I’ve been asked a few questions many times since I’ve returned from the far side of the world. Questions like, “Are you going to keep updating your blog now that you’re back?” Or, “How was your time overseas?” And, “How is it being back?” These are surprisingly difficult questions for me to answer. There’s so much behind any short answer that I find it kinda frustrating to even attempt to respond. And then there’s the fact that most people, when they ask, tend to be asking out of common courtesy and with the desire for a quick, short answer like, “Great!” But that just doesn’t cut it for me. If I’m going to address what I experienced, what I’m dealing with now, or what my plans are for the future, I need to do so fully and completely. Thus the reason I’m finally back online and updating this way overdue blog posting.
Let’s start with the first question … the one about the blog. Well, the fact that I’m writing this right now kind of answers that question. But, to provide more depth to explain my absence over the past months and my intentions for the future, I need to answer the question about how it is to be back.
When I returned to Minnesota, I was expecting reverse culture-shock. Unfortunately, the expectation of it didn’t help to alleviate it. I was hit somewhat hard right away and it really hasn’t subsided, rather it has gone through stages. To begin with, I had to deal with the general discomfort with being back. For me, the more I travel outside the states and the longer periods of time in which I do such traveling, the less I feel like I fit in or belong when I return. The American culture begins to feel more and more foreign to me. It’s not easy when people who have known me within a given context for most of my life see me in the exact same context only to watch me struggle and feel like I don’t belong. It makes me feel guilty at times … I worry that they think it’s personal towards them.
The second stage I went through was trying to cope with the individualism and, subsequently, lack of community here in the states. In places like Asia, community is the core of society. To drop in on a friend unexpectedly is an honorable thing to do. Doors are not only left unlocked, they’re typically left open for people to come and go as they please. If you mistakenly wander into the home of someone you don’t know, instead of being chased out of the house you are greeted with hot tea and a welcoming smile. No one wears a watch … not because they don’t respect time, but because they respect people more. It’s more important who you’re with at the moment than when and where you’re supposed to be next. Whole islands will routinely stop everything they’re doing around 3pm every day to meet together to play and watch sports. Not because they have to, but because it’s a time for everyone to be together. There’s no daycare or babysitting, the children simply play together and the community cares for and disciplines them. If you haven’t experienced this kind of community, you can never understand the love, warmth, and sense of acceptance that comes from living in this type of environment. To face the sharp contrast of the American society just … well … it hurts! I can’t begin to explain the feelings of isolation and seeming abandonment that comes with the return.
Not that the first two stages are past, but now I’m facing a new stage. When I was on the far side of the world I experienced an amazing gift from the Lord: TIME. I can’t say I’ve ever had a time in my life where I have felt like I have done more to serve the Lord than while I was over there. My days were spent in prayer, getting to know God better, relationship building, directly sharing the words and love of Christ with non-believers, encouraging and building up missionaries, supporting short-term team members, and helping to lighten the load of the nationals. To be honest, at times it was exhausting work … and God still provided for me the time to take naps on a hammock, swim in the ocean, read books, have conversations with friends simply to pass the time, and even sit and enjoy the sunset … I mean REALLY enjoy the sunset … on an almost daily basis. Somehow, there was time in the days to take a step back and see, feel, hear, and experience God and his amazing creation. Sadly, all of that seems lost to me here … it always has. And now, I’m facing it full force …which brings me back to the question about the blog.
It’s been my desire to keep updating this site, and it still is my desire. I’ve wondered for a very long time whether or not anyone ever even reads any of this. The funny thing is, I’ve had all sorts of people who have come up to me over the past month or so, many of which I don’t even know, and tell me how much they’ve enjoyed reading my blogs and following along in my journeys. It’s been an amazing encouragement. So, with that said, my intention remains to keep updating my blogs. However, I need to be candid about how the busyness of life has left me tired and unmotivated. I’m attempting to make a few necessary changes to help turn things around, but I can’t say for sure whether or not I’ll be able to overcome the struggles I’m facing. For now, simply know that it is my desire to continue writing in here and I will do my best to do so.
Okay, so I haven’t addressed the question of “How was your time overseas?” Hopefully the details I’ve given regarding some of my struggles has provided some insight as to how my time away was. In a word, it was amazing! In a phrase, it was life-changing. It will forever be a milestone in my life to which I will always compare dates and experiences to (“I met her when I got back from living on the far side of the world.” … “I got that job several months after I returned.” … “I lived there a couple years before I traveled around the other side of the planet” … etc.). For now, this brief synopsis will have to suffice. It’s taken me this long to get this much of an update, and to get into the question of how my time overseas was will take quite a bit more time. So I shall save it for another blog, motivating me to write once again and leaving you wanting more.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
One Particular Harbour (by Jimmy Buffett)
When I got my NWA Frequent Flyer number, I remember thinking that I was going to continue to save up all my miles until I finally had enough for a free trip to Australia. There was nowhere in the world I wanted to visit more, and this was my ultimate dream trip that was finally going to become a reality. That was back in 1986 when I was 8 years old. Last month that dream became a reality … 20 years later!
I was on the plane from Singapore to Sydney when I finally saw it. I remember looking out the window of the plane and seeing the vast expanse of ocean that separates Indonesia from the land down under, returning to my movie that I was watching, and looking out the window a short while later to see land … the land I’d been longing to see for over 20 years. I was finally looking upon Australia with my own eyes. And that’s when it hit me like a freight train … this was more than a visit to a new country, more than a visit to a new continent, more than a holiday, more than a ministry, more than the opportunity to see my parents for the first time in over five months … this was a dream come true! Those don’t happen every day.
Leaving my movie behind, I sat there staring out the window in complete awe. I was looking upon the Outback with my own two eyes. Little could compare to what my heart and mind were experiencing at that moment. I was truly on the far side of the world, and there was nowhere I wanted to be more! What I didn’t know was that this was only the beginning of how God was going to bless me over the next month.
When I landed, I picked up my bags and went through customs. On the other side, I was greeted by my dad and mom, holding a balloon that said, “Welcome to Australia” with a cartoon koala and kangaroo in front of the Sydney Opera House. Having not seen them in over five months, I was greeted with the best hugs I can remember ever having! After getting a piece of luggage I had accidentally left on the airplane, we hopped into the car and began to drive around Sydney.
Having been to Sydney enough times to know the streets better than some locals, the next few days were spent with my parents acting as my own personal tour guides. We took a cruise on the Sydney Harbour, past the Sydney Opera House, under the Harbour Bridge, and around to various parts of Sydney for some unique views of the area. We drove west into the Blue Mountains and drove through some great little towns and saw some amazing views on some small hikes. And we drove along the coast and checked out Bondi Beach where I bought the surfboard and wetty I’ve been wanting for so many years. We took my new set to Manly Beach where I got to head out and catch a few waves on my new stick. It was cold, but well worth it!
While we were in Sydney we also connected with an old friend of mine a couple times. After I was on the expedition in Indonesia back in 1999, one of the members and I managed to keep occasional contact via email. I remembered that several years ago she was living somewhere in Oz, so I sent her an email to see if she was still there and living anywhere near where I was traveling. Sure enough, she’s been living in Sydney and we were able to reconnect. It was so much fun getting to reminisce and catch up with someone who had actually been a part of that chapter of my life.
From Sydney, my parents and I flew down to Melbourne (pronounced Melbun … don’t judge, look how we pronounce Las Angeles) where, for the first time ever, my mom, dad, and I all worked and even spoke at the same conference. Granted, my time speaking was about ten minutes long to a group of about 20 whereas my mom spoke for closer to a half an hour to a group of 100+ and my dad spoke a number of times for up to 45 minutes each time to groups of around 1000. But still, we were all there, all working, and all speaking. My main job was to set up a table to promote the Ethno-Tours I’ve been a part of for the past five months. The hope is to grow awareness in Oz of what God is doing through these Ethno-Tours and get some churches to send some groups. This would bring more tourists which would allow access to more islands, homes, and lives as well as potentially provide more year-round trips instead of being limited to the U.S. summers. Time will tell if the Holy Spirit moves through anyone I came in contact with.
While in Melbourne, I got to spend some long overdue quality time with my parents, perfect my left-side driving skills, make some new friends, and reunite with some old ones. A classmate of mine from Bethel is now living in Melbourne with her husband (also a Bethel graduate). Not only did I get advice as to where to go and what to do while there, I also was given a free place to stay after my parents left. I left Oz for New Zealand five days after my parents headed back to the states, so this was a great chance to hang out with some old friends, get to know some of their friends and local hang-out spots, and see more of Melbourne and the surrounding area.
My time in Melbourne was really pretty busy and fun. One of the stops we made was at an animal sanctuary. I got to cozy up with a lovable wallaby and get up close and personal with kangaroo, echidnas, koalas, wombats, at a plethora of other animals known only to Oz. I hung out in the CBD (Central Business District) with a handful of times, including once with a Welch friend I made while rock climbing in Chiang Mai and also hung out with in Singapore for a day or two. I even established my own little hangout spot that has the BEST kangaroo fillets EVER! Hands down my new favorite meal!!!
Before I left Oz, I took a little over a day to drive out west for a night so I could spend my final day driving the Great Ocean Road. On this drive, I not only saw some of the most beautiful coastline I’ve ever seen with my own two eyes, but I also made some new friends from America that I kept running into and eventually hung out with for the better part of the day. It was really nice to have someone to share the experience with.
Sadly, after that day it was time to get on yet another plane and fly east to Auckland. Sure, it was bittersweet because you can’t get too upset at the reality of flying to New Zealand, but leaving Oz was one of the harder experiences of my life. The fact of the matter is, it was easier to board the plane to the land of the kiwis knowing that I was stopping back in Oz in a connection on my way back to Singapore. What was difficult was deciding whether or not to get back on that plane from Sydney to Singapore two weeks later. I sincerely weighed my options and came to the conclusion that God has put two key elements in my life to return to MN to that were worth getting back on that plane. Otherwise, I’d be writing this from somewhere in the land Down Under right now.
I was on the plane from Singapore to Sydney when I finally saw it. I remember looking out the window of the plane and seeing the vast expanse of ocean that separates Indonesia from the land down under, returning to my movie that I was watching, and looking out the window a short while later to see land … the land I’d been longing to see for over 20 years. I was finally looking upon Australia with my own eyes. And that’s when it hit me like a freight train … this was more than a visit to a new country, more than a visit to a new continent, more than a holiday, more than a ministry, more than the opportunity to see my parents for the first time in over five months … this was a dream come true! Those don’t happen every day.
Leaving my movie behind, I sat there staring out the window in complete awe. I was looking upon the Outback with my own two eyes. Little could compare to what my heart and mind were experiencing at that moment. I was truly on the far side of the world, and there was nowhere I wanted to be more! What I didn’t know was that this was only the beginning of how God was going to bless me over the next month.
When I landed, I picked up my bags and went through customs. On the other side, I was greeted by my dad and mom, holding a balloon that said, “Welcome to Australia” with a cartoon koala and kangaroo in front of the Sydney Opera House. Having not seen them in over five months, I was greeted with the best hugs I can remember ever having! After getting a piece of luggage I had accidentally left on the airplane, we hopped into the car and began to drive around Sydney.
Having been to Sydney enough times to know the streets better than some locals, the next few days were spent with my parents acting as my own personal tour guides. We took a cruise on the Sydney Harbour, past the Sydney Opera House, under the Harbour Bridge, and around to various parts of Sydney for some unique views of the area. We drove west into the Blue Mountains and drove through some great little towns and saw some amazing views on some small hikes. And we drove along the coast and checked out Bondi Beach where I bought the surfboard and wetty I’ve been wanting for so many years. We took my new set to Manly Beach where I got to head out and catch a few waves on my new stick. It was cold, but well worth it!
While we were in Sydney we also connected with an old friend of mine a couple times. After I was on the expedition in Indonesia back in 1999, one of the members and I managed to keep occasional contact via email. I remembered that several years ago she was living somewhere in Oz, so I sent her an email to see if she was still there and living anywhere near where I was traveling. Sure enough, she’s been living in Sydney and we were able to reconnect. It was so much fun getting to reminisce and catch up with someone who had actually been a part of that chapter of my life.
From Sydney, my parents and I flew down to Melbourne (pronounced Melbun … don’t judge, look how we pronounce Las Angeles) where, for the first time ever, my mom, dad, and I all worked and even spoke at the same conference. Granted, my time speaking was about ten minutes long to a group of about 20 whereas my mom spoke for closer to a half an hour to a group of 100+ and my dad spoke a number of times for up to 45 minutes each time to groups of around 1000. But still, we were all there, all working, and all speaking. My main job was to set up a table to promote the Ethno-Tours I’ve been a part of for the past five months. The hope is to grow awareness in Oz of what God is doing through these Ethno-Tours and get some churches to send some groups. This would bring more tourists which would allow access to more islands, homes, and lives as well as potentially provide more year-round trips instead of being limited to the U.S. summers. Time will tell if the Holy Spirit moves through anyone I came in contact with.
While in Melbourne, I got to spend some long overdue quality time with my parents, perfect my left-side driving skills, make some new friends, and reunite with some old ones. A classmate of mine from Bethel is now living in Melbourne with her husband (also a Bethel graduate). Not only did I get advice as to where to go and what to do while there, I also was given a free place to stay after my parents left. I left Oz for New Zealand five days after my parents headed back to the states, so this was a great chance to hang out with some old friends, get to know some of their friends and local hang-out spots, and see more of Melbourne and the surrounding area.
My time in Melbourne was really pretty busy and fun. One of the stops we made was at an animal sanctuary. I got to cozy up with a lovable wallaby and get up close and personal with kangaroo, echidnas, koalas, wombats, at a plethora of other animals known only to Oz. I hung out in the CBD (Central Business District) with a handful of times, including once with a Welch friend I made while rock climbing in Chiang Mai and also hung out with in Singapore for a day or two. I even established my own little hangout spot that has the BEST kangaroo fillets EVER! Hands down my new favorite meal!!!
Before I left Oz, I took a little over a day to drive out west for a night so I could spend my final day driving the Great Ocean Road. On this drive, I not only saw some of the most beautiful coastline I’ve ever seen with my own two eyes, but I also made some new friends from America that I kept running into and eventually hung out with for the better part of the day. It was really nice to have someone to share the experience with.
Sadly, after that day it was time to get on yet another plane and fly east to Auckland. Sure, it was bittersweet because you can’t get too upset at the reality of flying to New Zealand, but leaving Oz was one of the harder experiences of my life. The fact of the matter is, it was easier to board the plane to the land of the kiwis knowing that I was stopping back in Oz in a connection on my way back to Singapore. What was difficult was deciding whether or not to get back on that plane from Sydney to Singapore two weeks later. I sincerely weighed my options and came to the conclusion that God has put two key elements in my life to return to MN to that were worth getting back on that plane. Otherwise, I’d be writing this from somewhere in the land Down Under right now.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
If the Phone Doesn't Ring, it's Me (by Jimmy Buffett)
Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been busy traveling, connecting with old friends, making new friends, and trying to be successful in some new forms on ministry for me. But I can assure you that even though you haven’t heard from me in a while, I’m still thriving and having the time of my life. Let me try to get you a little up to speed.
Thailand was a pretty unique experience. It was mostly quite quiet and low-key. The first of my two weeks there was mainly spent relaxing and hanging out during the day at the home of Krista Engebretson, a Westwood missionary teaching at a missionary kid’s school in Chiang Mai, and her roommate, Holly. Part of me was worried that I was wasting my time in Thailand by hanging out in a house the whole time. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was having my own unique cultural experience. First of all, I was getting some much needed rest after four months virtually non-stop in the islands on the ethno-tours. Second, I was engaging into the life of a missionary teacher in northern Thailand. And third, I was reminiscing back to my own experience of living and teaching in Guatemala several years ago. I was also able to use that time to engage in some quality relationship building communication. I know that my time in Chiang Mai with Krista and her friends/co-workers was definitely a blessing and a ministry to me … I can only hope that I had something to offer to her and them.
Now, for those in my life who understand and encourage my passion for nature, culture, and adventure, I’d like to make mention of some of the other things I did beyond hanging out inside on my own. In the first week I was there, I was taken out around town by Krista and Holly at night to various restaurants and local cultural marketplaces. Sometimes just the three of us and other times with some of their friends whom I got to know fairly well. The one full weekend I was there, a group of 12 of us drove about two hours out of town to a reservoir where we took a couple boats to a floating resort where we relaxed and played for 24 hours. It was a GREAT time! The last couple days I was in Thailand, I spent one day rock climbing with a group of other travelers and another day with another group of travelers where we did a jungle hike, a village visit, a bamboo rafting ride, and elephant rides. Oh, and the very last day I was there I got to eat a fried cricket and bamboo worm. I highly recommend the experience!
