Children's Choir... Asian Style

Merry Christmas

Suk San Wan Kis Sa Mas

I do hope that everyone is having sweet fellowship with family and friends. 

Our Christmas Eve was the first day off we have really had since Thanksgiving, so we enjoyed it thoroughly. We delivered cookies to some of our friends around town. Melody and I made homemade pizza for our Christmas Eve meal, grabbed our hymnals and went caroling to some beautiful friends of ours here in town, ended the night watching "Meet Me in St. Louis", and before bed we spent some time on skype chattin with the fam.

For Christmas Day we woke up and the 3 of us roomies exchanged our gifts and I made french toast. We got all dressed up in our Asian attire and headed to a service held here in town. One of my favorite things about living here is watching locals get excited about worshiping our Father. So much joy in the fact that our Savior chose to save us in this way. In the form of a baby boy, born into our mess to save us from our sin and rebellion. 

Being away from home/America during this time has of course been difficult in many ways. I miss my beautiful family and my hilarious friends so very much. But it has been helpful in many ways to really view this holiday for what it is instead of what American culture has made it out to be. The locals here have no idea what Christmas in America looks like. They have no idea of our traditions and customs, so being included in their own Christmas traditions and customs has been such a blessing to my heart this season. They celebrate all month long and this week you can find a celebration/service every evening and every morning. They truly just want to worship Father and use this time (that officials have allowed them to have) to celebrate in multitudes the miraculous birth of our Savior.

This video was taken at a local Christmas celebration on the 23rd. In my eyes its the closest thing to a children's choir you can get here. This celebration was such a beautiful picture of the body coming together to truly prepare their hearts for the birth of Christ and what this holiday truly means. These kids were absolutely adorable performing their "faoun" or dance, and I just had to share with y'all. The little guy in the middle is obviously the center of attention....

The lyrics to many hymns have been in my head for awhile now (mainly because we have sung them throughout the house and on road trips since Thanksgiving), but the words have never meant so much to me as they have this Christmas. I leave you with a few of my favorite verses to 3 of my favorite Christmas Hymns.

O holy child of Bethlehem! Descend to us we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today! We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel!

Come to Bethlehem, and see Him whose birth the angels sing; Come, adore on bended knee Christ the Lord, the newborn KING.

Silent night, holy night, Son of God, Love's pure light. Radiant beams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace.

JESUS, LORD AT THY BIRTH!

"For to us a child is born, 

to us a son is given"

Isaiah 9:6

Don't knock it till you try it!

You know that saying….. “Don’t knock it till you try it.” I have said this many times in my life about a bunch of different foods. One thing I enjoy eating in the states is ketchup with mac n cheese. I know, I know, but…… Don’t knock it till you try it! Right? Everybody has their weird combo of foods that someone down the line said to you, “Don’t knock it till you try it.” And if your brave enough to try it, sometimes you find out that you like it and sometimes you find out that you were right in thinking it looked gross. But in those situations, the saying holds true. You receive permission in a way after you have tried something to speak negative words towards it.

Well where I live now, that phrase has brought on a whole new meaning to my life, and honestly a whole new level of bravery in exploration of foods. I have been lucky because there have been just a few times since I have been here when I literally didn’t know what I was eating, but to be kind and gracious to the host….. I ate it with a smile, I might not have finished it, but I ate until I was no longer hungry.

Tonight was a little different. I knew exactly what I was eating and it was a little bit harder to eat it with a smile, or eat until I was not hungry. 

Some friends took us to a special restaurant in that it served dog meat. I have had dog meat before, it’s not my favorite, but it’s not terrible, so at this point I wasn’t completely freaked out. (not excited, but not freaked out) We sat down and we all were engaged in some fun conversations when the plate came out. It was a small plate full of tiny pieces of grilled food. I recognized the dog meat, but there was one other thing on the plate I was not so sure of.

Our host put a piece of the unknown substance in each of our bowls. In my head I thought, “Don’t ask what this is because if you know you won’t want to eat it.” But my mouth spoke before I could tell it to stop. I asked what it was as I picked it up with my chopsticks. Mel looked at me and said, “I think it’s dog innards.” This is the point when I lowered my chopsticks and second guessed this whole situation. I examined it more closely and yes, yes it was dog innards. What particular innard, you might ask? Well I don’t know, maybe intestine, maybe liver, maybe stomach, maybe all of the above, who knows. Our host pointed at the “jao” which is basically a form of Asian hot sauce. I smiled dipped it in the jao and mustered up every form of food bravery I could manage and ate it. It was chewy, it was different, it was a little spicy, and it was tolerable.

