four days. Never mind I was able to decant and freeze some in 4 smaller water bottles.
Ps Sombat is the senior pastor of Hod City Church where the home is situated. On arrival he introduced me to some of the staff before showing me my new abode, a little house on the hill. Maew (her nickname meaning cat) is an English teacher as well as one of the house parents. She became my chief interpreter and confidante. The foundation is made up of several buildings including offices for Nurture the Kids Foundation and World Vison who find sponsors for the children whose parents are unable to s
upport them through their schooling. Ps Sombat also explained that the most Karen pastors support themselves unlike many traditional Thai pastors who may come under the banner of an overseas organisation.
The children staying at the home age between 7 and 17 and come from the local Karen tribes living in the surrounding hills and mountains. I met some of the children and parents one afternoon just after they had arrived in the back of an open ute.
My new home is built on the top of a rise overlooking the compound. Slightly further up the hill on the left of the house is an open area where ball games can be played on the gravel. Beside this, a new church building is being constructed. Below me are the offices, the children’s dorms, kitchen and dining facilities as well as a children’s playground beside a large hall used for the church meetings.
My little home is again very basic with a hard Thai mattress on the floor, line
n, screened windows with shutters on three sides as well as a screened door, a table inside and out with a chair at both. Sometimes it is cooler to sit outside but then I also have to ward off the bugs. I also have quite a large ensuite with a western style toilet, basin and a shower and of course a large bucket for storing water which came in handy when the water failed. This was due to the tank running dry on one day and on another when there seemed to be no particular reason. On this occasion we tried checking for what was causing the problem but as it was after 9pm and we only had my torch light, we didn’t find the cause. In the morning, just by accident when I was walking around the outside of the house, closing all the shutters to keep the house cool, I noticed at the back of the house one of the plastic pipes had come apart at a join and the water had for over 20 hrs been gushing out. It was easily fixed with an inner tube of a bike tyre tied tightly around the join.
Wednesday morning at nine o’clock I met more of the staff who had come for an English lesson. It was good to get to know them as they practiced English, some had quite a good understanding. We introduced ourselves and told a little about our family and what their work was here.
I suggested that afternoon we take some of the students into town to buy ingredients for Mieng Kham and pancakes which we planned to cook the following day. We had fun wandering around the local market learning the English names of some of the produce while looking for the ingredients we needed. That night we watched the first of the TV Bible series. Unfortunately there were no subtitles which made it a little difficult but as most of the students knew the bible stories they, with Maew’s help, were able to follow along.
Thursday morning I went for an early morning jog. I wasn’t sure where to go so followed the track to the main road and jogged along that for a while. The following day I took the dirt track at the back of the property. It was a bit rough and stony but it also had a bit of a hill which made it a good cardio workout.
After my jog, my cool down is going on line (if I can) then a shower or splash from the bucket depending on the water situation. I sometimes have three to four showers a day to cool down. At the same time I wash my clothes, which are soaked from perspiration, so that I always have something clean to wear. They are dry within hours.
By 9am I joined the children in an open-plan office where we all sit around a large oval table to chat in English. We went over all the ingredients we had bought the previous afternoon and the cooking utensils we needed for today’s cooking lesson.
That afternoon was so hot, Maew had checked the temperature on line and reported it was 43 degrees! I wasn’t surprised, it was a roaster of a day! She suggested our cooking class be deferred to later in the day when it was cooler. We resumed at 2pm to make our Mieng Kham, it was too hot to make pancakes! Off to the kitchen we all went to find what we needed before taking it outside to a covered area where it was cooler. Some of the students went to pick and wash the Poole leaves others set about washing, peeling, grating, slicing, preparing onions, ginger, coconut and lime then frying the peanuts, crated coconut, dried shrimp and pounding the galangal, lemongrass in preparation for the sticky sweet sauce. It looked a bit like a production line. It wasn’t very long before we had bowls full of different condiments which we spooned onto a Poole leaves before popping the whole lot into our mouth. Yum!
Friday was heading for much the same weather but we were determined to cook pancakes. We started off in the classroom going over our recipes and delegating students to find the utensils we needed to get the job done, then we migrated to the kitchen to start before the heat of the day took over. It was lots of fun. We only had one frying pan which made things a little slow and I had no idea what proportions I needed (I didn’t have my sister Kath on hand to ask either – she’s a chef). We put the beaten eggs, flour and milk into a large bowl and took turns beating the batter. As always the first few pancakes are needed to test our batter which was more like rubber. We had bought self-raising flour but I had no idea what the proportions were and I didn’t know how to ask for baking powder/soda. Maew eventually realised what was needed and found some in the kitchen. This, plus more milk made a vast improvement. By the end of the batch I had thinned down the mixture to make crepes too. We had a variety of toppings including honey, from Maew’s kitchen, brown sugar, lime, the Mieng Khum sauce (which didn’t really go with pancakes) and Chocolate topping which I had found as a treat in one of the department stores. The pancakes were a great hit but eating so many unfortunately put everyone off their lunch.