I spent a couple days in Singapore between Thailand and Australia. During that time, I had a flat all to myself since my friend who lives there was out of town for a couple days. It was a blessing to have my own place of solitude to rejuvenate myself. But I also got to reconnect with a friend I made while climbing in Thailand who was passing through Singapore on her way to Melbourne (we’re getting together this weekend again) and I got to visit another friend at work on her birthday. My days in Singapore were fun, relaxing, and busy!
Now I’ve been in Oz for the last week with my parents. It was so exciting to get to see them for the first time in five months. They arrived a few hours before me and were there to welcome me with a “Welcome to Australia” balloon as I passed through customs. We spent just under four days touring around Sydney as my parents acted as my tour guides. We took a boat tour around the Sydney Harbor where we went past the Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, among other amazingly beautiful and iconic landmarks. One day my parents took me to Bondi Beach where I finally bough the surfboard I’ve been wanting for so long. We then drove down to Manly Beach where I got my one chance to actually use the board. It was a pretty amazing experience to be catching a few waves in Australia! I could get used to it, frankly! I was also able to reconnect with an old friend, Charlene, who I met while I was on the expedition in Indonesia back in ’99. Two times my parents and I got to grab something to eat and sit and talk for several hours as I was able to pick up on a nearly forgotten friendship. She, along with the friend I made in Thailand, are now both in Melbourne. Along with a fellow college classmate who’s now living here with her husband, I officially have a total of four friends in Melbourne that I will be reconnecting with. Small world, isn’t it?
For the most part, Melbourne is a time for me to work. It’s kind of cool to realize that both my parents are speaking at a conference where I’m promoting the work going on in Indo. The three of us are all working the same conference together … that’s a first! But it hasn’t been ALL work. The first full day we were here we met up with my former classmate, Taniel. She took us to a place called the Healsville Sanctuary. It was there that I finally got to see dingos and kangaroos and wombats and koalas and wallabies and so many more native Australian animals. I even got to pet a wombat and practically cuddle with a wallaby that didn’t want to stop licking my hand. It was the cutest thing ever … I wanted to take it home with me!!! I’m sure my kitty, Yampa, would’ve loved the new playmate. I still have nearly a week left here and a lot of friends to connect up with, so hopefully I’ll have a lot more experiences to have and stories to tell.
Thailand was a pretty unique experience. It was mostly quite quiet and low-key. The first of my two weeks there was mainly spent relaxing and hanging out during the day at the home of Krista Engebretson, a Westwood missionary teaching at a missionary kid’s school in Chiang Mai, and her roommate, Holly. Part of me was worried that I was wasting my time in Thailand by hanging out in a house the whole time. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was having my own unique cultural experience. First of all, I was getting some much needed rest after four months virtually non-stop in the islands on the ethno-tours. Second, I was engaging into the life of a missionary teacher in northern Thailand. And third, I was reminiscing back to my own experience of living and teaching in Guatemala several years ago. I was also able to use that time to engage in some quality relationship building communication. I know that my time in Chiang Mai with Krista and her friends/co-workers was definitely a blessing and a ministry to me … I can only hope that I had something to offer to her and them.
Now, for those in my life who understand and encourage my passion for nature, culture, and adventure, I’d like to make mention of some of the other things I did beyond hanging out inside on my own. In the first week I was there, I was taken out around town by Krista and Holly at night to various restaurants and local cultural marketplaces. Sometimes just the three of us and other times with some of their friends whom I got to know fairly well. The one full weekend I was there, a group of 12 of us drove about two hours out of town to a reservoir where we took a couple boats to a floating resort where we relaxed and played for 24 hours. It was a GREAT time! The last couple days I was in Thailand, I spent one day rock climbing with a group of other travelers and another day with another group of travelers where we did a jungle hike, a village visit, a bamboo rafting ride, and elephant rides. Oh, and the very last day I was there I got to eat a fried cricket and bamboo worm. I highly recommend the experience!
I spent a couple days in Singapore between Thailand and Australia. During that time, I had a flat all to myself since my friend who lives there was out of town for a couple days. It was a blessing to have my own place of solitude to rejuvenate myself. But I also got to reconnect with a friend I made while climbing in Thailand who was passing through Singapore on her way to Melbourne (we’re getting together this weekend again) and I got to visit another friend at work on her birthday. My days in Singapore were fun, relaxing, and busy!
Now I’ve been in Oz for the last week with my parents. It was so exciting to get to see them for the first time in five months. They arrived a few hours before me and were there to welcome me with a “Welcome to Australia” balloon as I passed through customs. We spent just under four days touring around Sydney as my parents acted as my tour guides. We took a boat tour around the Sydney Harbor where we went past the Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House, among other amazingly beautiful and iconic landmarks. One day my parents took me to Bondi Beach where I finally bough the surfboard I’ve been wanting for so long. We then drove down to Manly Beach where I got my one chance to actually use the board. It was a pretty amazing experience to be catching a few waves in Australia! I could get used to it, frankly! I was also able to reconnect with an old friend, Charlene, who I met while I was on the expedition in Indonesia back in ’99. Two times my parents and I got to grab something to eat and sit and talk for several hours as I was able to pick up on a nearly forgotten friendship. She, along with the friend I made in Thailand, are now both in Melbourne. Along with a fellow college classmate who’s now living here with her husband, I officially have a total of four friends in Melbourne that I will be reconnecting with. Small world, isn’t it?
For the most part, Melbourne is a time for me to work. It’s kind of cool to realize that both my parents are speaking at a conference where I’m promoting the work going on in Indo. The three of us are all working the same conference together … that’s a first! But it hasn’t been ALL work. The first full day we were here we met up with my former classmate, Taniel. She took us to a place called the Healsville Sanctuary. It was there that I finally got to see dingos and kangaroos and wombats and koalas and wallabies and so many more native Australian animals. I even got to pet a wombat and practically cuddle with a wallaby that didn’t want to stop licking my hand. It was the cutest thing ever … I wanted to take it home with me!!! I’m sure my kitty, Yampa, would’ve loved the new playmate. I still have nearly a week left here and a lot of friends to connect up with, so hopefully I’ll have a lot more experiences to have and stories to tell.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Never Satisfied (by Jackie Greene)
I recently heard a quote that said something like, “Life doesn’t wait for us to get back on our feet … it’s happening right now.” It’s amazing how quickly time moves on at such a consistent pace without ever slowing down or taking a rest. On my birthday this year, I was on an airplane from my first part of my time on the far side of the world and I was trying to figure out how three weeks could have happened as quickly as it did. But, at least I had the next four months with the second part of my time on the far side of the world to look forward to. And now, in what almost seems like the blink of an eye, here I sit in Thailand reflecting on the past four months, wondering how so much anticipation and curiosity could become memories so fast. And now, I look forward to the next two months as I bounce around throughout south east Asia and the massive islands of the southern hemisphere, trying to brace myself for the moment just around the corner when those two will become another part of my collective past.
So far I’ve been witness and participant to ministries to two distinctive religious people groups from the top of the world to the depths of the sea. I’ve been exposed to the concept and reality of witnessing to the lost by actually WITNESSING, and not through the self-gratifying work service projects that have become the norm in the upper middle class white suburbia of America. God has blessed me through interacting with his people and his nature, exposing me to personal highs and painful lows, and has taken His time in refining my life to become more of the person He wants me to be (although He’s got His work cut out for Him and has a LONG way to go before He’s finished with me!). And now it’s on to the next page in this chapter of my life. It’s time to visit new places, meet new people, experience new ministries, and allow God to continue the work He’s begun in me.
Thailand is a beautiful place with wonderful people, like most other parts of the world I’ve interacted with. When I first began planning my time here, it was mainly for personal reasons and included everything from heading to the southern part of the country to go scuba diving to heading out of country to places like Cambodia and Laos. However, that’s not why God wanted me here. Whether it’s for me to show support and encouragement or for me to be the one to learn and grow from her, my time in Thailand has changed to spending my time with a Westwood missionary who’s at the beginning of her third year here. On different levels I’ve been fortunate enough to see Carol Messerli be a blessing to me and to other missionaries as she’s done missionary care with Wooddale. My hope and prayer are that I can offer something similar while I’m here in Thailand. It’s a new kind of ministry for me and I’m excited to see how God uses me.
From here I go on to even further ministry ventures as I do marketing and promotions for the work I’ve been doing over the past four months. I get to attend a conference where I’ll have a display set up for people to stop and learn about how God’s working in south east Asia and then I’ll travel around from church to church to share more one-on-one. New people, new countries, new cultures, and new ministries … God’s keeping me on my toes! But He’s also providing for me along the way. I’ve made new friends in two different countries so far, I’m getting to know a new friend I’d only previously met once over lunch during a brief homestay in Minnesota a year ago, I’m reconnecting with my parents on the far side of the world, I’m spending time with old friends on their home turf for the first time ever, and I’m making all sorts of new friends through some unique networking.
So, now I have two months of new adventures to look forward and anticipate. I have a challenge that comes with that, though. Someone very close to me recently gave me the assignment of keeping focused on the here-and-now, not allowing the questions of what’s to come get in the way of enjoying, appreciating, and growing from the experiences I’m in the middle of right now. Ironically, it’s a promise I made to myself before I left back in March … to not pay any more attention to the future then is necessary but, instead, to focus on what’s going on at the moment and savor it for all it’s worth. Even so, I already know that come early November I’ll be reflecting back on this moment and I’ll wonder how the past two months went by with the speed in which they did. But then, I’ll have new adventures to look forward to and will need to put my attention and energy on staying focused on those moments as they happen. It’s a never ending battle … and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
So far I’ve been witness and participant to ministries to two distinctive religious people groups from the top of the world to the depths of the sea. I’ve been exposed to the concept and reality of witnessing to the lost by actually WITNESSING, and not through the self-gratifying work service projects that have become the norm in the upper middle class white suburbia of America. God has blessed me through interacting with his people and his nature, exposing me to personal highs and painful lows, and has taken His time in refining my life to become more of the person He wants me to be (although He’s got His work cut out for Him and has a LONG way to go before He’s finished with me!). And now it’s on to the next page in this chapter of my life. It’s time to visit new places, meet new people, experience new ministries, and allow God to continue the work He’s begun in me.
Thailand is a beautiful place with wonderful people, like most other parts of the world I’ve interacted with. When I first began planning my time here, it was mainly for personal reasons and included everything from heading to the southern part of the country to go scuba diving to heading out of country to places like Cambodia and Laos. However, that’s not why God wanted me here. Whether it’s for me to show support and encouragement or for me to be the one to learn and grow from her, my time in Thailand has changed to spending my time with a Westwood missionary who’s at the beginning of her third year here. On different levels I’ve been fortunate enough to see Carol Messerli be a blessing to me and to other missionaries as she’s done missionary care with Wooddale. My hope and prayer are that I can offer something similar while I’m here in Thailand. It’s a new kind of ministry for me and I’m excited to see how God uses me.
From here I go on to even further ministry ventures as I do marketing and promotions for the work I’ve been doing over the past four months. I get to attend a conference where I’ll have a display set up for people to stop and learn about how God’s working in south east Asia and then I’ll travel around from church to church to share more one-on-one. New people, new countries, new cultures, and new ministries … God’s keeping me on my toes! But He’s also providing for me along the way. I’ve made new friends in two different countries so far, I’m getting to know a new friend I’d only previously met once over lunch during a brief homestay in Minnesota a year ago, I’m reconnecting with my parents on the far side of the world, I’m spending time with old friends on their home turf for the first time ever, and I’m making all sorts of new friends through some unique networking.
So, now I have two months of new adventures to look forward and anticipate. I have a challenge that comes with that, though. Someone very close to me recently gave me the assignment of keeping focused on the here-and-now, not allowing the questions of what’s to come get in the way of enjoying, appreciating, and growing from the experiences I’m in the middle of right now. Ironically, it’s a promise I made to myself before I left back in March … to not pay any more attention to the future then is necessary but, instead, to focus on what’s going on at the moment and savor it for all it’s worth. Even so, I already know that come early November I’ll be reflecting back on this moment and I’ll wonder how the past two months went by with the speed in which they did. But then, I’ll have new adventures to look forward to and will need to put my attention and energy on staying focused on those moments as they happen. It’s a never ending battle … and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Piece of Work (by Jimmy Buffett)
It's amazing what you notice in this world if you take a moment to stop and pay attention. A good friend of mine once told me that you can't truly appreciate life until you've taken a day to sit under a tree and look at a single leaf for hours on end ... just studying the colors, the veins, the patterns, the texture, and all the little details that make a leaf as beautiful as it is. It reminds me of the differences between adults and little children. While adults in today's world hurry through a busy life, always complaining that there's never enough time and literally dying because of stress, children are watching ants crossing a hot sidewalk or watching the pods of a dandylion float away in the breeze after they blow on it. I could get a glimps of what my friend was talking about when I looked at his pictures after spending nearly half a year hiking the Appelachian Trail or when I visited Arches National Monument with him. So many of his pictures were of lizards or animals or individual flowers while so many of mine are of landscapes and mountains. It's good to look at the big picture and see where you're at in comparison with the rest of the world, but sometimes it's good to just take a seat under that tree and spend the day looking at that leaf.
Yesterday I left my final island stay early because I got sick. I came back home so I could get some rest and try to get better by the time this last group leaves so I could conduct their debrief for them. Instead of heading back to the house I'm living at, I decided to go to the office instead. The office has a bed, bathroom, and AC just like at home, but at the office there are people who I could count on if I needed them as I tried to rest up and get better. When I went to bed last night in the creature comforts of the office as opposed to the comparatively impoverished dwellings of the island stays, I saw some things that caught me a little off guard. Sure the cat I saw digging through the garbage outside and the giant cockroaches I saw crawling around were quite par for the course no matter where I sleep these days. But, the mouse I saw crawling around on the counter and the spider that was quite literally the size of my hand that was chilling on the kitchen table were a bit more out of the ordinary. The mouse got away before I had a chance to chase it out, which is fine since I don't really have a problem with mice. However, when I saw the spider, once I regained my composer I took the time to try to get a couple of good pictures of it before I killed it (okay, I really do hate spiders, so it's death was really quite emminant). Frankly, I was surprised I slept as well as I did last night in the middle of "the zoo", as my mom referred to it.
Tonight was a little different though. There's one other creature that scurries around and calls out to me no matter where I go that I'm actually quite fond of ... the cicak (chichuck), or a type of gecko. It was pointed out to me once how the cicak proves God's existance because of how masterfully it's made. It can carry it's own weight, vertically or even upside down, on virtually any surface ... something man has attempted to duplicate on countless occassions and has always failed. I saw a tiny cicak in the bathtub tonight ... it was smaller than half my pinky finger. I managed to pick it up and it just sat on my finger, allowing me to look at it like my friend looked at that leaf. Sadly, I didn't spend several hours taking it all in, but in the few minutes I took to get to know my new little friend, I got to notice quite a bit. I was able to see his little chest quickly collapsing and expanding in steady beats as he nervously breathed in and out. I saw those little fingers that so miraculously cling to the walls and ceilings everywhere I go. I learned that he has no eyelids, so instead of blinking he's constantly licking his own eyes one at a time. I learned that he had to face an internal struggle between being afraid of this giant potential preditor and basking in the warmth of my skin.
My good friend who told me his secret of appreciating life through the careful study of a single leaf is dealing with his own internal struggle of not wanting to believe in a God who can allow pain and suffering yet finding it difficult to refute the existance of a higher being when he examines that leaf. Admittedly, it breaks my heart that I can do my part to help lead what were once total strangers to the Lord (those total strangers are now my good friends!), but I can't lead the people who mean the most to me to my Savior. But, that's not the point of what I'm writing ... I just wanted to write this out because I didn't have my camera with me to take a picture of that little cicak. I guess sometimes a camera just gets in the way of truly capturing God's beauty, eh?! :)
Yesterday I left my final island stay early because I got sick. I came back home so I could get some rest and try to get better by the time this last group leaves so I could conduct their debrief for them. Instead of heading back to the house I'm living at, I decided to go to the office instead. The office has a bed, bathroom, and AC just like at home, but at the office there are people who I could count on if I needed them as I tried to rest up and get better. When I went to bed last night in the creature comforts of the office as opposed to the comparatively impoverished dwellings of the island stays, I saw some things that caught me a little off guard. Sure the cat I saw digging through the garbage outside and the giant cockroaches I saw crawling around were quite par for the course no matter where I sleep these days. But, the mouse I saw crawling around on the counter and the spider that was quite literally the size of my hand that was chilling on the kitchen table were a bit more out of the ordinary. The mouse got away before I had a chance to chase it out, which is fine since I don't really have a problem with mice. However, when I saw the spider, once I regained my composer I took the time to try to get a couple of good pictures of it before I killed it (okay, I really do hate spiders, so it's death was really quite emminant). Frankly, I was surprised I slept as well as I did last night in the middle of "the zoo", as my mom referred to it.