My natural instinct is to avoid these crazy things all together. I wouldn't say that I go out and try to find situations in which I can eat these foods. I only eat them if they are given to me and it would be rude not to eat. But I think I do have a little bit of pride that pushes me to try these new things and be able to hold it down. I'm not gonna lie, that pride helps in situations like these. Maybe its competition with myself to see if I can eat all of these different foods, I don't know, but it sure came in handy when I ate the 3rd or 4th piece. I moved onto the dog meat after it looked like I had enjoyed the innards. Ironically, the meat was a pleasant change. I'm not a texture person. I can handle something that doesn't taste good, what I can't handle is something that feels disgusting in my mouth. I can now say that dog meat AND dog innards are both in the bad texture but tolerable taste category. Both are tolerable when I am given it to eat (and I know now that I can eat it with a smile), but lets make it clear that I will not be ordering a plate of either one of these for myself.... ever.

The girls that I was with have lived here for awhile and are use to being served these different foods, so they were eating them much more quickly then I was able to, so that gave me hope that one day I will have had plenty of experience and built up a sense of food tolerance. 

Thank you SE Asia for your (always exciting) food choices. You keep me on my toes and make me check my bravery on occasion. 

It's like this culture reminds me of the saying... Don't knock it till you try it!

Would you like some hot tea?

This morning our MaBon (housekeeper) came over to clean the house. She isn't feeling well at all today. When she came this morning, she told me that she wasn't feeling well and I realized I didn't know how to say anything that showed that I cared for her and wished her well (thats going in my next language lesson). I was a little frustrated that I couldn't say anything to show her that I cared for her. I wish I could express to y'all how much I deeply care and love this woman. I knew her from my 2009 trip, and she has shown nothing but love and care to me all of the days that I have known her. That is truly how she is to everyone around her. She is diligent and hard working. She will come to our aide whenever we need her (example: I locked myself out of my bathroom and she called a locksmith for us). She is a person I have come to love and cherish.  


Later this morning, I went to the kitchen to make some hot tea for myself and I heard her coughing in the next room. I decided I would make her a cup too, but my mind went blank on how to ask someone if they would like some tea. I stood there for a second (or two or thirty) to try and put the sentence together in my head. It's such a simple sentence, but thats what happens to my brain on a Monday morning. I finally figured out how to say something of the sort, so I got her attention and asked. She laughed a little at my language, but she grateful said, "Yes that would be good." as she patted her chest and throat to show it really would help. I was filled with so much joy that I finally could show someone in this country that I care about them in their heart language. Father was so good to me in helping me remember those words and giving me the thought to make her some tea. It not only encouraged me with language but also to love on our sweet MaBon.


After a little over a month of language learning, I can confidently say it has been everything and anything but easy. It has pushed me to my limit on many levels. It's one thing to study a language in a classroom with assignments, quiz's, and exams, but living in the culture and being surrounded by people who do not speak english or can speak very little english is something completely different. You lose all sense of identity, competence, and confidence (all of which we were warned about over and over again at training). 


I have had good days, really good moments, bad days and some really really bad days. There has been days when I could understand a good bit of the language around me, but then there have been days when I don't feel like I've been studying the language at all. Those days, unfortunately, have been the majority lately. BUT this makes the good days and really good moments so much sweeter. Some of the greatest highs that I have experienced here has been when I can create my own sentence that I came up with on my own to a complete stranger, or when I can hold a conversation with someone, or tell a long story to a friend about my life, or just simply understanding what someone is saying to me.


On the days when I am not looking forward to adding new vocabulary to my language snowball or studying for another 3 hours, I always come back to "why am I learning this crazy language again?" Every time I think about this, I have to come back to "why did I move to the other side of the world?" and "why did I leave home and family for 2 years?".  Every time I come back to the good news. 


I came to this beautiful country to share the greatest story every told. News that can bring hope to their hopeless lives. News that can bring them joy and a purpose. News that can bring them out of blindness and out of death. News that changed the world. News that changed me. I didn't come because of me and my desires. I came because I love my Father and my Father loves these people. If I want to share, I must share it in their heart language. Right now, I obviously don't have the language to share the good news, but persistence, endurance, and focus during this time of studying will lead to that.


While offering hot tea is not sharing the good news, it still served it's purpose of showing someone in a different country, with a different language then my own that I care about her. She knows what I believe and I hope that our care for her speaks volumes. 


Please lift up this sweet woman. She is not a daughter to the Father, but she has heard the good news before. Ask that her heart is opened to understand the good news, and her eyes be opened to just how good Father is.

Beautiful

If you know me you should know that I use the word "beautiful" probably a little bit to often. I don't know when I picked it up or why I started using it so much, but now it seems like it is my adjective for everyone and everything. One "beautiful" friend pointed this out to me a couple months ago and I have been pondering the thought of "beautiful people" and "beautiful things" since then. 


