Ban Per Village

Last week I went with Chuck and Krissie and Robin to visit a small church where Chuck was preaching and I was translating into Thai. It was a great experience. I translate regularly from Thai to English at my own church in Udon, which is difficult, but I just have to recognize the Thai words and then I can put them into a coherent English sentence pretty easily. But it's much different to translate from English to Thai, tons harder! It's much harder to come up with the Thai word from somewhere hidden deeply in my brain than to merely recognize the word. Chuck told me he would keep his message simple, but I still told him that I needed the outline in advancce. So, when he gave it to me he had kept it pretty simple. But there were still a few challenging parts - like acronyms.  Chuck said, "Do you know what Grace is? It's God's Riches at Christ's Expense". Well, needless to say that is not the definition in Thai, and at my 7th grade Thai level I had to dumb it down quite a bit. What I said was more like "Grace means that Christ died for us so that we can have a relationship with God". Not bad...you can get the basic idea! I joked with Chuck afterwards when everyone thanked him for his great message that although he thought he was preaching, I just said whatever I wanted to, especially when I didn't know how to translate what he said! Well, that's only partially true....

Here's a picture of Chuck and his wife Chrissy, along with the local pastor.

After church we had lunch at the church and the food was amazing! I love this about church in Thailand. First of all, every church service starts at 10:30 am. So, first of all I get to sleep in a bit on Sunday mornings, but also, when I go to visit different churches, I never have to struggle to remember when the service starts. Just show up at 10:30! The second great thing about Thai churches (at least rural churches) is that we have lunch together afterwards, every week! People just take turn cooking or bringing food. It's really an essential part of the church experience, it would so insulting or strange to the church if you didn't stay to eat. It's the relational aspect of Thai culture.

Here's the kitchen where the women cooked for us.

Robin and I helped out too, making "som tam" - which is papaya salad, made from unripe papaya, lemon juice, garlic, chili peppers and (here's the hard part) rotten fish. It's a staple food in NE Thailand - eaten with sticky rice.

Here I am mashing it up with a large mortar and pestal:

Here we are sampling the hot peppers that we put in:

 Well, it was a really fun day. It was nice to meet this pastor - she has a real passion for her work. Her story is quite sad too. Originally her husband and her were both pastors of the church, and they'd been there for a couple of years when he died. She has continued to pastor the church by herself for the past few years. An amazing woman. She's from central Bangkok too...so she had to learn NE Thai language.

Chocolate Pudding Recipe

Well, I'm always looking for ways to make good, fattening American type foods here in Thailand for a relatively reasonable price. It seems like the things I like the most - good chocolate, cheese, bread, olive oil....are the expensive things! But, courtesy of good ol' Betty Crocker - this recipe meets my chocolate needs!

1/3 - 1/2 cup sugar (depending how sweet you want it)
1/3 - 1/2 cocoa powder (more for dark chocolate taste)
2 TBSP (tablespoon) cornstarch
1/8 tsp (teaspoon) salt
2 cups milk (or soy milk)
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, salt. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir 1/2 of hot mixture into egg yolks. Stir into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 1 minute, remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Pour into 4 dessert dishes. Cover and refrigerate until chilled - about 2 hours.

I made mine with less sugar and more cocoa and it was like dark chocolate!!

A Great Day!

I feel like it's sometimes rare to be able to say that....to have a day where I am just able to celebrate what God is doing without noticing all the apparent gaps or holes. Without focusing on what would have made it an even better day....

But Friday was a great day! We were able to walk through the transition from 7 years in prison to a new of freedom with Mo Lor, a quiet, sweet, faithful, consistent member of our women's group in the Nong Khai Prison. For the past couple of months she has known that October 9 would be her day to get out, and she has been reminding me and asking me to come and see her on that day. The 8th was our normal day to teach in the prison, and the women's group there put on a great celebration with food and soda and lots of singing to bless Mo Lor and send her off to start her new life. Women who had stopped coming to the group for various reasons, either they were working or had lost interest in studying with us, came back to the group for this special day. Mo Lor was smiling the whole time and it was a real joy to be able to affirm her and bless her for all the great things that we see in her, and to wish her well and pray for her as she heads back to her village.

She will return to live with her 6 children, in various stages of early adulthood and adulthood. Her husband has died, but I hope and pray for Mo Lor a life of rest, joy, and love with her children and grandchildren.

On the 9th we weren't quite sure where to find her, we knew that she would transition from the prison into the holding cell at the local police station before entering into immigration and being transported back to her country. But, Louisa and I found the station easily and as soon as we walked in the door the guard was able to take us right to Mo Lor. She apparantly had been expecting us earlier and had continually asked the guards to check if her "farang" (western) friends had arrived yet and were wandering around outside lost and looking for her. I'm sure they were glad when we finally arrived!!

Although she's not showing it in this picture, Mo Lor smiled from ear to ear the whole time we were there. We had to leave her as she waited to go to immigration and hopefully has made it all the way back to her village by now. It'll be a little sad to go to the prison this week and not to meet Mo Lor, her quiet leadership has really held the group together, she has become a "mother" to many of the younger women and her peaceful spirit is very calming.

As she restarts her life....I pray that God will do above and beyond what we could hope for Mo Lor. Yes, Friday was a really, really, really great day!

New Office Manager

Note to self: Buy more post its!