Tonight was a little different though. There's one other creature that scurries around and calls out to me no matter where I go that I'm actually quite fond of ... the cicak (chichuck), or a type of gecko. It was pointed out to me once how the cicak proves God's existance because of how masterfully it's made. It can carry it's own weight, vertically or even upside down, on virtually any surface ... something man has attempted to duplicate on countless occassions and has always failed. I saw a tiny cicak in the bathtub tonight ... it was smaller than half my pinky finger. I managed to pick it up and it just sat on my finger, allowing me to look at it like my friend looked at that leaf. Sadly, I didn't spend several hours taking it all in, but in the few minutes I took to get to know my new little friend, I got to notice quite a bit. I was able to see his little chest quickly collapsing and expanding in steady beats as he nervously breathed in and out. I saw those little fingers that so miraculously cling to the walls and ceilings everywhere I go. I learned that he has no eyelids, so instead of blinking he's constantly licking his own eyes one at a time. I learned that he had to face an internal struggle between being afraid of this giant potential preditor and basking in the warmth of my skin.
My good friend who told me his secret of appreciating life through the careful study of a single leaf is dealing with his own internal struggle of not wanting to believe in a God who can allow pain and suffering yet finding it difficult to refute the existance of a higher being when he examines that leaf. Admittedly, it breaks my heart that I can do my part to help lead what were once total strangers to the Lord (those total strangers are now my good friends!), but I can't lead the people who mean the most to me to my Savior. But, that's not the point of what I'm writing ... I just wanted to write this out because I didn't have my camera with me to take a picture of that little cicak. I guess sometimes a camera just gets in the way of truly capturing God's beauty, eh?! :)
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Window on the World (by Jimmy Buffett) or I've Been Everywhere, Man (by Johnny Cash)
There’s a debate between my dad and me as to exactly how old I was when I first visited Maine, my 50th state. I think it was when I was 16 while he says I was 15. I’m pretty sure I drove while I was there which would’ve made me 16, but we were in a rental car which means that it was illegal either way, so chances are I’m remembering it wrong and he is right (which he often is!) and I was actually 15. Either way, my traveling lifestyle started at a rather young age if I averaged 3 and a third states per year for the first decade and a half of my life.
It was right around that same time of my life that I got my first taste of a new continent. Europe, to be exact. I got to visit Scotland and England with my parents and my paternal grandma, Mimi. She’s 96 now (or is she 97 already?!) and our visit to her homeland together was the last time she was able to return to her place of birth and prime development. She showed us where she was born, where she grew up, where she went to school, where her father was buried (it was the first time she had ever seen his grave). It was an experience I will cherish for all my life. As well as being a treasured part of my adolescence and familial heritage, it enlightened me to world travel on a new scale … and I was hooked!
I know this sounds almost sick to most people who only dream of seeing more of the world then the city or state in which they grew up, but since that first European visit I’ve averaged going there about once every four years. It almost feels like a familiar hangout spot for me. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point. At the ripe old age of 28, including one time when I simply connected through Amsterdam on my way back to the states from India, I have visited Europe a grand total of five times (I think that’s right) and Asia a total of four times. Having been to three continents, and my fourth one a matter of weeks away, I have been blessed with the opportunity to visit all 50 states, seven Canadian provinces, and 27 countries (three more to come before November).
Two of the things that come as a result of traveling like this are jealousy/competition, and big dreams. One of my greatest accomplishments is that I managed to beat my parents, my traveling gurus, to Spain, Iceland, and Cuba … and they STILL haven’t made it to Iceland or Cuba!!! They got to Spain about a month after I was there (WHEW! That was close!!!). However, my greatest jealousy lies in the accomplishment my parents achieved when they visited their seventh continent, Antarctica! Maybe it’s because most people expect your 50th state to be Alaska while mine was Maine, but it is my personal goal to hit all seven continents, like my parents, only to make Antarctica number 6. This is all just a dream at this point, but it’s in the forefront of my mind. There are still two other continents to visit and TONS of countries I’ve never been to. That’s another problem with traveling a lot … it’s easy to focus more on where else there is to go rather then where you’ve been. However, it’s where you’ve been that make up who you are ;)
In no particular order:
1. Canada
2. Mexico
3. Guatemala
4. United States
5. Costa Rica
6. Holland
7. England
8. Scotland
9. Iceland
10. Lichtenstein
11. France
12. Spain
13. Germany
14. Italy
15. Switzerland
16. Czech Republic
17. Austria
18. Russia
19. Romania
20. Philippines
21. Cuba
22. Singapore
23. Japan
24. Indonesia
25. India
26. Malaysia
27. El Salvador
September/October 2006
28. Thailand
29. Australia
30. New Zealand
It was right around that same time of my life that I got my first taste of a new continent. Europe, to be exact. I got to visit Scotland and England with my parents and my paternal grandma, Mimi. She’s 96 now (or is she 97 already?!) and our visit to her homeland together was the last time she was able to return to her place of birth and prime development. She showed us where she was born, where she grew up, where she went to school, where her father was buried (it was the first time she had ever seen his grave). It was an experience I will cherish for all my life. As well as being a treasured part of my adolescence and familial heritage, it enlightened me to world travel on a new scale … and I was hooked!
I know this sounds almost sick to most people who only dream of seeing more of the world then the city or state in which they grew up, but since that first European visit I’ve averaged going there about once every four years. It almost feels like a familiar hangout spot for me. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point. At the ripe old age of 28, including one time when I simply connected through Amsterdam on my way back to the states from India, I have visited Europe a grand total of five times (I think that’s right) and Asia a total of four times. Having been to three continents, and my fourth one a matter of weeks away, I have been blessed with the opportunity to visit all 50 states, seven Canadian provinces, and 27 countries (three more to come before November).
Two of the things that come as a result of traveling like this are jealousy/competition, and big dreams. One of my greatest accomplishments is that I managed to beat my parents, my traveling gurus, to Spain, Iceland, and Cuba … and they STILL haven’t made it to Iceland or Cuba!!! They got to Spain about a month after I was there (WHEW! That was close!!!). However, my greatest jealousy lies in the accomplishment my parents achieved when they visited their seventh continent, Antarctica! Maybe it’s because most people expect your 50th state to be Alaska while mine was Maine, but it is my personal goal to hit all seven continents, like my parents, only to make Antarctica number 6. This is all just a dream at this point, but it’s in the forefront of my mind. There are still two other continents to visit and TONS of countries I’ve never been to. That’s another problem with traveling a lot … it’s easy to focus more on where else there is to go rather then where you’ve been. However, it’s where you’ve been that make up who you are ;)
In no particular order:
1. Canada
2. Mexico
3. Guatemala
4. United States
5. Costa Rica
6. Holland
7. England
8. Scotland
9. Iceland
10. Lichtenstein
11. France
12. Spain
13. Germany
14. Italy
15. Switzerland
16. Czech Republic
17. Austria
18. Russia
19. Romania
20. Philippines
21. Cuba
22. Singapore
23. Japan
24. Indonesia
25. India
26. Malaysia
27. El Salvador
September/October 2006
28. Thailand
29. Australia
30. New Zealand
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Waiting for the Next Explosion (by Jimmy Buffett)
Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and now more terrorist attacks … things really aren’t looking very promising lately. I’ve had some people email me and ask me if I’m still alive after they heard word of these natural disasters that have been occurring over here (I like to respond to emails like that and tell people that I died … it keeps people on their toes!), and now I have people warning me about the restrictions and dangers of flying. There are two things I want to make sure everyone is aware of:
1) I appreciate your thoughts, love, and concern!
2) I’m not about to let some crazy earthquake, volcano, tsunami, or even terrorists bring me down and bring an end to this adventure I call life ... it’s going to take the hand of God Himself for me to move on from this life and stand in His presence (it’s a little pact I made with God when I was younger … long story).
Now, it’s true that I may get hurt along the way, but that’s usually my own doing. I’m the one danger in my life that I can’t get away from. Other then that, know that I’m safe and having a grand ol’ time (even when things are tough). And when it comes to the obstacles of dealing with airline issues in the aftermath of terrorist threats, just know that I’ve done my share of traveling and I know how to find loop holes, work the system, and in a worst case scenario, I can be patient.
1) I appreciate your thoughts, love, and concern!
2) I’m not about to let some crazy earthquake, volcano, tsunami, or even terrorists bring me down and bring an end to this adventure I call life ... it’s going to take the hand of God Himself for me to move on from this life and stand in His presence (it’s a little pact I made with God when I was younger … long story).
Now, it’s true that I may get hurt along the way, but that’s usually my own doing. I’m the one danger in my life that I can’t get away from. Other then that, know that I’m safe and having a grand ol’ time (even when things are tough). And when it comes to the obstacles of dealing with airline issues in the aftermath of terrorist threats, just know that I’ve done my share of traveling and I know how to find loop holes, work the system, and in a worst case scenario, I can be patient.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Altered Boy (by Jimmy Buffett)
Here I sit in the dark with my friends and their families. It’s an interesting dynamic in one sense. The sense of community here is an aspect of this culture in which America could learn quite a bit. It seems most everywhere I go I see neighborhoods, villages, and islands where everyone knows each other and depends upon one another. Back in America it’s hard to make new friends, find love, or feel safe in most communities. It’s been years since I’ve lived anywhere where I knew my next door neighbor at all, let alone have I been friends with or even interacted with any of them on a regular basis. But here, community is everything … and it’s contagious! The three guys that run this company were best friends back in college … and each of their wives where in that same circle of friends. It was a small community in which they all got married and moved to the far side of the world together. Right now one family is back in the states (leaving me in a house all by myself) and half of another family is back there too. That leaves one full family, one father/husband that’s here alone, and one bachelor (me). So, here I sit in the dark during one of many power outages with a family that is mostly blood but entirely connected at the heart as we celebrate the birthday of the father/husband formerly mentioned. It is most certainly a birthday to remember.
Since I last wrote in here, quite a bit has happened in my life. The most significant experience was having Steve, my best friend, come spend a week and a half here with me. God has continuously shown me how loving and creative He is. Steve was exactly what I needed in the middle of a personal season of discouragement. Admittedly, I expected the mere presence of Steve to be enough to bring me out of my funk and give me the encouragement and energy to carry on. Seeing him as he pulled up to the jetty on the boat was a memory that I will cherish and carry with me for the rest of my life, and the high that hit me at that moment continued for at least a few days … but Steve wasn’t what my life was lacking. What God did, however, was use Steve as a tool, the only tool that would really work for me during my discouragement, to lead me back to leaning upon the Lord. There was no one else on this planet with whom I could have shared what I was going through and have pray for me like Steve. It took his understanding of who I am and how I deal with things as well as his heart, friendship, and voice of prayer to call upon the Holy Spirit to descend upon me to renew my strength. And it has taken the realization of his continued prayers for me, along with the prayers of so many others, to give my heart a renewed strength, peace, and focus. I still struggle to experience the joy I first felt upon my arrival here, but I once again have the patience, peace, and endurance that comes from the Lord on a daily basis that allows me to carry on.
There have been a total of nine different islands that have been visited throughout this “summer” … some of them I have visited more than once, only one of the nine did I not get to experience. Having visited eight islands with nine different groups, I’ve come to understand how crucial rest is within ministry. At one point I was determined to attend every island, but during my nearly week-long “vacation” in Singapore with two different groups that were en route back to the states, I realized that I needed to take a break and miss out on one of the island stays. Part of me regrets this decision, but I know it was a gift from God to give me the rest I needed. I have become known here as the professional napper. There have been times at Base Camp where I’ve taken naps that have lasted four hours or longer. Just last night I slept until noon. My body is wiped out and I’m not shy to sleep every chance I can get! Still, it saddens my heart to realize that there is only one group left and two more islands left to visit. The greatest encouragement is that the two islands consist of an island I’ve already visited and has been my absolute favorite island (seriously, I could live there … these people are some of the greatest people I’ve met throughout my world travels!) and the other island hasn’t been visited by this organization since they were forced to flee in the middle of the night for their own safety several years ago. God has been doing some great work in both these islands and I’m incredibly blessed to be able to be a part of this next group. I’m stoked!!! But then, it’s over.
I have a couple different times where I’ll be back between travels where I may be able to attend a follow-up visit, and I plan on coming back for about two weeks after I finish up in Australia and New Zealand. The funny thing is, my biggest concern at this point is money. I have a connection here with this country, the people, the organization with which I’ve been working, and the team with whom I’ve been living that would make it easy to stay. If it weren’t for the fact that I have no way to make money while I’m here, I dare say I wouldn’t leave. But, it seems to me that God is calling me back to the states. Maybe it’s to raise money to come back. Maybe it’s to realize that God is calling me to something more than just staying in one place. Maybe it’s to find a partner with whom I can travel and serve. Whatever the reason, I’m heading back to the states the beginning of November. In some ways it feels like my seven and a half months is coming to a close … in another sense it feels like my adventure is about to begin, going to at least three new countries and serving at a totally different capacity through networking and promoting. The question remains where I will live, how I’ll make money, what will happen to me relationally, and where God is going to take my life in general. I suppose that’s just a part of the adventurous journey of life though. I still have three months to wait and see where the Lord will take my life upon my return. I’ll let you know what happens as soon as I know anything!
Since I last wrote in here, quite a bit has happened in my life. The most significant experience was having Steve, my best friend, come spend a week and a half here with me. God has continuously shown me how loving and creative He is. Steve was exactly what I needed in the middle of a personal season of discouragement. Admittedly, I expected the mere presence of Steve to be enough to bring me out of my funk and give me the encouragement and energy to carry on. Seeing him as he pulled up to the jetty on the boat was a memory that I will cherish and carry with me for the rest of my life, and the high that hit me at that moment continued for at least a few days … but Steve wasn’t what my life was lacking. What God did, however, was use Steve as a tool, the only tool that would really work for me during my discouragement, to lead me back to leaning upon the Lord. There was no one else on this planet with whom I could have shared what I was going through and have pray for me like Steve. It took his understanding of who I am and how I deal with things as well as his heart, friendship, and voice of prayer to call upon the Holy Spirit to descend upon me to renew my strength. And it has taken the realization of his continued prayers for me, along with the prayers of so many others, to give my heart a renewed strength, peace, and focus. I still struggle to experience the joy I first felt upon my arrival here, but I once again have the patience, peace, and endurance that comes from the Lord on a daily basis that allows me to carry on.
There have been a total of nine different islands that have been visited throughout this “summer” … some of them I have visited more than once, only one of the nine did I not get to experience. Having visited eight islands with nine different groups, I’ve come to understand how crucial rest is within ministry. At one point I was determined to attend every island, but during my nearly week-long “vacation” in Singapore with two different groups that were en route back to the states, I realized that I needed to take a break and miss out on one of the island stays. Part of me regrets this decision, but I know it was a gift from God to give me the rest I needed. I have become known here as the professional napper. There have been times at Base Camp where I’ve taken naps that have lasted four hours or longer. Just last night I slept until noon. My body is wiped out and I’m not shy to sleep every chance I can get! Still, it saddens my heart to realize that there is only one group left and two more islands left to visit. The greatest encouragement is that the two islands consist of an island I’ve already visited and has been my absolute favorite island (seriously, I could live there … these people are some of the greatest people I’ve met throughout my world travels!) and the other island hasn’t been visited by this organization since they were forced to flee in the middle of the night for their own safety several years ago. God has been doing some great work in both these islands and I’m incredibly blessed to be able to be a part of this next group. I’m stoked!!! But then, it’s over.
I have a couple different times where I’ll be back between travels where I may be able to attend a follow-up visit, and I plan on coming back for about two weeks after I finish up in Australia and New Zealand. The funny thing is, my biggest concern at this point is money. I have a connection here with this country, the people, the organization with which I’ve been working, and the team with whom I’ve been living that would make it easy to stay. If it weren’t for the fact that I have no way to make money while I’m here, I dare say I wouldn’t leave. But, it seems to me that God is calling me back to the states. Maybe it’s to raise money to come back. Maybe it’s to realize that God is calling me to something more than just staying in one place. Maybe it’s to find a partner with whom I can travel and serve. Whatever the reason, I’m heading back to the states the beginning of November. In some ways it feels like my seven and a half months is coming to a close … in another sense it feels like my adventure is about to begin, going to at least three new countries and serving at a totally different capacity through networking and promoting. The question remains where I will live, how I’ll make money, what will happen to me relationally, and where God is going to take my life in general. I suppose that’s just a part of the adventurous journey of life though. I still have three months to wait and see where the Lord will take my life upon my return. I’ll let you know what happens as soon as I know anything!
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Someday I Will (by Jimmy Buffett)
A while back my dad wrote a book entitled When God Says No. Unfortunately, the Billy Graham Crusade messed things up when they thought the title was too negative and they changed it to Praying to a God You Can Trust. I say it’s unfortunate because it’s the former of the two titles that has had such an impact on my heart, often bringing to mind that simple phrase, “When God says no”. I have found many times in my life where I have prayed a specific prayer that it seems God is saying “No”, and sometimes that’s exactly what He’s saying. However, on more occasions then I could possibly count, I clearly haven’t been listening carefully enough. Because, had I been listening more carefully I would’ve realized that God wasn’t saying “No”, but rather, “I’ve got a better idea!” I seem to be in the midst of one of those times right now.