Lately, Father has been showing me many things about myself that are not so beautiful and rather are nasty, dirty, and so very sinful. Moving to this "beautiful country" has brought about many opportunities to learn about myself. About how I react to high stress situations, how I act to feeling incompetent in life, how I handle the difficulty of learning a language, and basically how I adapt to such a huge life transition. All of these things at some point have brought about some nasty reactions and some sinful parts of my heart that I don't enjoy viewing.


In viewing this hidden sin in my life, there have been days when I have been discouraged and times when I don't understand how in the world Father can continually show me grace. I sometimes think he gets annoyed or frustrated with me when I continue in my sin, (making Father out to be someone He is not is a whole other blog) and I think that he gives me grace because He has to.... you know because he is the Almighty and thats what he does and suppose to do.

Sometimes I get more shameful and embarrassed at the thought of how people will view me if they knew my sin and if their opinion of me would change, then i do when I think about Father viewing my sin. So dumb! How much more does Father know about me than anyone on this earth and how much more does it hurt Him to see His daughter sin against HIm. He sees my sin every day, every single last sinful thought that I have he sees in that moment. The thought of Him being all knowing plus the hope that people wouldn't change their opinion about me is the reason I sometimes feel like Father gets frustrated with me in my sin.

When you think about the good news and what it really means to be made alive,  you have to think about what you came from. When Father chooses to save you, he literally pulls you out of a dead sea. We were lifeless, without any hope at all. Drowning in our sin. We were dust on the earth. No form, no purpose. That glorious day when He pulled you out of death and dust, he formed you into a beautiful thing. He made you righteous in His sight no matter the sin you lived in. Even though we sin against the Almighty daily, He will see us through His sons blood on that day when we stand before Him.

While we are still living on this earth he DELIGHTS in making us look, reflect, think, act, speak, and love like Him. This truth is so sobering for me. He NEVER looks at me with frustrated eyes or annoyance at my repentance. When I come to Him with sorrow over sinning against Him, He will never begrudgingly give me grace. 

Behold my servant, whom I uphold, 

 my chosen, in whom my soul delights; 

I have put my Spirit upon him; 

he will bring forth justice to the nations.

Isaiah 42:1

My son, do not despise the Lords discipline

or be weary of his reproof

for the Lord reproves those he loves

as a father the son in whom he delights.

Proverbs 3:12

I think that Father rolls his eyes at me when I ask for forgiveness yet again for that sin that I keep going back to. I feel so shameful for the sin that I have so much trouble with and seem to never be rid of. BUT Oh, how he delights in our repentance, he delights in our desire to be like HIm, he delights that we hate our sin, he delights in making us beautiful.


A song that I have always loved has come back into my life recently (I go through cycles of listening to my music, so sometimes I neglect some of my favorites because I try to listen to all of my music.... random weird thing about Katy). Of course the title is "Beautiful Things" by a band named Gungor. (Go listen to it now if you've never heard it!!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyPBtExE4W0&feature=related) The chorus is simply this:

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us


You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new
You are making me new


Praise Father that he is making me new and he makes beautiful things out of dust and of us (we were dust) because if He didn't I would still be a dead lifeless, hopeless body drowning in my sin. With his salvation he made us ALIVE and with  his discipline, reproof, and continual grace he makes us BEAUTIFUL!! 


So in conclusion, I have decided that I like the word "beautiful" even more now and will continue to use it. Saying that a person is beautiful holds so much more weight to me now and I love it. I love that it means more than just a superficial descriptive word or just some random thing that I do. It is an adjective that describes what Father is making us out to be. 

Why shouldn't I use this word maybe a little bit to often?!

World Series

So if you are a true American, you have been indulging in and completely consumed by the great American past time that is the World Series! If you are not a true American (David Azam) you probably had to be reminded of this phenomenon and have probably been annoyed with the amount of attention it has been getting this month. Especially since the RANGERS have made it to the World Series.

For me, this series has been a bit different. Not only have I had to resort to watching the gameplay mode on the MLB website, but the games have been starting at 7am. So this past week, I woke up, got ready, grabbed my breakfast, sat down with my word and journal, and read while I occasionally glanced at the screen to see who was batting and what big plays had happened. My language lessons start at 9, so I didn't get to finish the games. After language I would get back on the internet and watch all of the highlights to the games and post game interviews. haha. It was a surprisingly difficult adjustment not getting to watch my RANGERS play in the World Series.

BUT during Game 6 and 7, I skyped with my sister and she (lovingly) set her computer up on a stool in front of the TV.  I missed out on most of Game 6 because of my language lesson, so apparently I missed the most intense innings of the whole series. But Game 7 was Saturday morning for me. I had no responsibilities for that morning, so I was able to watch the vast majority of the game. It was a devastating lose and I definitely had to remind myself that its just baseball and I'm in SE Asia where there isn't even a word in this language that describes baseball!


So even though my team lost (which I'm still trying to get over), I'm thankful I at least was able to watch a few innings of a couple games.

Kassidy's living room.

My computer screen.