That First-Last Hot February

It's been a heat-seeking kind of day.

Winter is roaring outside and the cold is seeping in.  Frugality prompts the continuation of the furnace set-back long practiced when no one was in the house Tuesday to Friday,  The only-heat-the-room you're-in contingencies are struggling to keep up in wind chills of -21 C.  I can hear it, the wind.  And the sound makes me tuck into my fleece blanket more snugly, here now in front of the fire I've just lit in the family room.

January is howling into February.
And actually, I don't mind.
I'm just about to swing back over to Thai life.

I just checked.  In Chiang Mai the projected high for Tuesday, January 29 is 32 C.  That's without the humidex.  That means in just over a week I'll be making something like a 55 degree adjustment in temperature.  Yup.

Back to the heat of Thailand I go, there for the second time this winter.  This has been the shortest turn around ever.  Only two months in between.  Two exceptionally full, strategically important, and robustly challenging months for me personally, and in the story of this like-family partnership that Highview stepped into with Hot Springs eleven years ago. 

February is significant.

It was a hot February when we first ventured out to see what God was doing in Southeast Asia.  It was a hot February when we first met two remarkable people who were risking their own well-being and livelihood in order to feed and clothe and love desperate children.  It was a hot February when God gripped my heart, and the hearts of others who went, and the hearts of those who even just heard about it after we got back.   And we signed up and signed on.  That was when we all - Suradet and Yupa, all the children, and every Sponsor, every person who's support this - stepped into something that none of us could have imagined would turn out this way.

And here we are, so many trips later.  And I'm pretty sure that this will be my first trip there in February since that first-last one.

I'm smiling at myself right now.

Strewn in systematic chaos across the pool table downstairs are supplies for twenty seven Bible lessons, random ESL materials, twenty five surprise Valentine's creations for Sponsors, beads and books and badges, random Canadian trinkets from the Dollar Store, printouts for four sermons, and various and sundry bring-next-time items from my list made in November.  The planning is intense, because now I have at least some idea of what I'm supposed to do when I get there.

Back then, that first time?  Not so much.

And what's sobering me right now, as I remember not just the first trip, but many, many trips in those first early years, is how very patient and respectful they all have been with me as I have stumbled my way into having any meaningful contribution at all.   The mistakes I've made!  The grace I've been offered!  So many good and wretched lessons in humility.

The reason for such a quick turn around this time, is to be there when New Family Foundation takes on the responsibility of the children officially.    More strategically important and robustly challenging meetings are in the works for sure.  And there are moments to mark, people to thank, and some brave servants of God to encourage and cheer.  And of course, there's the children.

I seek the heat today, but soon I will be in heat-avoidance mode.  I'll be glad of the AC in my room and ice cold bottles of water and the fan that I can set up if I want to sit outside.  I'll be careful not to catch a cold in the bone chilling 19 C temperatures that can happen overnight.  And the only howling I'll hear is the pack of wild dogs that run through the neighbourhood when everyone else is in bed.

February will howl into March.
I will swing back again into Canadian life.
Two book-end Februarys in between.

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Some dates fyi:

Sunday, February 3 - Speaking at Highview Community Church for the first of the "Go and See" series.
Wednesday, February 6 - On my way.  Flight leaves 11:40 a.m.
Sunday, February 10 - Haiti Team Report at Highview, second of the "Go and See" series.

Wednesday, March 6 - Arrive home at 9:15 a.m.

Stay tuned for more stories and adventures from Thailand.