Back in 1985 my parents were wise enough to enroll me in the Northwest Airlines Frequent Flyer Program. Since then, I’ve been saving up my miles. I’ve used a few of those miles here and there for some special trips (like when I flew down to West Palm Beach, FL to see Jimmy Buffett in concert for the first time … and in his home town no less!), but for the most part I’ve just kept saving them. At first I didn’t know what I was saving them for, but as the miles began to build up I realized that I wanted to use them to go to Australia … the cost: 100,000 F.F. miles. Well, I’ve had those miles for quite some time now, but the opportunity to use them just never seemed to present itself. For the better part of a decade now, I’ve been praying to add Australia to my list of countries and continents that I’ve been to, but there was always some obstacle in my way. I come to find now, that what seemed to be a “No” from God was simply a “I’ve got a better idea!”
As most of you know, I’ve been spending the last two months here on the far side of the world working with some friends who run an ethno-tourist company. Unfortunately, most to all of their ethno-tourists come from North America. This creates two significant problems. First, it means that any time these guys want to visit their supporters they have to spend several days traveling half way around the world at an incredible financial cost. Second, since most of the ethno-tourists are college-age and young adults, the only time they have off where they can spend two to three weeks of traveling is in the summertime. This creates a bulk of the year that is essentially downtime … a loss of significant opportunity cost.
On my way to the airport to come over here, my parents, my best friend, and I stopped at a deli for lunch. As we were sitting and talking, I found out that my parents were scheduled to be in Australia just after my time over here was up. So, half jokingly, I asked them if I could go with them. I didn’t really get a straight answer, but with only a glimmer of hope the answer didn’t seem too promising. The proposal was all but brushed off until I got over here and began to do some serious thinking. I scheduled my time to be completed here at the beginning of September while my parents were scheduled to come to this side of the planet towards the middle/end of September. Was there a reason beyond purely personal and selfish longing to go to Australia with them? What about the gap of time between my scheduled departure and their scheduled arrival? Is there anything in the midst of all this in which God was at work and wanted me to be a part of it?
When it comes to traveling and geography, I have this way of thinking that is unlike most other people. For example, when I went to Germany to see one of my very best friends get married a few years past, I decided to spend a couple weeks afterwards backpacking in some countries I had yet to visit. So, I found myself on a train in Frankfurt early one morning on my way to Paris. From there, I decided that, because of a song by, you guessed it, Jimmy Buffett entitled “The Coast Of Marsailles”, I would take a train down to the French Riviera and, as the song says, sit on the coast of Marsailles. From there, after a night of sleeping on the beach because I didn’t want to “waste” the money on a hostile, I headed down to Barcelona for a few days. My line of thinking from there was, “I’m in Europe and when I was in Bali a few years past I made some friends from England … I should go visit them since I’m already here (in Europe).” So, I gave them a call, bought a plane ticket on Ryan Air, and flew up to England to visit some old friends for a few days. That’s just how my mind works. Some people will visit friends because they happen to be in their neighborhood, others because they’re in their city, others still because they happen to be in their state. Me, I visit people because I’m in their hemisphere! Thus was my line of thinking when I started thinking about visiting Australia. If I’m going to be that close, I might as well visit my friends in New Zealand, right?!
The more I thought about it and the more I prayed about it, the more things started to come to my mind and seemingly fall into place. I spoke with my friends here that I’m working with to make sure it was even something they were interested in, and they thought it’d be a great idea to travel down under and try to do some networking for their business. We made contact with the head of the conference my dad is to speak at as well as with my friend in New Zealand and both seem very excited about the idea of hearing about the work God is doing up in these parts and how they might get connected. I’ve run into a few “speed bumps” along the way, such as financial issues, but the Lord seems to be at work in smoothing out the rest of the journey. Nothing is finalized by any means at this point, but here’s what it looks like God has in store for the end of my journey over here on the far side of the world:
To wrap up my experiences here, there is a scheduled debriefing time with one of my “bosses” here. The hope/plan as of now is to do that debrief time at the end of August in Bali after the last ethno-tour group departs. Admittedly, there would be some surfing and scuba diving as a part of this debrief time. From there, I would head up to Thailand to visit a missionary friend of mine from Westwood for a week or two. This would sufficiently and appropriately fill in that early September gap until I head down to Australia to meet up with my parents for the conferences. There, I will set up a booth and have my dad promote me from the stage to have people come over and here about the work God is doing where I am now. The idea with this is that churches from all over the country would be coming to me instead of me traveling to all of them. After a couple weeks in Australia, I will head New Zealand to spend a couple weeks with my friend. I would meet with his church as well as connect with some other churches in the country with which my friend has connections to, sharing with them the same information I will have shared in Australia. From there, I would head back to the states with a few personal days of checking out Tokyo, Japan … someplace I’ve only seen from inside the airport.
So, the question that is left to answer from all this is why? What’s the purpose? Well, the answer is simple. The organization here would not only expand their number of ethno-tour groups throughout the year, they would also have a shorter and cheaper distance to travel to connect with some of their supporters. Plus, the same restrictions of the college-age and young adults only being able to get time off in the summer would allow for ethno-tours to come year-round during the US and Australian summers.
What can I say, God is creative! I could never have come up with something so masterful on my own, nor could I have ever anticipated such a purposeful and substantial reasoning for my first trip down under. Not only that, but it allows me to use my F.F. miles for one of my two backup plans: 1) Fly to Tanzania, Africa to scuba dive in Lake Tanganyika and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, or 2) Fly down to Argentina where I can find a relatively inexpensive cruise to Antarctica that I can join. We’ll see what the Lord has in mind, because His ideas tend to be exponentially better than mine!
Back in 1985 my parents were wise enough to enroll me in the Northwest Airlines Frequent Flyer Program. Since then, I’ve been saving up my miles. I’ve used a few of those miles here and there for some special trips (like when I flew down to West Palm Beach, FL to see Jimmy Buffett in concert for the first time … and in his home town no less!), but for the most part I’ve just kept saving them. At first I didn’t know what I was saving them for, but as the miles began to build up I realized that I wanted to use them to go to Australia … the cost: 100,000 F.F. miles. Well, I’ve had those miles for quite some time now, but the opportunity to use them just never seemed to present itself. For the better part of a decade now, I’ve been praying to add Australia to my list of countries and continents that I’ve been to, but there was always some obstacle in my way. I come to find now, that what seemed to be a “No” from God was simply a “I’ve got a better idea!”
As most of you know, I’ve been spending the last two months here on the far side of the world working with some friends who run an ethno-tourist company. Unfortunately, most to all of their ethno-tourists come from North America. This creates two significant problems. First, it means that any time these guys want to visit their supporters they have to spend several days traveling half way around the world at an incredible financial cost. Second, since most of the ethno-tourists are college-age and young adults, the only time they have off where they can spend two to three weeks of traveling is in the summertime. This creates a bulk of the year that is essentially downtime … a loss of significant opportunity cost.
On my way to the airport to come over here, my parents, my best friend, and I stopped at a deli for lunch. As we were sitting and talking, I found out that my parents were scheduled to be in Australia just after my time over here was up. So, half jokingly, I asked them if I could go with them. I didn’t really get a straight answer, but with only a glimmer of hope the answer didn’t seem too promising. The proposal was all but brushed off until I got over here and began to do some serious thinking. I scheduled my time to be completed here at the beginning of September while my parents were scheduled to come to this side of the planet towards the middle/end of September. Was there a reason beyond purely personal and selfish longing to go to Australia with them? What about the gap of time between my scheduled departure and their scheduled arrival? Is there anything in the midst of all this in which God was at work and wanted me to be a part of it?
When it comes to traveling and geography, I have this way of thinking that is unlike most other people. For example, when I went to Germany to see one of my very best friends get married a few years past, I decided to spend a couple weeks afterwards backpacking in some countries I had yet to visit. So, I found myself on a train in Frankfurt early one morning on my way to Paris. From there, I decided that, because of a song by, you guessed it, Jimmy Buffett entitled “The Coast Of Marsailles”, I would take a train down to the French Riviera and, as the song says, sit on the coast of Marsailles. From there, after a night of sleeping on the beach because I didn’t want to “waste” the money on a hostile, I headed down to Barcelona for a few days. My line of thinking from there was, “I’m in Europe and when I was in Bali a few years past I made some friends from England … I should go visit them since I’m already here (in Europe).” So, I gave them a call, bought a plane ticket on Ryan Air, and flew up to England to visit some old friends for a few days. That’s just how my mind works. Some people will visit friends because they happen to be in their neighborhood, others because they’re in their city, others still because they happen to be in their state. Me, I visit people because I’m in their hemisphere! Thus was my line of thinking when I started thinking about visiting Australia. If I’m going to be that close, I might as well visit my friends in New Zealand, right?!
The more I thought about it and the more I prayed about it, the more things started to come to my mind and seemingly fall into place. I spoke with my friends here that I’m working with to make sure it was even something they were interested in, and they thought it’d be a great idea to travel down under and try to do some networking for their business. We made contact with the head of the conference my dad is to speak at as well as with my friend in New Zealand and both seem very excited about the idea of hearing about the work God is doing up in these parts and how they might get connected. I’ve run into a few “speed bumps” along the way, such as financial issues, but the Lord seems to be at work in smoothing out the rest of the journey. Nothing is finalized by any means at this point, but here’s what it looks like God has in store for the end of my journey over here on the far side of the world:
To wrap up my experiences here, there is a scheduled debriefing time with one of my “bosses” here. The hope/plan as of now is to do that debrief time at the end of August in Bali after the last ethno-tour group departs. Admittedly, there would be some surfing and scuba diving as a part of this debrief time. From there, I would head up to Thailand to visit a missionary friend of mine from Westwood for a week or two. This would sufficiently and appropriately fill in that early September gap until I head down to Australia to meet up with my parents for the conferences. There, I will set up a booth and have my dad promote me from the stage to have people come over and here about the work God is doing where I am now. The idea with this is that churches from all over the country would be coming to me instead of me traveling to all of them. After a couple weeks in Australia, I will head New Zealand to spend a couple weeks with my friend. I would meet with his church as well as connect with some other churches in the country with which my friend has connections to, sharing with them the same information I will have shared in Australia. From there, I would head back to the states with a few personal days of checking out Tokyo, Japan … someplace I’ve only seen from inside the airport.
So, the question that is left to answer from all this is why? What’s the purpose? Well, the answer is simple. The organization here would not only expand their number of ethno-tour groups throughout the year, they would also have a shorter and cheaper distance to travel to connect with some of their supporters. Plus, the same restrictions of the college-age and young adults only being able to get time off in the summer would allow for ethno-tours to come year-round during the US and Australian summers.
What can I say, God is creative! I could never have come up with something so masterful on my own, nor could I have ever anticipated such a purposeful and substantial reasoning for my first trip down under. Not only that, but it allows me to use my F.F. miles for one of my two backup plans: 1) Fly to Tanzania, Africa to scuba dive in Lake Tanganyika and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, or 2) Fly down to Argentina where I can find a relatively inexpensive cruise to Antarctica that I can join. We’ll see what the Lord has in mind, because His ideas tend to be exponentially better than mine!
The Missionary (by Jimmy Buffett)
Some of you … well, let’s face it, pretty much ALL of you … have been wanting to know exactly what I’ve been doing while I’ve been over here on the far side of the world. Admittedly, it’s hard to sum it all up. Each day has it’s own uniqueness. Each island I visit has it’s own character and personality. I live on “Island Time” here (which most of you probably understand because I tend to live on Island Time back in the states too, which drives most of you crazy!) which means that any schedule is open to change … and the schedules certainly do change! So, there’s not much consistency or normality to which to summarize exactly what I’m doing here. But, I’ll try none-the-less … just for you ;)
First, let me just say that my overall time here has been a rollercoaster of emotions, relationships, spiritual growth, spiritual warfare, and cultural adaptation. I have spent time at home in the city, out at base camp, vacationing in Singapore, and living out in the homes on various islands. Each occasion offers it’s own rewards and challenges. But, since the second half of my time over here as begun and it looks to be the busiest half with the most amount of travel, work, and island-stays, I will focus primarily on my times in the islands … especially since this is what it’s all about anyways.
Before ever going to visit any islands, the new group of ethno-tourists are brought to Base Camp where there are usually a couple days of acclimating to jetlag and having some meetings to prepare them for their work on the islands. During these meetings, they are taught about cultural awareness and appropriateness, typical religious beliefs of the islanders, and proper use of our national guides who do our translating.
The islands vary from being a few minutes away from Base Camp to up to a couple of hours away. Sometimes we take a ferry if it’s far enough away, but typically we take a long, wooden boat in which we are typically pretty cramped and often have the spray of the crashing swells against the bow and hull soaking us. There is typically a welcome party when we reach the jetty of the village to which we will be staying. The party generally consists of a group of women dressed in traditional clothing and playing hand-held drums while singing a welcome song. They continue to play and sing as we file everyone out of the boat and distribute the luggage accordingly. From there, we are paraded down the jetty to land and escorted to the local government building … typically no more than a few rooms big. There, we are officially welcomed by the local officials and distributed to the homes in which we will be spending the next three nights.
There are generally three or four tourists in a home including a guide. The entire first day is spent talking with our host families, along with any of the number of other neighbors who tend to wander in and out of the house, learning their names, relationship with one another, and asking general questions about life, culture, religion, and relationships.
Our meals are generally sitting on the floor and eating with our right hand … and let me tell you, eating with your hand, especially only one hand, is a true art form! The food always consists of white rice and some kind of fish. Often times there is chicken too, and there are usually some spices that are either already in the food or on the side that we can add. Many of the tourists can’t handle the spiciness of their food … personally, I love it! One thing to note is that the chicken that we eat was generally running around in front of the house earlier that day and the fish was likely caught no more than a day earlier. The food typically looks very unappetizing, especially when the fish is almost literally staring back up at you as you’re eating it. It’s a lot like those old cartoons where the cat takes a whole fish, sticks it in it’s mouth, and pulls it out with only the head, tail, and bones remaining. If you eat it right, that’s exactly what this fish looks like when we’re done eating. As repulsive as the food looks though, it’s generally quite delicious … at least, once you’ve gotten used to it.
The second day can be spent doing anything including talking, fishing, walking, playing sports, riding in boats, or doing whatever else our host family might suggest. Some families are more active and involved then others, so that plays a big factor. On one island, they have regular sailboat races and they invited the guys of our group to participate. That was quite an amazing experience! Certainly not a typical island event for us though. Usually the sports begin around 4pm and most of the village is involved. These villages are very communal in all their activities. It’s really quite sad to think of how individualistic America has become compared to the biblical ways these locals live in being the communal beings God created us to be. As a general rule, I don’t know who my next door neighbor is when I’m living back in the states, whereas these people are instinctively meeting together at the same place and at the same time every day as an entire village. We have a lot we can learn from these people!
One thing I should mention is that there are two bucket baths per day. It is required that we take one first thing in the morning and then one again in the evening after the sports. In the heat of the day we get sweaty and stinky enough, but when we’ve been playing volleyball or football (soccer for those back home) or any of their other sports, it’s easy to get pretty soaked with sweat and ripe smelling. Thus, the cultural two bucket baths per day. It’s really quite interesting the way these people don’t hesitate to throw their garbage on the ground or in the water yet they demand the cleanliness of regular washing.
The conversations we have with our families and the other islanders tend to get pretty deep and purposeful as early as the second day. What’s amazing is that their religion and culture are directly tied together, so there’s no stigma against talking directly and intentionally about their beliefs. As ethno-tourists, that’s why we’re there. So, as a result, we learn a lot about their beliefs and understandings and are able to share with them some of what we believe and why. This is truly the most amazing part of our times on the islands. By the second night our evening conversations often allow themselves to get fairly intense, although sometimes the people we’re with never allow us to go very deep at all. One of the key things we focus on is figuring out who’s a true seeker and spending most of our time with them. There’s no point in forcing a conversation with someone who isn’t interested in hearing or talking.
Day three will often be the day that we do our CD (Community Development) project. This can be anything from building a road to teaching English. Sometimes it’s just us tourists who are doing the work while other times half of the village will join in and help us. We like it when the latter of these two happens! We’ll usually do the CD project in the morning and then go back home for lunch. It’s not uncommon to take a nap after lunch for two main reasons: 1) It’s easy to exhaust ourselves and the evil one often uses fatigue to keep us from being focused enough to have conversations later on that night, and 2) Many of the locals will also be napping in the early afternoon because the heat of the day demands it. From there, it’s sports again in the later afternoon and then dinner.
