I'm 4 months Old Today!

Today marks the official 4 months of living in SE Asia. It feels like forever and then it feels like I just got off the plane. It has been 4 months full of so much laughter, so many smiles, so many good times, and it has also been 4 rough months. It hasn't been easy, I had some heart aches I didn't think I would face, had some culture shock I was naive to, battled sin that I was not aware of before coming here, learned a great deal about myself (and it's not pretty), needless to say moving to a foreign country is not the easiest thing a person could do, but Father has proven his faithfulness every day.


As I sit here and think about what has happened in just 4 months, its crazy.
-After a couple of short days here, I found out my job would completely change.
-I have been through a little under 4 months of language learning. (very easily one of the hardest things I've ever done, and it's not over)
-I have literally traveled to almost every corner of this country.
-I have said "Hello, I am learning to speak L" (in my new language) about a thousand times.
-Had my first Thanksgiving and Christmas away from my beautiful family.
-Ridden on the bumpiest roads known to man.
-Been car sick on the road with the most curves in the world.
-Received beloved packages from a home far away.
-Made a super sweet awesome Christmas DVD for Mel and I's families.
-Ate some disgusting different food.
-Found some new favorite dishes that I am already trying to figure out how I can recreate in the states.
-Increased my ability to eat spicy tremendously.
-I have conquered the motorbike.
-Made some friends that I will have for life and had to leave them in a town that I personally think is SE Asia paradise.
-Moved to the opposite end of this country.

And now I am starting a completely new adventure that only Father could bring me on.
-I taught some women today about working with children. IS THIS REAL LIFE?!
-I am about to chaperone these 3 local women on an overnight bus ride to Bangkok. Crazy Right?!
-Some how survive a few weeks in Bangkok. (Yes, I am nervous about living in BKK for that long.)
-After BKK, it is back home to start this whirlwind of opening a preschool in this country.
-My BEST FRIEND is coming to visit!!! That's right people, Melanie Barker will be eating dog and battling mosquitos in mid March!
-I'm starting to help plan my families visit!! They will be heading over this summer. Let's all start lifting up their culture shock shall we?!
-By August we hope to be a running preschool....


WOW!! What a crazy ride this has been/or has just started out to be!


Through these 4 months, I have learned to appreciate Philippians 4:4-7:
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again i will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."


Ephesians 2:1-9 says that we were DEAD before Christ. Once Christ came to our rescue, we are ALIVE in Him. And it is only by GRACE. Not by anything I have done.

With this gift, how do you not have reason to rejoice?! This has come to life on a few days when I have been filled with worry, anxiety, loneliness, or frustration. I have the only thing worth living for! Not money, not possessions, not world travel, not adventure, not any worldy thing. I have my Savior living inside of me and with that I will Rejoice always!

So here is to the rest of my time in SE Asia. I know it will be tough, I know it will be hard, I know that it will be filled with difficulties, but I also know it will be filled with friendships and love and kids and teaching and singing and learning. Through all of it I will say....

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice! Philippians 4:4

That's Normal Here #1

Because I live in SE Asia, I have gotten used to many different things. Some are obvious changes, and some are subtle.

For example: I was sitting here listening to a good ole David Platt sermon and a large hornet (about the size of my finger) flew in my open front door. I barely glanced up and then went back to taking notes and listening to the sermon. I then glanced back up to marvel at it's size and realized that this would not be normal in America. I am now sharing my living room with a large hornet. I'm not keeping track of where it's flying or if it is getting close to me. I now know that there is a very slim chance of it getting near me and it's not worth it to try and get him out of the house. The door is staying open, so it will fly out sooner or later. No big deal... or at least it's no big deal in SE Asia. haha.

(he flew out of the house before I finished writing this blog)

As I sat down to right this blog, I was about to start writing out a long list of things that I am now use to because of my change of location, but instead I thought this would be a fun way to create a blog series. This is the first of many many to come, and I hope it brings y'all some idea of what it's like to live on this side of the world.

So here is to the first "That's Normal Here..." blog series.

2011 Book List

I was thinking about writing some sort of New Years Blog, but really didn't know what to write about. I'm not really a new years resolution person, so I brainstormed on something fun to do for the beginning of the year and came up with a list of the books I read throughout 2011.

This past year has been the first year when I have had time for myself to be able to read what I want to read. I graduated from college in December of 2010, so this whole year I haven't had to give my time to textbooks. I must say it has been glorious! It seems like this is the first phase of my life when I have had time to read what I want, so in a way I feel like I'm just diving into the depths of reading, and I'm looking forward to getting into a wider selection of books to discover. Anyways, I'm sure you all don't really care about that.... So I hope you enjoy, and can share your own favorite books you have read this year and what you are looking foward to reading in 2012.

Here is my list of 2011 books:

Kite Runner
By: Khaled Hosseini
One of my top favorites!
I love books that get you 
into another culture.

Thousand Splendid Suns
By: Khaled Hosseini
Maybe even better than
Kite Runner.

Beastly
By: Alex Flinn
Saw the movie, so I had to
read the book.

Something Borrowed
By: Emily Giffin
Cute, fun, summer read.

Water for Elephants
By: Sara Gruen
The one book that I can say
the movie is better.

HP #7
By: J.K. Rowling
Had to re-read it before the last
movie came out. I'm not sure how
many times I have read this one.

The Help
By: Kathryn Stockett
Book is better then the movie,
and the movie is excellent.

Fifth Avenue, 5AM
By: Sam Wasson
Interesting book about Audrey
and Breakfast at Tiffany's. I got
this off of my friends book blog list. 

Pride and Prejudice
By: Jane Austen
This one is a usual read.
I pick it up when I'm not
sure what to read next.
Love it!

Lineage of Grace
By: Francine Rivers
Francine does not disappoint.
This one is compiled of short
stories of the women in Jesus'
lineage.

Books that I am planning on tackling throughout 2012:

Hunger Games Triology
By: Suzanne Collins
I know I know I know.
I've heard all kinds of things
about these. I promise
I will read them soon!

Through Gates of Splendor
By: Elisabeth Elliot
Love me a good biography.

PS. I love you
By: Cecelia Ahern
Don't judge. I like books
that were turned into movies.

Girl With a Dragon Tattoo
By: Stieg Larsson
Still not sure if these will
be read, but I've heard a
bunch of crazy things about
them.

God is the Gospel
By: John Piper
My roomie said this one
is awesome.

Jane Eyre
By: Charlotte Bronte
I feel uneducated because I
don't know this story. This
will change.

Three Cups of Tea
By: Greg Mortenson &
David Oliver Relin
I've heard great things
about this one.

Same Kind of Different as Me
By: Ron Hall & Denver Moore
Heard it was good.

The Color Purple
By: Alice Walker
Always wanted to read it.
Might as well.

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!