Saturday was a day of veging out. I slept in till 8am which for me is very unusual. It was too late now to go jogging. I spend most of the day inside hiding from the heat. I usually closed the shutters and keep the door closed during the day to try and keep the house a bit cooler, by 5pm I open up the house to let the breeze in and leave it open all night so that by the morning it is lovely and cool. So in my closed house I stayed to write the blog, catch up with emails and read. Unfortunately the wifi is not quite strong enough to reach my little home on the hill, it comes spasmodically. If I want better reception I need to go to the office but even then it’s limited. Ps Sombat and his wife had just returned from Chaing Mai and popped in to drop off some fruit they had bought for me.
That evening I needed a break from my hideaway and found Maew and her daughter lazing around outside the girl’s dorm literally on the road. They had brought the fan out and were relaxing on a mat. Maew then slung up a hammock to lounge on.
Sunday, having gone to bed early I was awake just before 6am. I hauled myself out of bed, exercised then out for a jog before my first shower for the day and breaky.
The church members arrive early for fellowship and bible study classes. I was surprised to see many of the women and girls some of the boys and men in their traditional tribal costumes. They all looked beautiful. The church service was partly in Karen and mostly in Thai which is the common language. Men sat separately to the women which I’m told is customary amongst the Karen people. During the service some of the youth and then a group of men came and sang. There was also a time to share what the Lord had done during the week and a woman in her 70’s got up and shared her story. I just loved all the older women in their attire and asked if I could take a photo of them in their tribal dress before they left.
That afternoon while I was chatting to my friend Fay making plans to visit her in Mae Hong Son next Sunday, the heavens opened and down came the rain in torrents. I quickly finished our conversation then ran to one side of the room where the wind and rain seemed to be coming in horizontally straight through the front door and louvers! Closing the door with a loud bang I then noticed the wind change directions, this time it was coming from the south straight through the windows! Just after I closed these shutters the wind swung again this time from the north driving the rain straight onto my bed! Ok so, now I was closed in again, not from the heat but from the driving rain. I wasn’t game to open any of the shutters till the winds had eased.
After bucketing down for around an hour it stopped as suddenly as it had started. There was debris everywhere! There were limbs off trees and leaves strewed around the previously clean swept grounds. The town was worse off with damaged roofs and homes. The whole district was without power for 4hrs. I didn’t mind too much, the storm had brought a cool change. Maew suggested I don’t wander around in the dimming evening light as the rains would have flooded the holes of both the scorpions and snakes and I might accidently tread on one. That was enough to cause me to scurry back to my little home and shut myself in again. Now with the shutters and door flung wide (except for the screens they were tightly closed) I didn’t really need the electricity when it eventually came on at 7:30pm as it was cool enough to sleep without the fan.
It was an amazing cool night which made it so much easier to sleep early. I hadn’t slept long when I was rudely awoken by the dogs which had gone mad. I don’t know if it was because of the wind, the abundant crickets and frogs which had started after the storm or what had caused them to make such a racket but after 20 mins of nonstop barking they were getting very annoying! Ok, I’d had enough! I hate having my sleep disturbed and had a feeling the dogs would not stop barking all night! I remember Calvin saying once he was sleeping in a small village where the dogs where driving him crazy. He said he took authority in Jesus name as we had been given authority over God’s creation. He had commanded the dogs be quiet and they were. So I shouted out at the top of my voice ‘In Jesus Name SHUT UP!’ Some of the dogs were immediately quiet maybe from shock but then eventually all went quiet. Why was I so surprised! We HAVE been given authority in Jesus name. Not another peep out of the dogs all night and I slept soundly till 5am.
I dozed till 5:30 before starting my exercises and stretches, I wanted to make sure there was enough sun to go jogging so I could see where I went to avoid the puddles, mud, branches and more importantly, the scorpions and snakes. It was a beautiful morning with the sun slowly rising above the distant mountains, glowing red through the haze.
There were 5 students in today’s class so we did some role play and played an adapted version of ‘Eye Spy’ which was fun. The rest of the week Maew was busy organising for the students return from their respective villages.
One morning I woke to find tiny black ants had found my rubbish! Grrrr I removed my rubbish every morning on route to teaching so there was never really much there. But yesterday Maew had brought my lunch to the house. It was the leftovers from this that had attracted them. I must remember not to do that again. It took a while to get them out of the house before I went for my run. I found a new horde of ants in the bathroom on my return, feasting on my toothpaste tube which was closed and after removing them from here and yet another clean-up they later found the cloth I clean my dishes with. Gggrrrrr a total spring clean was needed. Most of my perishable are kept in the fridge or in air tight containers for this particular reason.
Pictures: 1. Karen women 2. New students 3. My little house on the hill 4. Making Mieng Kham 5. Students enjoying their cooking class 6. Local resident 7. Church service 8. Youth at church 9. English class
Prayer & Praise Points:
More prayers needed for the people of Nepal.
Please continue to pray for all the Lord’s workers here both the locals and the missionaries who are faithful to His calling.
I continue to praise the Lord for His leading and guidance since my arrival in Thailand for open doors and open hearts.
Praise the Lord for ongoing good health and safety during my travels.
Please continue to pray for me to hear the Lord’s leading on where to go from here. It seems He is often leading me one day at a time. People have asked, ‘when will you be coming to …..’ I tell them the Lord hasn’t revealed the dates or times. Pray that I will know where He would like me to serve.
Please continue to pray for my mother’s ongoing health.
Thank you all for standing with me in prayer as I continue on my adventure.