After dinner, most of the islands will give us a goodbye party. The party can involve our host families dressing us up in their best traditional clothing. We are seated at the seats of honor and will watch their presentations on a stage they may have made in the few days we were there. They will have traditional dances, singing, speeches, and playing of their traditional handheld drums. Sometimes they’ll end the night by blaring the music and having a free-for-all dance with the whole village. Some of these parties will last a couple hours while others go well into the night. These are a ton of fun, but often prevent us from having time for last night conversations … so they are bitter-sweet experiences.
The next morning we have breakfast, pack our belongings, and meet as a big group. We say our goodbyes and are escorted back down the jetty on which we arrived. Sometimes it will be escorted by the drums that welcomed us while other times it will simply be a conversational stroll with our new friends. Regardless, the feel always changes between our welcome and our farewell from being greeted by strangers to being sent off by friends … sometimes with tears in our eyes. It’s amazing how close you can get to people, even people who don’t speak your same language, in a matter of a few short days. As we get on board our boat and motor away, there is a traditional Anderson goodbye as both the tourists on the boat and our new friends back on the jetty will wave frantically at each other until they are no longer in sight.
We often talk about our new friends the entire ride back to Base Camp, as well as discussions about how excited we are to be sleeping in a bed as opposed to the floor and taking an actual shower instead of a bucket bath. When we get back to Base Camp we have a day, maybe two, of debriefing from the previous island and preparation for our second island. Each tour will consist of two island stays, each three nights long, and generally each very unique from the other. During our time in between, we do our best to process what we’ve just experienced in the recent days past, prepare as best we can for what we’re about to experience in the days to come, and find a healthy balance between rest and play during the time in between.
Hopefully this has answered more questions then it has brought to your mind, but if there are any specific, burning questions that have been brought to your heart or mind from reading this, please feel free to ask. That doesn’t mean I’ll answer it, necessarily … but I’ll certainly try!
First, let me just say that my overall time here has been a rollercoaster of emotions, relationships, spiritual growth, spiritual warfare, and cultural adaptation. I have spent time at home in the city, out at base camp, vacationing in Singapore, and living out in the homes on various islands. Each occasion offers it’s own rewards and challenges. But, since the second half of my time over here as begun and it looks to be the busiest half with the most amount of travel, work, and island-stays, I will focus primarily on my times in the islands … especially since this is what it’s all about anyways.
Before ever going to visit any islands, the new group of ethno-tourists are brought to Base Camp where there are usually a couple days of acclimating to jetlag and having some meetings to prepare them for their work on the islands. During these meetings, they are taught about cultural awareness and appropriateness, typical religious beliefs of the islanders, and proper use of our national guides who do our translating.
The islands vary from being a few minutes away from Base Camp to up to a couple of hours away. Sometimes we take a ferry if it’s far enough away, but typically we take a long, wooden boat in which we are typically pretty cramped and often have the spray of the crashing swells against the bow and hull soaking us. There is typically a welcome party when we reach the jetty of the village to which we will be staying. The party generally consists of a group of women dressed in traditional clothing and playing hand-held drums while singing a welcome song. They continue to play and sing as we file everyone out of the boat and distribute the luggage accordingly. From there, we are paraded down the jetty to land and escorted to the local government building … typically no more than a few rooms big. There, we are officially welcomed by the local officials and distributed to the homes in which we will be spending the next three nights.
There are generally three or four tourists in a home including a guide. The entire first day is spent talking with our host families, along with any of the number of other neighbors who tend to wander in and out of the house, learning their names, relationship with one another, and asking general questions about life, culture, religion, and relationships.
Our meals are generally sitting on the floor and eating with our right hand … and let me tell you, eating with your hand, especially only one hand, is a true art form! The food always consists of white rice and some kind of fish. Often times there is chicken too, and there are usually some spices that are either already in the food or on the side that we can add. Many of the tourists can’t handle the spiciness of their food … personally, I love it! One thing to note is that the chicken that we eat was generally running around in front of the house earlier that day and the fish was likely caught no more than a day earlier. The food typically looks very unappetizing, especially when the fish is almost literally staring back up at you as you’re eating it. It’s a lot like those old cartoons where the cat takes a whole fish, sticks it in it’s mouth, and pulls it out with only the head, tail, and bones remaining. If you eat it right, that’s exactly what this fish looks like when we’re done eating. As repulsive as the food looks though, it’s generally quite delicious … at least, once you’ve gotten used to it.
The second day can be spent doing anything including talking, fishing, walking, playing sports, riding in boats, or doing whatever else our host family might suggest. Some families are more active and involved then others, so that plays a big factor. On one island, they have regular sailboat races and they invited the guys of our group to participate. That was quite an amazing experience! Certainly not a typical island event for us though. Usually the sports begin around 4pm and most of the village is involved. These villages are very communal in all their activities. It’s really quite sad to think of how individualistic America has become compared to the biblical ways these locals live in being the communal beings God created us to be. As a general rule, I don’t know who my next door neighbor is when I’m living back in the states, whereas these people are instinctively meeting together at the same place and at the same time every day as an entire village. We have a lot we can learn from these people!
One thing I should mention is that there are two bucket baths per day. It is required that we take one first thing in the morning and then one again in the evening after the sports. In the heat of the day we get sweaty and stinky enough, but when we’ve been playing volleyball or football (soccer for those back home) or any of their other sports, it’s easy to get pretty soaked with sweat and ripe smelling. Thus, the cultural two bucket baths per day. It’s really quite interesting the way these people don’t hesitate to throw their garbage on the ground or in the water yet they demand the cleanliness of regular washing.
The conversations we have with our families and the other islanders tend to get pretty deep and purposeful as early as the second day. What’s amazing is that their religion and culture are directly tied together, so there’s no stigma against talking directly and intentionally about their beliefs. As ethno-tourists, that’s why we’re there. So, as a result, we learn a lot about their beliefs and understandings and are able to share with them some of what we believe and why. This is truly the most amazing part of our times on the islands. By the second night our evening conversations often allow themselves to get fairly intense, although sometimes the people we’re with never allow us to go very deep at all. One of the key things we focus on is figuring out who’s a true seeker and spending most of our time with them. There’s no point in forcing a conversation with someone who isn’t interested in hearing or talking.
Day three will often be the day that we do our CD (Community Development) project. This can be anything from building a road to teaching English. Sometimes it’s just us tourists who are doing the work while other times half of the village will join in and help us. We like it when the latter of these two happens! We’ll usually do the CD project in the morning and then go back home for lunch. It’s not uncommon to take a nap after lunch for two main reasons: 1) It’s easy to exhaust ourselves and the evil one often uses fatigue to keep us from being focused enough to have conversations later on that night, and 2) Many of the locals will also be napping in the early afternoon because the heat of the day demands it. From there, it’s sports again in the later afternoon and then dinner.
After dinner, most of the islands will give us a goodbye party. The party can involve our host families dressing us up in their best traditional clothing. We are seated at the seats of honor and will watch their presentations on a stage they may have made in the few days we were there. They will have traditional dances, singing, speeches, and playing of their traditional handheld drums. Sometimes they’ll end the night by blaring the music and having a free-for-all dance with the whole village. Some of these parties will last a couple hours while others go well into the night. These are a ton of fun, but often prevent us from having time for last night conversations … so they are bitter-sweet experiences.
The next morning we have breakfast, pack our belongings, and meet as a big group. We say our goodbyes and are escorted back down the jetty on which we arrived. Sometimes it will be escorted by the drums that welcomed us while other times it will simply be a conversational stroll with our new friends. Regardless, the feel always changes between our welcome and our farewell from being greeted by strangers to being sent off by friends … sometimes with tears in our eyes. It’s amazing how close you can get to people, even people who don’t speak your same language, in a matter of a few short days. As we get on board our boat and motor away, there is a traditional Anderson goodbye as both the tourists on the boat and our new friends back on the jetty will wave frantically at each other until they are no longer in sight.
We often talk about our new friends the entire ride back to Base Camp, as well as discussions about how excited we are to be sleeping in a bed as opposed to the floor and taking an actual shower instead of a bucket bath. When we get back to Base Camp we have a day, maybe two, of debriefing from the previous island and preparation for our second island. Each tour will consist of two island stays, each three nights long, and generally each very unique from the other. During our time in between, we do our best to process what we’ve just experienced in the recent days past, prepare as best we can for what we’re about to experience in the days to come, and find a healthy balance between rest and play during the time in between.
Hopefully this has answered more questions then it has brought to your mind, but if there are any specific, burning questions that have been brought to your heart or mind from reading this, please feel free to ask. That doesn’t mean I’ll answer it, necessarily … but I’ll certainly try!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
God Don't Own A Car (by Jimmy Buffett)
And neither does my friend, Krista.
Sorry about the title, but it just seemed the most appropriate under the circumstances. I have a request for you all. I have a friend from Westwood, Krista, who has been serving our Lord in Chiang Mai, Thailand for the past couple years and is coming home for the summer. I had originally offered for her to use my van while I was out of the country, but things changed and I ended up selling my van to one of my best friends, Jason, who recently started his own non-profit organization in Kentucky through which he is also serving our Lord and was in need of a large vehicle … and I was in need of money. It seemed to work out pretty well for everyone but Krista. Now she’s coming home June 11 until August 6 or so and will have no mode of transportation while she’s home. I promised her I would see what I could do to help her find a vehicle she could either borrow, rent, or buy for the summer. Her exact words when she emailed me were, “I know beggars can’t be choosers, but … I would really like a small automatic car.” Keep in mind she was ready to drive around Evangeline, my beast of an ’86 Ford Econoline conversion van. The small automatic car is her preference, but she’ll count any running vehicle as a blessing from the Lord!
I’m hoping to get one more blog written before the end of this week because once this weekend comes I expect to be pretty non-stop busy and away from most internet opportunities until August (with an occasional day or two here and there where I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done). So, if you think I was incommunicado before, my understanding is that that was nothing compared to what’s to come. That means that if you have any leads for Krista regarding a car for the summer, I’m not the right person to contact because I probably won’t get the message until it’s too late. Instead, could you please contact Mark Bendell at Westwood? The number there is 952-224-7300. And if you don’t have any leads for her, prayer would be super appreciated as well!
Thank you!!! And keep posted for more bloggings in the next couple days. I’ll try to add pictures too, but that seems to be easier said then done lately.
Sorry about the title, but it just seemed the most appropriate under the circumstances. I have a request for you all. I have a friend from Westwood, Krista, who has been serving our Lord in Chiang Mai, Thailand for the past couple years and is coming home for the summer. I had originally offered for her to use my van while I was out of the country, but things changed and I ended up selling my van to one of my best friends, Jason, who recently started his own non-profit organization in Kentucky through which he is also serving our Lord and was in need of a large vehicle … and I was in need of money. It seemed to work out pretty well for everyone but Krista. Now she’s coming home June 11 until August 6 or so and will have no mode of transportation while she’s home. I promised her I would see what I could do to help her find a vehicle she could either borrow, rent, or buy for the summer. Her exact words when she emailed me were, “I know beggars can’t be choosers, but … I would really like a small automatic car.” Keep in mind she was ready to drive around Evangeline, my beast of an ’86 Ford Econoline conversion van. The small automatic car is her preference, but she’ll count any running vehicle as a blessing from the Lord!
I’m hoping to get one more blog written before the end of this week because once this weekend comes I expect to be pretty non-stop busy and away from most internet opportunities until August (with an occasional day or two here and there where I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done). So, if you think I was incommunicado before, my understanding is that that was nothing compared to what’s to come. That means that if you have any leads for Krista regarding a car for the summer, I’m not the right person to contact because I probably won’t get the message until it’s too late. Instead, could you please contact Mark Bendell at Westwood? The number there is 952-224-7300. And if you don’t have any leads for her, prayer would be super appreciated as well!
Thank you!!! And keep posted for more bloggings in the next couple days. I’ll try to add pictures too, but that seems to be easier said then done lately.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
There's Nothing Soft About Hard Times (by Jimmy Buffett)
Well, the last couple of weeks have been interesting, to say the least. I’ve visited remote islands and villages, seen God at work, been attacked spiritually, felt inspired to write a book, battled depression, revisited the question of who I am, gotten sick, had some experiences on the high seas that I will count as some of my greater life adventures, visited an uninhabited tropical island paradise, and randomly stumbled across another boat I used to live on. Like I said, it’s been interesting.
Let’s start with the bad stuff. I don’t want to get too into this because I want to keep this somewhat manageable to read and I just simply don’t want to get too caught up in the negativity. For those who don’t know me well, I struggled with depression throughout my adolescence (like everyone else, I’m sure) and into my early adulthood. Some of those old feelings revisited me when I was blasted with feelings of inadequacies regarding my time and responsibilities here, the realization that the woman I loved and expected to spend the rest of my life with got married while I was doing my island stays, and having to face the fact that some of my character flaws were causing me to ware on the nerves of the people I was with. I have to be honest, I questioned my purpose here. Like when I was living in Guatemala, I struggle with feeling like I’m getting in the way more than helping out. I’m facing the realities that some of these things are spiritual attacks, some are realizations of changes that need to be made in my life, and some are a combination of the two. Prayer would be a wonderful gift from anyone willing to give it regarding these things!
During my attempt to escape my depression and to give the rest of the group a break from me, I finally finished one of the books I’ve been reading. Let me just say that this book did wonders for boosting my morale here. So much so that I couldn’t stop reading it and now, unfortunately, I’m done with it … I’m kinda sad about that. Being bummed about not being able to obtain my temporary escape through this book, I got the inspiration to write my own. I don’t know, this is probably just some dumb little passing phase, but the thought of writing a novel or something has always lingered in the back of my mind. I have no idea what I’m doing and, in all likelihood, this will never come to fruition, but it’s a new dream that seems to be stronger now then it’s ever been for some reason. We’ll see what happens with that.
Alright, so I had the ride of my life through the open sea. To be honest, I sincerely feared for my life. It was awesome!!! There were five of us in this little fiberglass dinghy that we took through these two meter high waves on an hour or two long ride to a remote island. Within the first minute of the ride we were all soaking wet from the waves crashing up over the bow, flooding our boat and drenching us. Our driver had to wear a dive mask so he could see where we were going. There were times when we got at least a couple feet of air, both the boat off the waves and us out of the boat. A couple of times we almost got tossed out the side of the boat when the currents shifted. As long as we hit the waves head on we were fine, but there were a couple of times when the waves hit us from the side and almost capsized us. Had that happened, who knows what would have happened to us. It was SO MUCH FUN!!!! And to top it all off, our destination was this GORGEOUS remote island. We walked around the whole island and up onto a couple of the hills that are on the middle of it. From the hills you could see a 360 degree panorama of the island, the sea, and the islands that dotted the horizon surrounding us. The rocks, palm trees, grass, sand, and water on this island were simply amazing. This island has some serious potential. How amazing would it be to own this little piece of land in the middle of the sea? Hopefully we’ll find out someday soon. Check my picture link … I’ll try to show you some pictures of the island to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Between the two island stays I was on over the past couple of weeks, we had a break at a small resort between the two islands. For all intents and purposes, we were in the middle of nowhere. I have the story of my experience at this resort all written up in my journal, but to save some time and energy here and to make this easier for you to read, I’ll cut to the chase. Upon our arrival there, I saw my old home … the AGAPE. Again, check out the pictures to see what I’m talking about. This is a boat that I lived on, along with the Lady O and the Lee Way (now the Picante), for nearly two and a half months back in 1999. In my mind, I KNEW I would NEVER see the Agape again. When I realized that I was actually looking at her again, my mind couldn’t get a grip on the reality of what was going on. I couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. I just kept grabbing random group members I was with and dragging them to the boat, saying “I used to live there! I used to live there!” When I was here in ’99, I took 13 rolls of film that, due to a sticky shutter I didn’t know about until I got home, never turned out. For six and a half years I’ve had no way to share my experience of a lifetime with anyone other than through my words … until now! I finally have more pictures then I know what to do with. I hope you enjoy them, because they’re worth more than gold to me!!!
Finally, what God is doing here. It’s both exciting and frustrating at the same time. I heard one person describe it this way:
God is doing some amazing work here. He’s at work in these people’s lives long before we ever come along and He’ll continue to do His work long after we leave. Some of these people have such a longing to know TRUTH. God will not deny Himself to these people who so vehemently seek Him, even if they don’t even fully realize that it’s Him they’re seeking. The greatest blessing we can experience is when God sends down an invitation to us to be used by Him to show the Truth to these people. When we allow Him to use us, it can be almost embarrassing how easy it is to show the Truth. The thing to remember is that it’s not us that’s showing It to them, but rather God who’s revealing Himself to them through us. We get no credit and no glory because we don’t deserve it, He does. But what we get is the greatest feeling man can experience: Being so fully blessed by God that it simply uncontrollably overflows.
Okay, I admit, the idea of what I just wrote came from someone else, but that’s totally my adlibbed paraphrasing there. You get the idea of what’s going on here though. The only thing that’s been so frustrating for me, though, has been that I haven’t really gotten that invitation yet … only the opportunity to see others so anxiously accept their invitations and to see how God uses those opportunities. I’ll tell you what though, it may not be as amazing as being directly used by God, but it’s still pretty cool to be indirectly connected to it and to get to hear the stories told first hand! I guess I’ll just have to stick around a little longer to see if I ever get that invitation. In the meantime, pray with me that I’ll be able to get just as excited by being used indirectly.
