Pray for Burma

Last night we received an email asking for urgent prayer for the Karen in Burma.  Please pray...

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

 

Greeting you in the name of Christ from the border. On behalf of our Karen Leaders, may I now call upon you to bind your heart with us to pray.

 

In brief, now, our Karen National Union (KNU) and the Burmese Government have set the New Dates for Third Round Negotiations Meeting on 3rd - 4th September 2012. And this time they will focus on the guarantee of safety for civilian and the building of trust progressively at every level of negotiations. Specifically, the relocation of Burma Army troops away from Karen State, and a proposed Code of Conduct.

 

The KNU General Secretary, Naw Zipporah Sein, will again lead the group. She strongly believes in God and trust God that, 'if  God is with me and the group, He will provide what we need, for we are representing the Karen civilians'.

 

My dear Brothers and Sisters, she is the first lady among our Karen People that held this post and in the midst of hardship, difficulties and strong pressure she led the KNU for 4 years with strong and faithful heart to God and His people.

 

Prayer requests:

 

• Protection in travelling for the Karen delegation. 

• Pray that God’s spirit will remain in their hearts, their thoughts and their talks so that the hearts that are hard like stone will become softer and God's power will be with them.

• For Naw Zipporah as she leads the group - God will give her power, strength, knowledge and wisdom so that whatever she does will be filled with God's power, grace and favour.

   

‘For how can I endure to see the evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my Countrymen?’ Esther 8:6

 

May God Bless you all in His Holy Service!

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Your sister in Christ

29th August 2012

Good sports?

We live here in Chiang Mai on the site of the Karen Baptist Convention's Bible School.  One of the highlights of the year is the annual Bible School Sports Day, which took place last week.

Team Matthew (left, in red) and Team Mark (right, in blue)

After dividing into 4 teams - Matthew, Mark, Luke... and Teachers (!), the games began. The morning programme was fairly traditional - football for the boys, volleyball for the girls and a 5km run for everyone.

 But the afternoon is where the fun really begins.  No good Thai sports day is without an eating contest - and this was no exception.  The competitors began with a plate of snacks including a hard boiled egg, a wrapped pastry, orange juice, sticky rice and a banana.

The looks of concentration on the athletes' faces was intense - and it quickly became apparent that strategic decisions about what to eat first were vitally important.  The food race ended with an old classic - retrieving a sweet buried in a plate of flour.

The big surprise this year, however, was a brand new competition - lawn mowing.  Each team was given a strip of grass to mow - they were given marks for speed, and for the quality of the cut.

The race leader - and eventual champion - of the lawn mowing contest

The Sports Day eventually finished with a lot of water balloons and 50 worn-out students!  (And, of course, a neatly mown lawn... this was well planned!)

Building blocks

One of the questions people often asked us during our Home Assignment ran along these lines: 'What's it really like, on a day-to-day basis, living in Thailand?'

Hopefully, over the coming months, this blog will give you some insight into our daily experiences living and working here in Chiang Mai.  For now, we're still in a period of transition - re-adjusting to the climate, the cuisine, the culture.

At times that transition can feel jarring.  A few days ago, we were at Legoland celebrating Jacob's fifth birthday.  This morning I was standing in a pool of mud listening to a bible school choir singing in Karen during a worship service to mark the start of construction for their new dormitory building.  Stepping from one of those contexts to another in such a short space of time isn't easy!

Legoland

Foundation Stone Ceremony for the new dormitory building

And the most difficult aspects of that adjustment aren't the languages involved or the weather conditions, but rather the less-visible cultural leaps we need to make.

Slowing down, from a frenetic Western pace and focus on results and activity, to a more relaxed, relationship-based approach.  Opening up, being willing to welcome guests into our house at inconvenient moments, rather than expecting a phone call and a time.  Becoming attuned to subtle changes in social relationships and hierarchies, and making sure we're paying appropriate respect in the right places.

If we don't manage to make those leaps, we'll simply be unable to effectively share our faith with those around us.  For now though, it feels a little like hovering between two worlds - after all, how do you get your head around the reality that a massive theme park built out of plastic bricks even exists in a world where people are struggling just to survive?

A warm welcome back home...

We got back home last Wednesday, after a brief visa stop in Bangkok.  It feels good to be able to unpack our suitcases properly after 4 months of travelling.  There have been some significant changes while we've been away - of which more soon - but some things don't change. 

Chloe and Jacob happy to be reunited with old toys!

Within two hours of getting home, we had our first power cut - thankfully only a short one! We've been gradually re-adjusting to overnight lows of 27 degrees C, which are starting to seem more manageable now.  More positively, we've been warmly welcomed by our neighbours and friends.  Abigail and Jacob have had a great start to their new school year, and are enjoying catching up with their friends too.

And I don't think I've had a single conversation yet with one of my Karen friends which hasn't involved the Olympics - despite Thailand's disappointing performance in London, many people followed the Games closely.  I'm not sure that they really understood much of the Opening Ceremony though!