Finally (for now), many of you have been trying to find out how I’m being impacted by these recent earthquakes and talks of soon-to-come volcanic eruptions. To be honest, most of these events are first hitting my awareness when I get emails from people asking me if I’m still alive. I’m kind of shut out (somewhat intentionally) from the news of the rest of the world … including different parts of this part of the world. In regards to natural disasters, riots, terrorism, etc., the most life threatening experiences I’ve come across to date include such things as some small swells out in the ocean, a little rain, and the never ending threat of skin cancer via sunburn (I’ve managed to establish a halfway decent base tan though. I don’t look quite so Scandinavian any more … at least not by Minnesota standards. The locals still think I’m pretty white!). So, hopefully that puts your worried minds to rest. I appreciate the concern, but I’m in good hands over here!
Let’s start with the bad stuff. I don’t want to get too into this because I want to keep this somewhat manageable to read and I just simply don’t want to get too caught up in the negativity. For those who don’t know me well, I struggled with depression throughout my adolescence (like everyone else, I’m sure) and into my early adulthood. Some of those old feelings revisited me when I was blasted with feelings of inadequacies regarding my time and responsibilities here, the realization that the woman I loved and expected to spend the rest of my life with got married while I was doing my island stays, and having to face the fact that some of my character flaws were causing me to ware on the nerves of the people I was with. I have to be honest, I questioned my purpose here. Like when I was living in Guatemala, I struggle with feeling like I’m getting in the way more than helping out. I’m facing the realities that some of these things are spiritual attacks, some are realizations of changes that need to be made in my life, and some are a combination of the two. Prayer would be a wonderful gift from anyone willing to give it regarding these things!
During my attempt to escape my depression and to give the rest of the group a break from me, I finally finished one of the books I’ve been reading. Let me just say that this book did wonders for boosting my morale here. So much so that I couldn’t stop reading it and now, unfortunately, I’m done with it … I’m kinda sad about that. Being bummed about not being able to obtain my temporary escape through this book, I got the inspiration to write my own. I don’t know, this is probably just some dumb little passing phase, but the thought of writing a novel or something has always lingered in the back of my mind. I have no idea what I’m doing and, in all likelihood, this will never come to fruition, but it’s a new dream that seems to be stronger now then it’s ever been for some reason. We’ll see what happens with that.
Alright, so I had the ride of my life through the open sea. To be honest, I sincerely feared for my life. It was awesome!!! There were five of us in this little fiberglass dinghy that we took through these two meter high waves on an hour or two long ride to a remote island. Within the first minute of the ride we were all soaking wet from the waves crashing up over the bow, flooding our boat and drenching us. Our driver had to wear a dive mask so he could see where we were going. There were times when we got at least a couple feet of air, both the boat off the waves and us out of the boat. A couple of times we almost got tossed out the side of the boat when the currents shifted. As long as we hit the waves head on we were fine, but there were a couple of times when the waves hit us from the side and almost capsized us. Had that happened, who knows what would have happened to us. It was SO MUCH FUN!!!! And to top it all off, our destination was this GORGEOUS remote island. We walked around the whole island and up onto a couple of the hills that are on the middle of it. From the hills you could see a 360 degree panorama of the island, the sea, and the islands that dotted the horizon surrounding us. The rocks, palm trees, grass, sand, and water on this island were simply amazing. This island has some serious potential. How amazing would it be to own this little piece of land in the middle of the sea? Hopefully we’ll find out someday soon. Check my picture link … I’ll try to show you some pictures of the island to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Between the two island stays I was on over the past couple of weeks, we had a break at a small resort between the two islands. For all intents and purposes, we were in the middle of nowhere. I have the story of my experience at this resort all written up in my journal, but to save some time and energy here and to make this easier for you to read, I’ll cut to the chase. Upon our arrival there, I saw my old home … the AGAPE. Again, check out the pictures to see what I’m talking about. This is a boat that I lived on, along with the Lady O and the Lee Way (now the Picante), for nearly two and a half months back in 1999. In my mind, I KNEW I would NEVER see the Agape again. When I realized that I was actually looking at her again, my mind couldn’t get a grip on the reality of what was going on. I couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. I just kept grabbing random group members I was with and dragging them to the boat, saying “I used to live there! I used to live there!” When I was here in ’99, I took 13 rolls of film that, due to a sticky shutter I didn’t know about until I got home, never turned out. For six and a half years I’ve had no way to share my experience of a lifetime with anyone other than through my words … until now! I finally have more pictures then I know what to do with. I hope you enjoy them, because they’re worth more than gold to me!!!
Finally, what God is doing here. It’s both exciting and frustrating at the same time. I heard one person describe it this way:
God is doing some amazing work here. He’s at work in these people’s lives long before we ever come along and He’ll continue to do His work long after we leave. Some of these people have such a longing to know TRUTH. God will not deny Himself to these people who so vehemently seek Him, even if they don’t even fully realize that it’s Him they’re seeking. The greatest blessing we can experience is when God sends down an invitation to us to be used by Him to show the Truth to these people. When we allow Him to use us, it can be almost embarrassing how easy it is to show the Truth. The thing to remember is that it’s not us that’s showing It to them, but rather God who’s revealing Himself to them through us. We get no credit and no glory because we don’t deserve it, He does. But what we get is the greatest feeling man can experience: Being so fully blessed by God that it simply uncontrollably overflows.
Okay, I admit, the idea of what I just wrote came from someone else, but that’s totally my adlibbed paraphrasing there. You get the idea of what’s going on here though. The only thing that’s been so frustrating for me, though, has been that I haven’t really gotten that invitation yet … only the opportunity to see others so anxiously accept their invitations and to see how God uses those opportunities. I’ll tell you what though, it may not be as amazing as being directly used by God, but it’s still pretty cool to be indirectly connected to it and to get to hear the stories told first hand! I guess I’ll just have to stick around a little longer to see if I ever get that invitation. In the meantime, pray with me that I’ll be able to get just as excited by being used indirectly.
Finally (for now), many of you have been trying to find out how I’m being impacted by these recent earthquakes and talks of soon-to-come volcanic eruptions. To be honest, most of these events are first hitting my awareness when I get emails from people asking me if I’m still alive. I’m kind of shut out (somewhat intentionally) from the news of the rest of the world … including different parts of this part of the world. In regards to natural disasters, riots, terrorism, etc., the most life threatening experiences I’ve come across to date include such things as some small swells out in the ocean, a little rain, and the never ending threat of skin cancer via sunburn (I’ve managed to establish a halfway decent base tan though. I don’t look quite so Scandinavian any more … at least not by Minnesota standards. The locals still think I’m pretty white!). So, hopefully that puts your worried minds to rest. I appreciate the concern, but I’m in good hands over here!
Monday, May 15, 2006
Simply Complicated (by Jimmy Buffett)
I'm starting to realize that my blogs are getting pretty rediculously long. I know that if I were checking someone else's blog (with a few exceptions) and they were as long as mine are, I'd probably keep putting it off until I realized I stopped reading them. So, in the interest of those who actually check this page out, I'm going to make a conscious effort to keep these things a little shorter and sweeter. I always did have trouble knowing when I stop talking!
Monday, May 08, 2006
Bring Back The Magic (by Jimmy Buffett)
The last time I was over here I had a chance to spend a few days in Singapore on my way home. After being on the move and living on board a convoy of ships for nearly two and a half months I was pretty tired. Singapore was the first of two stop-overs on my way back home. With all my luggage and my travels home already begun, I decided to turn down the offer to stay with some friends and check out a new country and I continued on my journey home … a decision I have since regretted. The lesson I learned from that mistake: Never let a small amount of money or tiredness get in the way of experiencing a new country. Well, I finally got the chance to redeem myself. When I went to Italy as a teenager with my parents, we had the chance to visit Rome and nothing else or see more of the country and continent but miss out on Rome. My parents said something to me on that trip that they have since repeated many times: “Jeff, we know you, you’ll come back” … They know me well, don’t they?!
This trip to Singapore was to be a day trip to renew my visa. Those of you know me the best know that my plans don’t always go as they’re intended to. I went with a friend of mine, Jen, and we got there around noon. She’s been there many times before and this was my first significant amount of time there, so I asked her what we would do all day … she didn’t really have any solid answers. In fact, the night before she heard me comment about leaving as late at night as possible and she was trying to figure out what we’d do all day. Since she didn’t have any real ideas, I voted that we try to find Raffles Marina so I could try to connect up with Francis Lee, the president of Raffles Marina and the leader of the expedition I was on last time I was here.
After riding the MRT (Metro Rail Transit), grabbing some lunch, and hopping on a bus, we got to Raffles around 2pm. Francis was away, so I left him a note. Jen thought we were done there, but marinas are some of my favorite places in the world and I wanted to head down to the docks to check out all the yachts and live-aboards … reminisce of days gone by and dream of potential days to come out at sea! We went outside and down to the docks and were greeted by a sign that said no one was allowed on the docks unless they were a boat-owner or a member of the marina … neither of which we were. I told her I’d just tell them I was friends with Francis Lee if anyone were to question us and I walked down to the docks … with some hesitation, Jen followed (she’s a bit of a worrier). I pointed out to her one of the first boats I saw because it looked just like one of the boats I lived on during my expedition, but the name on it was the Picante which wasn’t the name of any of the ships on the convoy. We walked down a different dock and I was in heaven checking out all the sailing yachts! Then, as we approached the end of the dock, there she was … the Lady Olivia!!! I hadn’t seen her in over six years! The Lady Olivia, or Lady O as we called her, was actually the only ship I never slept on, but I did spend some time with her. As we got closer, we realized the engine was running and there was someone inside. This kinda freaked Jen out and she was ready to head back, but I just got that much more excited and wanted to see if it was anyone I knew. When we got close enough for me to see the face inside, I recognized him right away, although I couldn’t remember his name. He came outside and I reintroduced myself and asked him for his name again … Captain Steven! It was SO crazy for me to actually be leaning against the Lady O, talking to Steven once again. He caught me up on a handful of the expedition members and told me what they’ve been up to and what they’re doing now. I even got the contact information for a couple of my old friends.
After talking with Steven for about a half hour or so, he asked me if I remembered the Lee Way. I had totally forgotten that name until he said it. He pointed to the Picante and told me it had been sold after the expedition and had her name changed three times since. Jen and I walked over to her and the memories hit me like a tidal wave … this was the boat I had spent nearly the most amount of time living on and had some of my best memories from. This is the boat I had lived on for four days and nights without having any land in site, the boat I same off of in the middle of the open sea with a whale directly below during that same four day stint, the boat on which I had my regular shifts at the helm (of course, as the newbie I was given the graveyard shift), and the boat on which I spent nearly an entire day looking out into the open sea and just praised God for all the beauty I saw! I never thought I’d see her again. Long ago I had convinced myself that the memories of my time on the expedition here on the far side of the world would remain memories and would never revisit me again. It’s a lot like running into an old friend or seeing the house that you grew up in as a kid and fostered so many of your most precious memories. It was like coming home again.
Well, the rest of the day in Singapore was still a lot of fun, but what made it so much fun was the residual effect of the pure elation I felt from seeing Steven and my old sleeping quarters once again. We wandered around the docks a little longer and enjoyed the ships that were docked there. When I was finally able to pry myself away from the marina, we worked our way back to Orchard in the main part of the city where all the action is. We weren’t hungry for dinner yet, so we decided to go see a movie. By the time we were able to find the theater and pick a movie, it was already 7:15pm. What we didn’t factor in was what time the movie ended. When we got out and noticed the time, we realized we were going to be spending the night in Singapore. Fortunately, between the two of us, we have friends there and wouldn’t have trouble finding a place to crash.
Once we got our sleeping arrangements situated and let everyone back home know we weren’t coming back that night, we headed out to the HRC (Hard Rock Café) for a late dinner. We managed to order our food a good 10 minutes before the kitchen closed at 10:30pm. WHEW! While we were waiting for our food we got to talking with the servers (well, I got to talking with the servers. Jen was getting pretty tired). By the time we left the HRC around 11:45pm we must’ve spent nearly an hour talking with nearly every server there. They all wanted us to stick around for the live reggae band that was playing from midnight to 3am. As badly as I wanted to stay, we had some last-minute hosts who we didn’t want to disturb by coming in at 3:30am. So, we left our new friends, grabbed a cab, and made it to our home for the night around midnight where one of our hosts was kind enough to wait up for us. We were shown to our respective rooms and I was finding my way onboard the dreamland express around 1am. It made for a short night having a wakeup call at 6:45am (remember, I’m NOT a morning person!).
Barely functioning, we worked our way back home, making it back by 8:45am. All-in-all, as exhausting as it was, it was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time … and I’ve had some pretty amazing days lately! I decided not to head to the office and took the day off. Believe me, I was much more productive during my nap that afternoon then I would have been trying to do any work. Besides, I don’t foresee any rest between now and my return trip to Singapore in a month. I like to think I deserved this day!!!
By the way, there are some new pictures I added to my “Islands” photo gallery … check it out if you haven’t already. I’ll try to add some pictures of the Lady Olivia and the Picante/Lee Way soon too!
This trip to Singapore was to be a day trip to renew my visa. Those of you know me the best know that my plans don’t always go as they’re intended to. I went with a friend of mine, Jen, and we got there around noon. She’s been there many times before and this was my first significant amount of time there, so I asked her what we would do all day … she didn’t really have any solid answers. In fact, the night before she heard me comment about leaving as late at night as possible and she was trying to figure out what we’d do all day. Since she didn’t have any real ideas, I voted that we try to find Raffles Marina so I could try to connect up with Francis Lee, the president of Raffles Marina and the leader of the expedition I was on last time I was here.
After riding the MRT (Metro Rail Transit), grabbing some lunch, and hopping on a bus, we got to Raffles around 2pm. Francis was away, so I left him a note. Jen thought we were done there, but marinas are some of my favorite places in the world and I wanted to head down to the docks to check out all the yachts and live-aboards … reminisce of days gone by and dream of potential days to come out at sea! We went outside and down to the docks and were greeted by a sign that said no one was allowed on the docks unless they were a boat-owner or a member of the marina … neither of which we were. I told her I’d just tell them I was friends with Francis Lee if anyone were to question us and I walked down to the docks … with some hesitation, Jen followed (she’s a bit of a worrier). I pointed out to her one of the first boats I saw because it looked just like one of the boats I lived on during my expedition, but the name on it was the Picante which wasn’t the name of any of the ships on the convoy. We walked down a different dock and I was in heaven checking out all the sailing yachts! Then, as we approached the end of the dock, there she was … the Lady Olivia!!! I hadn’t seen her in over six years! The Lady Olivia, or Lady O as we called her, was actually the only ship I never slept on, but I did spend some time with her. As we got closer, we realized the engine was running and there was someone inside. This kinda freaked Jen out and she was ready to head back, but I just got that much more excited and wanted to see if it was anyone I knew. When we got close enough for me to see the face inside, I recognized him right away, although I couldn’t remember his name. He came outside and I reintroduced myself and asked him for his name again … Captain Steven! It was SO crazy for me to actually be leaning against the Lady O, talking to Steven once again. He caught me up on a handful of the expedition members and told me what they’ve been up to and what they’re doing now. I even got the contact information for a couple of my old friends.
After talking with Steven for about a half hour or so, he asked me if I remembered the Lee Way. I had totally forgotten that name until he said it. He pointed to the Picante and told me it had been sold after the expedition and had her name changed three times since. Jen and I walked over to her and the memories hit me like a tidal wave … this was the boat I had spent nearly the most amount of time living on and had some of my best memories from. This is the boat I had lived on for four days and nights without having any land in site, the boat I same off of in the middle of the open sea with a whale directly below during that same four day stint, the boat on which I had my regular shifts at the helm (of course, as the newbie I was given the graveyard shift), and the boat on which I spent nearly an entire day looking out into the open sea and just praised God for all the beauty I saw! I never thought I’d see her again. Long ago I had convinced myself that the memories of my time on the expedition here on the far side of the world would remain memories and would never revisit me again. It’s a lot like running into an old friend or seeing the house that you grew up in as a kid and fostered so many of your most precious memories. It was like coming home again.
Well, the rest of the day in Singapore was still a lot of fun, but what made it so much fun was the residual effect of the pure elation I felt from seeing Steven and my old sleeping quarters once again. We wandered around the docks a little longer and enjoyed the ships that were docked there. When I was finally able to pry myself away from the marina, we worked our way back to Orchard in the main part of the city where all the action is. We weren’t hungry for dinner yet, so we decided to go see a movie. By the time we were able to find the theater and pick a movie, it was already 7:15pm. What we didn’t factor in was what time the movie ended. When we got out and noticed the time, we realized we were going to be spending the night in Singapore. Fortunately, between the two of us, we have friends there and wouldn’t have trouble finding a place to crash.
Once we got our sleeping arrangements situated and let everyone back home know we weren’t coming back that night, we headed out to the HRC (Hard Rock Café) for a late dinner. We managed to order our food a good 10 minutes before the kitchen closed at 10:30pm. WHEW! While we were waiting for our food we got to talking with the servers (well, I got to talking with the servers. Jen was getting pretty tired). By the time we left the HRC around 11:45pm we must’ve spent nearly an hour talking with nearly every server there. They all wanted us to stick around for the live reggae band that was playing from midnight to 3am. As badly as I wanted to stay, we had some last-minute hosts who we didn’t want to disturb by coming in at 3:30am. So, we left our new friends, grabbed a cab, and made it to our home for the night around midnight where one of our hosts was kind enough to wait up for us. We were shown to our respective rooms and I was finding my way onboard the dreamland express around 1am. It made for a short night having a wakeup call at 6:45am (remember, I’m NOT a morning person!).
Barely functioning, we worked our way back home, making it back by 8:45am. All-in-all, as exhausting as it was, it was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time … and I’ve had some pretty amazing days lately! I decided not to head to the office and took the day off. Believe me, I was much more productive during my nap that afternoon then I would have been trying to do any work. Besides, I don’t foresee any rest between now and my return trip to Singapore in a month. I like to think I deserved this day!!!
By the way, there are some new pictures I added to my “Islands” photo gallery … check it out if you haven’t already. I’ll try to add some pictures of the Lady Olivia and the Picante/Lee Way soon too!
Friday, May 05, 2006
Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes (by Jimmy Buffett)
Well, I don’t know exactly what to expect in the days and weeks to come, but the next several weeks promise to be very busy. All I know for sure is that I’m going to be spending most of my time out in the islands experiencing and preparing to lead ethno-tours. I’ll be living in the homes of local villagers, eating their food, speaking their language, and generally living their life. This summer will be back to back to back short-term tourists coming out to experience ethno-tours for several weeks at a time. My goal and responsibility: to lead some of these groups. This first group I get to be just another tourist to get a first-hand understanding of what, exactly, I’ll be leading. Since I haven’t experienced this yet, I really don’t have too much more to say about it.
I can’t say whether or not I’m going to get to experience anything like this story first-hand, but I’ve already gotten to see God doing some amazing work through some of my co-workers. Apparently, a few years back there was an ethno-tour group that came out and decided that the night before they were to leave the islands and return to the city, they should do a drama to show the story of Christ. Well, this didn’t go over too well with the locals or the village leaders. As a result, out of concern for safety, the team had to leave the island in the middle of the night … this organization hasn’t returned since. The most frustrating part of the situation is that there were a few individuals who came to the Lord during that visit, yet because of this incident there was no one who could follow up with or disciple them … they were left alone, I’m sure with a lot of questions. Well, the other day two of my co-workers returned to the island to gauge the situation and, most importantly, to check on these newly saved individuals. The result of this visit: Those few people continued in their faith and were still hungry to learn more, the island leaders were no longer around and the village has been anxiously anticipating this groups return for some time now, and through prayer there was an individual who walked for the first time in over six months!!! God is doing some amazing work here … and thanks to many of my family and friends back home I’m able to be a part of His work – THANK YOU!!!!
In the next week I’ll be focusing on continuing my learning of the language here, becoming more comfortable with the locals and interacting with them, meeting and networking with more and more locals to establish new relationships, and preparing myself for these groups coming out and my time away for weeks at a time. Lord only knows when I’m going to get any rest again (I’m getting a peek into the life of my dad)!
I’ve been getting questions from some of you about what life is like here, what are some crazy foods I’ve been eating, who are some unique individuals I’ve met, and how I’m adjusting to life in another country. Well, I don’t really know how to explain it, but I really don’t feel like I have too much to tell. It’s not that I’m trying to hide anything from anyone, it’s just that it all feels so normal and comfortable. The food has been fantastic (so much for losing weight while I’m here … at this rate I’m going to be GAINING weight instead!), the people are great, and nothing really seems too unique or novel. There’s a certain peace about being here … I think it’s just that my time away was way overdue! Life here is just life, the way I like it. Maybe it’s just that I’ve done enough traveling in my life that countries like this are just all too familiar to me now. Most of the things that catch newcomers off-guard and lead them into culture shock are tried and true for me and I know what to expect and how to deal with them. The things that probably should be scary or exciting are just kinda routine. But don’t let me make it sound like it’s boring or unexciting. It’s a different kind of excitement. It’s like visiting an old home. It’s a type of “different” that’s familiar and comfortable. I guess the best way to describe it is that, for the first time in a long time, I have peace and joy in my heart. It feels good!!!!
For those of you who have been committed to reading my blog and especially to those of you who have sent me comments, I want to let you know how much I appreciate it. It’s nice to know that all my typing isn’t a waste of time. I’m sorry that I haven’t had any good way to respond to any of your comments and let you know that I’m actually reading them and appreciating them, but please know that each one has been an encouragement, given me perspective, made me think, made me laugh, or made me feel a little more connected to things back in the states … so thank you, very much!!!
Stay tuned … there’s more to come (and I’m still working on more pictures … it’s just hard with dialup).
I can’t say whether or not I’m going to get to experience anything like this story first-hand, but I’ve already gotten to see God doing some amazing work through some of my co-workers. Apparently, a few years back there was an ethno-tour group that came out and decided that the night before they were to leave the islands and return to the city, they should do a drama to show the story of Christ. Well, this didn’t go over too well with the locals or the village leaders. As a result, out of concern for safety, the team had to leave the island in the middle of the night … this organization hasn’t returned since. The most frustrating part of the situation is that there were a few individuals who came to the Lord during that visit, yet because of this incident there was no one who could follow up with or disciple them … they were left alone, I’m sure with a lot of questions. Well, the other day two of my co-workers returned to the island to gauge the situation and, most importantly, to check on these newly saved individuals. The result of this visit: Those few people continued in their faith and were still hungry to learn more, the island leaders were no longer around and the village has been anxiously anticipating this groups return for some time now, and through prayer there was an individual who walked for the first time in over six months!!! God is doing some amazing work here … and thanks to many of my family and friends back home I’m able to be a part of His work – THANK YOU!!!!
In the next week I’ll be focusing on continuing my learning of the language here, becoming more comfortable with the locals and interacting with them, meeting and networking with more and more locals to establish new relationships, and preparing myself for these groups coming out and my time away for weeks at a time. Lord only knows when I’m going to get any rest again (I’m getting a peek into the life of my dad)!
I’ve been getting questions from some of you about what life is like here, what are some crazy foods I’ve been eating, who are some unique individuals I’ve met, and how I’m adjusting to life in another country. Well, I don’t really know how to explain it, but I really don’t feel like I have too much to tell. It’s not that I’m trying to hide anything from anyone, it’s just that it all feels so normal and comfortable. The food has been fantastic (so much for losing weight while I’m here … at this rate I’m going to be GAINING weight instead!), the people are great, and nothing really seems too unique or novel. There’s a certain peace about being here … I think it’s just that my time away was way overdue! Life here is just life, the way I like it. Maybe it’s just that I’ve done enough traveling in my life that countries like this are just all too familiar to me now. Most of the things that catch newcomers off-guard and lead them into culture shock are tried and true for me and I know what to expect and how to deal with them. The things that probably should be scary or exciting are just kinda routine. But don’t let me make it sound like it’s boring or unexciting. It’s a different kind of excitement. It’s like visiting an old home. It’s a type of “different” that’s familiar and comfortable. I guess the best way to describe it is that, for the first time in a long time, I have peace and joy in my heart. It feels good!!!!
For those of you who have been committed to reading my blog and especially to those of you who have sent me comments, I want to let you know how much I appreciate it. It’s nice to know that all my typing isn’t a waste of time. I’m sorry that I haven’t had any good way to respond to any of your comments and let you know that I’m actually reading them and appreciating them, but please know that each one has been an encouragement, given me perspective, made me think, made me laugh, or made me feel a little more connected to things back in the states … so thank you, very much!!!
Stay tuned … there’s more to come (and I’m still working on more pictures … it’s just hard with dialup).
Monday, May 01, 2006
I Have Found Me A Home (by Jimmy Buffett)
Wow, I’ve been busy the past couple of days … and the busy season hasn’t even begun yet! Let me give you a little synopsis of what my time here has been like and then I’ll give you some bullet-point highlights of what this last weekend held for me.
To begin with, I’m living in a fairly decent sized city … pretty modern, especially by the standards over here. I’m living with my host family, part of whom I’ve known for pretty much my whole life. There’s a team of a few families and I’m getting to know them all really pretty well … what an awesome team! Most of them have known each other for all of their adult lives and get along so well with their team dynamics. They’re fun people to hang out with when we’re not working too. Anyways, I digress … as a team, they own a sort of tourist business where they have property on a beach (you’ve seen pictures if you’ve checked out my link) which is an hour and a half boat ride from where we’re living. In the week and a half that I’ve been here, I’ve been out to the resort three times already. Part of my job while at the resort is simply to hang out with the guests when they want company and give them space when they don’t want company. Other then that, just make sure they’re happy and have everything they need as well as taking care of some general work projects around the resort. When I’m not at the resort or out on the water, I’m in the office in town working on a couple little projects the team has handed over to me to help get me transitioned into my work here as well as catch the business up on some overdue organization, so-to-speak.
Anyways, I hope that gives you a general yet somewhat clear idea of what life here as been like so far. Now, let me catch you up with what I’ve experienced over the past several days. To save you from my tendency to give way more detail than is necessary, I’m just going to give you some highlights. If you want to know more details, just drop me an email and let me know what you want to know more about … it may take me a while to get back to you, but I will eventually!
The guys have an accountability group that I’ve gotten to be a part of. It’s awesome to see how they confide in each other and support one another.
There was a full-team worship time where we spent several hours in intentional prayer and singing. Granted, it did go a bit later than our bodies would have preferred, but it was such an incredible time together with each other and with God.
I spent the weekend with a Young Life group from Singapore. What a great group of people! One of the girls actually was a Wooddaler briefly! I was momentarily surprised to find this out, but that quickly passed because I’ve come to realize that there’s nowhere on this planet that you can go to escape the potential of running into a Wooddaler. Anyone know an 18-year-old named Whitney Taylor? If so, let me know and I’ll tell her you say HI.
I did a couple of dives finally! First logged dives since 1999 … talk about being WAY overdue! The guys I’m working with are in the process of getting certified. There were only three of us that went out, one of which is still in the certification process and hasn’t done many dives at all. At nearly 3 meters, it was the best visibility he’d ever had and my worst! There was some cool stuff to see though.
Of the dives we did, we attempted a night dive in which the visibility was less than half a meter … we tried going down twice and each time we lost each other as soon as we went below the surface. I gave up and let the other two have their dive. After the current pulled us away from the island we were diving off of and we had to hang on to the side of the boat and have it drag us for about 10 minutes, I was too tired to deal with not being able to even see my dive buddy, let alone any coral or fish. But they had a great time and I got to do another dive a day and a half later.
I’ve got the WORST farmer’s tan! I’m slowly working on getting my body just a little burned at a time so it’ll slowly turn into a decent tan. I’m almost up to my shoulders on my arms now, but not quite. My neck is the best … SUPER dark tan on my neck and a typical pasty-white Scandinavian back.
Okay, that gives a pretty good update and hopefully a decent mental picture for you to have an idea of what my life is like here so far. Now, I’ve got a few simple prayer requests I figure I’d throw your way. Please pray:
-That I’ll be able to get a solid base-tan so that my skin won’t be so sensitive to the sun that I’m in nearly all day, every day … and that I won’t get skin cancer in the process!
-That whatever I have that resembles poison ivy is NOT poison ivy and goes away quickly!
-That I will continue to acclimate quickly to my responsibilities and to the expectations that are upon me here.
-That I won’t struggle too much with learning the language.
-That I’ll be able to find the means to continue my travels at the end of my time here by doing some networking for this business.
-That I don’t lose my focus on God during the busyness of trying to adjust to my new job.
There, that should be good enough for now. There’ll be plenty more to come for sure! Oh, one more thing … if there’s anything specific you’d like me to talk about in my blogs, add a comment or send me an email and let me know what you want to hear about. I’ll do my best to oblige!
To begin with, I’m living in a fairly decent sized city … pretty modern, especially by the standards over here. I’m living with my host family, part of whom I’ve known for pretty much my whole life. There’s a team of a few families and I’m getting to know them all really pretty well … what an awesome team! Most of them have known each other for all of their adult lives and get along so well with their team dynamics. They’re fun people to hang out with when we’re not working too. Anyways, I digress … as a team, they own a sort of tourist business where they have property on a beach (you’ve seen pictures if you’ve checked out my link) which is an hour and a half boat ride from where we’re living. In the week and a half that I’ve been here, I’ve been out to the resort three times already. Part of my job while at the resort is simply to hang out with the guests when they want company and give them space when they don’t want company. Other then that, just make sure they’re happy and have everything they need as well as taking care of some general work projects around the resort. When I’m not at the resort or out on the water, I’m in the office in town working on a couple little projects the team has handed over to me to help get me transitioned into my work here as well as catch the business up on some overdue organization, so-to-speak.
Anyways, I hope that gives you a general yet somewhat clear idea of what life here as been like so far. Now, let me catch you up with what I’ve experienced over the past several days. To save you from my tendency to give way more detail than is necessary, I’m just going to give you some highlights. If you want to know more details, just drop me an email and let me know what you want to know more about … it may take me a while to get back to you, but I will eventually!
The guys have an accountability group that I’ve gotten to be a part of. It’s awesome to see how they confide in each other and support one another.
There was a full-team worship time where we spent several hours in intentional prayer and singing. Granted, it did go a bit later than our bodies would have preferred, but it was such an incredible time together with each other and with God.
I spent the weekend with a Young Life group from Singapore. What a great group of people! One of the girls actually was a Wooddaler briefly! I was momentarily surprised to find this out, but that quickly passed because I’ve come to realize that there’s nowhere on this planet that you can go to escape the potential of running into a Wooddaler. Anyone know an 18-year-old named Whitney Taylor? If so, let me know and I’ll tell her you say HI.
I did a couple of dives finally! First logged dives since 1999 … talk about being WAY overdue! The guys I’m working with are in the process of getting certified. There were only three of us that went out, one of which is still in the certification process and hasn’t done many dives at all. At nearly 3 meters, it was the best visibility he’d ever had and my worst! There was some cool stuff to see though.
Of the dives we did, we attempted a night dive in which the visibility was less than half a meter … we tried going down twice and each time we lost each other as soon as we went below the surface. I gave up and let the other two have their dive. After the current pulled us away from the island we were diving off of and we had to hang on to the side of the boat and have it drag us for about 10 minutes, I was too tired to deal with not being able to even see my dive buddy, let alone any coral or fish. But they had a great time and I got to do another dive a day and a half later.
I’ve got the WORST farmer’s tan! I’m slowly working on getting my body just a little burned at a time so it’ll slowly turn into a decent tan. I’m almost up to my shoulders on my arms now, but not quite. My neck is the best … SUPER dark tan on my neck and a typical pasty-white Scandinavian back.
Okay, that gives a pretty good update and hopefully a decent mental picture for you to have an idea of what my life is like here so far. Now, I’ve got a few simple prayer requests I figure I’d throw your way. Please pray:
-That I’ll be able to get a solid base-tan so that my skin won’t be so sensitive to the sun that I’m in nearly all day, every day … and that I won’t get skin cancer in the process!
-That whatever I have that resembles poison ivy is NOT poison ivy and goes away quickly!
-That I will continue to acclimate quickly to my responsibilities and to the expectations that are upon me here.
-That I won’t struggle too much with learning the language.
-That I’ll be able to find the means to continue my travels at the end of my time here by doing some networking for this business.
-That I don’t lose my focus on God during the busyness of trying to adjust to my new job.
There, that should be good enough for now. There’ll be plenty more to come for sure! Oh, one more thing … if there’s anything specific you’d like me to talk about in my blogs, add a comment or send me an email and let me know what you want to hear about. I’ll do my best to oblige!
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Back To The Islands (by Jimmy Buffett)
Sorry it's been so long ... I have a feeling the delay between postings is going to become a regular occurrance. Trust me though, I'm doing the best I can.
I have safely returned to the far side of the world. I've now been here almost five days, and it feels like a month! ... in a good way :) I've gotten to briefly explore a new country as well as experience a new part of a familiar country. I've reconnected with old friends and quickly made new ones. At this rate, I anticipate a rather fun, exciting, productive, and definately HOT next five months or so!
I'm hoping to get some of the pictures I've taken the past few days onto my link here soon, so check back often if they're not on yet. So, until the pictures are up, I'll just fill you in a little bit about what's been going on. I have to start by simply saying that it's SO good to be back in the islands again!!! The smells, the sights, the tastes, the sounds ... it's like returning to a dream. I don't imagine I'll become fluent, or even conversational, in the language in my short time here, but it's fun to see what's already starting to come back to me from nearly seven years ago.
The weather's been fantastic. It's only rained once ... unfortunately it was when there were some guests here and we were going to take a boat to a jungle hike with a waterfall and a natural pool at the end (you'll be able to see this in the pictures I'll put up soon), but we weren't able to go because the rain made the trail too muddy. Other then that, it's been hot and beautiful! I've even managed to get a little tan and a little sunburn while still maintaining some of my pasty-white, scandinavian skin :)
In the short time I've been here, we've had two groups come to the beach in which I'll be spending most of my time while I'm here. The first group was 30 local junior highers from an international school here along with four of their teachers and their principal. The second group was an Australian dad and his two sons on holiday. We've done leadership initiative games, jungle hikes, boat trips, swimming, and I've been helping out a little bit in building an earthen (thanks, kraM) oven on the beach to make pizzas and bread and what-not. At this pace, there won't be much down-time ... but with the things I'll be doing here, that's not a bad thing :)
Well, lunch is ready and then I'm off to an afternoon meeting with the guys. Thank you again for supporting me financially, through prayer, and through love and friendship to make my time here possible. Thanks for continuing to check my blog too :) And remember, comments are always nice!!!
I have safely returned to the far side of the world. I've now been here almost five days, and it feels like a month! ... in a good way :) I've gotten to briefly explore a new country as well as experience a new part of a familiar country. I've reconnected with old friends and quickly made new ones. At this rate, I anticipate a rather fun, exciting, productive, and definately HOT next five months or so!
I'm hoping to get some of the pictures I've taken the past few days onto my link here soon, so check back often if they're not on yet. So, until the pictures are up, I'll just fill you in a little bit about what's been going on. I have to start by simply saying that it's SO good to be back in the islands again!!! The smells, the sights, the tastes, the sounds ... it's like returning to a dream. I don't imagine I'll become fluent, or even conversational, in the language in my short time here, but it's fun to see what's already starting to come back to me from nearly seven years ago.
The weather's been fantastic. It's only rained once ... unfortunately it was when there were some guests here and we were going to take a boat to a jungle hike with a waterfall and a natural pool at the end (you'll be able to see this in the pictures I'll put up soon), but we weren't able to go because the rain made the trail too muddy. Other then that, it's been hot and beautiful! I've even managed to get a little tan and a little sunburn while still maintaining some of my pasty-white, scandinavian skin :)
In the short time I've been here, we've had two groups come to the beach in which I'll be spending most of my time while I'm here. The first group was 30 local junior highers from an international school here along with four of their teachers and their principal. The second group was an Australian dad and his two sons on holiday. We've done leadership initiative games, jungle hikes, boat trips, swimming, and I've been helping out a little bit in building an earthen (thanks, kraM) oven on the beach to make pizzas and bread and what-not. At this pace, there won't be much down-time ... but with the things I'll be doing here, that's not a bad thing :)
Well, lunch is ready and then I'm off to an afternoon meeting with the guys. Thank you again for supporting me financially, through prayer, and through love and friendship to make my time here possible. Thanks for continuing to check my blog too :) And remember, comments are always nice!!!
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Don't Chu-Know (by Jimmy Buffett)
For those of you who don't already know, there's a play in St. Paul this weekend that I'm in. I was originally supposed to play the part of Jesus, like I have the past couple of years at my Uncle's church in New Jersey, but due to some last minute changes for some of the actors involved we had to do some role switching and I've been "demoted", as it were, to Thomas. My best friend and two other very close friends are also in the play with me. It's an original play consisting of a series of monologues and is entitled "Who Crusified Christ". It's being held at Mounds Park United Methodist Church just off I-94 near downtown St. Paul. The shows begin at 7pm Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 13, 14, and 15 and runs about an hour long. There's no cost and we'd love for you to come out and check it out ... bring some friends with you! :) For anyone in the area, I hope to see you there. For those of you not able to make it, know you will be missed.
Directions:
94 East to Mounds Blvd, Right on Mounds, Left on 3rd Street, Right on Cypress, and left on Euchlid. The church's phone number is 651-774-8736.
Directions:
94 East to Mounds Blvd, Right on Mounds, Left on 3rd Street, Right on Cypress, and left on Euchlid. The church's phone number is 651-774-8736.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Songlines (frequent refernce throughout Jimmy Buffett's songs and writings)
Most of you probably aren't aware of the fact that each of my blog titles, as well as the name of this blog page, are all either song titles or song references. "The Far Side Of The World" is the title track to one of Jimmy Buffett's more recent albums, only a couple years old. I just thought I'd give you a little insight into my personal world of music by sharing the lyrics of this song for you. Granted, the song is more specifically refering to Jimmy's time in Africa over the 2001 New Year, I think you'll understand why I love this song so much and found it to be an appropriate title for my site and, to a certain extent, for my life:
Ramadan is over,
The new moon's shown her face,
I'm halfway round the planet,
In a most unlikely place.
Following my song lines
Past bamboo shacks and shops
Behind a jeepney packed like sardines,
With bananas piled on top.
I ran away from politics,
It's too bizarre at home.
Away I flew, tuned into blue
Maybe Amsterdam or Rome
Awakened by a stewardess,
With Spain somewhere below.
On the threshold of adventure,
God I do love this job so.
So while I make my move
On this big board game
Up and down that Spanish highway,
Some things remain the same.
Girls meet boys
and the boys tease girls
I'm heading out this morning,
For the Far Side of the World.
Oh I believe in song lines
Obvious and not
I've ridden them like camels
To some most peculiar spots.
They run across the oceans
Through mountains and saloons
Tonight out through the dessert
Where I sit atop this dune.
I was destined for this vantage point
Though it's so far from the sea
I've lived it in the pages of Saint-Exupery
From Paris to Tunisia
Casablanca to Dakar
I was riding long before I flew
Through the wind and sand and stars.
Caravan
Ride that hump
And Timbuktu, a jillion bugs
Sleeping bags and battle flags
Are coiled and curled
That's the way you travel
To the far side of the world!
Sunset framed by lightening bolts
Burns a lasting memory
And a string of tiny twinkling lights
adorn a sausage tree.
While the embers from the log fire
They flicker, fly, and twirl
And drift off toward the cosmos
From the Far Side of the World.
Well it's Christmas and my birthday
and so to that extent
The Masai not the wise men
Are circling my tent.
I teach them how to play guitar
They show me how to dance
We have rum from the Caribbean
And Burgundy from France.
New Year's Eve in Zanzibar
With Babu and his boys
High up on the rooftop
You can relish all the noise.
They are dancing on the tables
People bouncing like gazelles
Two 0-0-1 is ushered in
With air-raid horns and bells.
Time to sing time to dance
Living out my second chance.
Cobras and sleeping bags are coiled and curled
That's the way it happens
On the Far Side of the World.
Back at home, it's afternoon
Six thousand miles away.
It will still be there when I get through
Attending this soiree
There are jobs and chores and questions
And plates I need to twirl,
But tonight I'll take my chances,
On the Far Side of the World.
Yes that's the way it happens
On the Far Side of the World.
Ramadan is over,
The new moon's shown her face,
I'm halfway round the planet,
In a most unlikely place.
Following my song lines
Past bamboo shacks and shops
Behind a jeepney packed like sardines,
With bananas piled on top.
I ran away from politics,
It's too bizarre at home.
Away I flew, tuned into blue
Maybe Amsterdam or Rome
Awakened by a stewardess,
With Spain somewhere below.
On the threshold of adventure,
God I do love this job so.
So while I make my move
On this big board game
Up and down that Spanish highway,
Some things remain the same.
Girls meet boys
and the boys tease girls
I'm heading out this morning,
For the Far Side of the World.
Oh I believe in song lines
Obvious and not
I've ridden them like camels
To some most peculiar spots.
They run across the oceans
Through mountains and saloons
Tonight out through the dessert
Where I sit atop this dune.
I was destined for this vantage point
Though it's so far from the sea
I've lived it in the pages of Saint-Exupery
From Paris to Tunisia
Casablanca to Dakar
I was riding long before I flew
Through the wind and sand and stars.
Caravan
Ride that hump
And Timbuktu, a jillion bugs
Sleeping bags and battle flags
Are coiled and curled
That's the way you travel
To the far side of the world!
Sunset framed by lightening bolts
Burns a lasting memory
And a string of tiny twinkling lights
adorn a sausage tree.
While the embers from the log fire
They flicker, fly, and twirl
And drift off toward the cosmos
From the Far Side of the World.
Well it's Christmas and my birthday
and so to that extent
The Masai not the wise men
Are circling my tent.
I teach them how to play guitar
They show me how to dance
We have rum from the Caribbean
And Burgundy from France.
New Year's Eve in Zanzibar
With Babu and his boys
High up on the rooftop
You can relish all the noise.
They are dancing on the tables
People bouncing like gazelles
Two 0-0-1 is ushered in
With air-raid horns and bells.
Time to sing time to dance
Living out my second chance.
Cobras and sleeping bags are coiled and curled
That's the way it happens
On the Far Side of the World.
Back at home, it's afternoon
Six thousand miles away.
It will still be there when I get through
Attending this soiree
There are jobs and chores and questions
And plates I need to twirl,
But tonight I'll take my chances,
On the Far Side of the World.
Yes that's the way it happens
On the Far Side of the World.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Take The Long Way Home (by Supertramp)
So, I'm back in the states ... but not before having gone through a series of unique experiences and ordeals. The journey home began by heading to Delhi to do some typical "touristy" stuff ... something I hate doing, but is an occasional necessity. I mean, how do you not visit the Taj Mahal?! I have to admit, it was absolutely beautiful and was a great experience! Granted they won't do the real thing justice, you should see the pictures from there (and perhaps you will!). It was a four hour drive to get there and nearly a five hour drive back with all the traffic! But, the night I got back from the Taj was when the craziness really began.
I've been to some very memorable airports in my life, but the one in Delhi I'll never forget! I wanted to get there two three hours early, but I wasn't able to make it until two hours early. Still more than enough time, right? Not in Delhi! It was SO crazy and busy there that it took me nearly 20 minutes just to get inside the building. Once inside, I had to go through security for my checked luggage, then I had to go and actually check my luggage and get my boarding pass. After that I had to wait in the immigration line. Of course, I ended up in the line that wasn't really a line and obviously took forever! By the time I finally got through the immigration line I had to wait in another sercurity check line. That one took nearly an hour! I finally made it through that one as my flight was boarding. By this time it was about an hour and a half into what literally ended up being the longest birthday of my life!
About eight hours later I was in Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport for a three or four hour layover. I made a friend while I was there, a fellow world traveler, so I was fortunate enough to have someone to talk to and share stories with. I'm always looking for new travel friends to assist me in my traveling creedo: "I'd much rather travel with someone else than alone, but I'd rather travel alone than not at all." Unfortunately, most of my travels in my life have been alone ... I'm working on changing that. Europe seems to be the easiest place to meet these kind of people. Regardless of where it is, the best place to meet new travel companions seems to be while traveling.
From Amsterdam I headed on another eight hour flight to Atlanta. Not a very exciting or memorable flight, but once I got to Atlanta I had a pretty cool experience ... I ran into a friend of mine there! The fact that I had a good three hours wait and happened to be departing one gate away from my friend who was departing only an hour before me was cool enough, but the details of the situation just lead me to believe this was another "God-thing". I think He's having fun with me lately, and I'm loving it! My friend and I got to hang out in the Continental President's Club and catch up about ministry, travel, family, friends, finances, and other things. The timing and everything was just too perfect :)
Having not slept much at all on either of the two previous flights, once I got on the flight home I was out cold in no time! What I didn't expect was for this last flight to nearly match the length of each of the previous two. When I woke up, we were just about to land ... in Wisconsin! Due to bad weather, the Minneapolis airport was shut down while we were in the air. We were diverted to La Crosse, WI to land and refuel. We must've been on the ground for at least an hour, maybe even two. It's kinda funny how a plane full of complete strangers who are comfortable having nothing to do with each other suddenly becomes full of random new "friends" in a situation like this. Being stranded on a foreign tarmak from where you're supposed to be has a way of bonding strangers in a unique way ... although, when you travel as much as I have, experiences like this don't seem all that unique. The funniest part was that I was in an exit row next to what I found out to be a woman who's basically afraid to fly ... not the best person to be in an exit row. She was a good sport though. She was especially grateful when we finally landed in Minneapolis after a short but rather turbulant flight from La Crosse shortly after 10pm ... a couple hours after we were supposed to be there.
I had a loving group of family and friends waiting for me at home to celebrate my birthday with me ... that is until it came to light that I wouldn't be making it there until nearly midnight. Personally, I'm impressed and flattered that they waited for me as long as they did! But my parents picked me up and drove me straight home so I could finally get a good night's sleep. I strolled into my house at about 11:30pm, finally ending my 28th birthday, 34.5 hours after it started in Delhi! So, next time you tell someone about how long your day was, think about how I celebrated April 6, 2006. It was a day literally full of it's ups and downs. I made new friends and connected with old ones. I traveled half way around the world and experienced what will most likely be the longest day, let alone the longest birthday, of my life. All in all, I'd say it was a good day though :)
I miss the far side of the world already, but it's good to be home ... especially knowing that I'm to return in a matter of days! I wonder what this next set of adventures will bring.
I've been to some very memorable airports in my life, but the one in Delhi I'll never forget! I wanted to get there two three hours early, but I wasn't able to make it until two hours early. Still more than enough time, right? Not in Delhi! It was SO crazy and busy there that it took me nearly 20 minutes just to get inside the building. Once inside, I had to go through security for my checked luggage, then I had to go and actually check my luggage and get my boarding pass. After that I had to wait in the immigration line. Of course, I ended up in the line that wasn't really a line and obviously took forever! By the time I finally got through the immigration line I had to wait in another sercurity check line. That one took nearly an hour! I finally made it through that one as my flight was boarding. By this time it was about an hour and a half into what literally ended up being the longest birthday of my life!
About eight hours later I was in Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport for a three or four hour layover. I made a friend while I was there, a fellow world traveler, so I was fortunate enough to have someone to talk to and share stories with. I'm always looking for new travel friends to assist me in my traveling creedo: "I'd much rather travel with someone else than alone, but I'd rather travel alone than not at all." Unfortunately, most of my travels in my life have been alone ... I'm working on changing that. Europe seems to be the easiest place to meet these kind of people. Regardless of where it is, the best place to meet new travel companions seems to be while traveling.
From Amsterdam I headed on another eight hour flight to Atlanta. Not a very exciting or memorable flight, but once I got to Atlanta I had a pretty cool experience ... I ran into a friend of mine there! The fact that I had a good three hours wait and happened to be departing one gate away from my friend who was departing only an hour before me was cool enough, but the details of the situation just lead me to believe this was another "God-thing". I think He's having fun with me lately, and I'm loving it! My friend and I got to hang out in the Continental President's Club and catch up about ministry, travel, family, friends, finances, and other things. The timing and everything was just too perfect :)
Having not slept much at all on either of the two previous flights, once I got on the flight home I was out cold in no time! What I didn't expect was for this last flight to nearly match the length of each of the previous two. When I woke up, we were just about to land ... in Wisconsin! Due to bad weather, the Minneapolis airport was shut down while we were in the air. We were diverted to La Crosse, WI to land and refuel. We must've been on the ground for at least an hour, maybe even two. It's kinda funny how a plane full of complete strangers who are comfortable having nothing to do with each other suddenly becomes full of random new "friends" in a situation like this. Being stranded on a foreign tarmak from where you're supposed to be has a way of bonding strangers in a unique way ... although, when you travel as much as I have, experiences like this don't seem all that unique. The funniest part was that I was in an exit row next to what I found out to be a woman who's basically afraid to fly ... not the best person to be in an exit row. She was a good sport though. She was especially grateful when we finally landed in Minneapolis after a short but rather turbulant flight from La Crosse shortly after 10pm ... a couple hours after we were supposed to be there.
I had a loving group of family and friends waiting for me at home to celebrate my birthday with me ... that is until it came to light that I wouldn't be making it there until nearly midnight. Personally, I'm impressed and flattered that they waited for me as long as they did! But my parents picked me up and drove me straight home so I could finally get a good night's sleep. I strolled into my house at about 11:30pm, finally ending my 28th birthday, 34.5 hours after it started in Delhi! So, next time you tell someone about how long your day was, think about how I celebrated April 6, 2006. It was a day literally full of it's ups and downs. I made new friends and connected with old ones. I traveled half way around the world and experienced what will most likely be the longest day, let alone the longest birthday, of my life. All in all, I'd say it was a good day though :)
I miss the far side of the world already, but it's good to be home ... especially knowing that I'm to return in a matter of days! I wonder what this next set of adventures will bring.
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