Of Persistent Realities and Sticky Rice

Eak prepares the sticky rice under Meeo's supervision.

The fire has burned down by now.  Portions of bamboo form something of a teepee over the still-active embers, the rice inside molding itself into a long tube of sticky goodness to be revealed in a dramatic peel back, just a little later.  It's the best way to eat sticky rice.  Or, well, maybe also with mangoes and coconut milk.  And, or, yeah, all pounded and warm and purple.  Or there's when that purple kind is fried up in oil and served with honey.  

Sigh.  Now I'm hungry.  

Re-enacting the message to the Shepherds

I've spent New Years at Hot Springs at least twice.  Lots of sticky rice.  Lots of open-fire pork.  Lots of fireworks; those little poppers you can bang around with if you're a teenage boy and enjoy startling your sisters.  And some of those family-sized ones you can do when you have open space between the kitchen and the goat pen.  Exciting and scary enough if you're only seven.  I remember May laughing and cowering at the same time, coming to clutch me and stand just a little behind me as the louder bursts took flight, but cheering them on just the same.                                                                                                                                                  This year at Hot Springs, New Years and Christmas were very much combined.  School time took priority on December 25th.  Not only is it not a national holiday in Thailand, but this year, due to time lost earlier by lockdowns, all of December required our kids to be in class six days a week.  And then, by December 27, a Sunday, the focus was on celebrating Christmas together as a Church community.

So it wasn't until New Year's Eve that the extra money sent by some of our loyal friends was used to make for a bigger party.  It was fun watching it unfold in real time with the videos and pictures Surdaet sent through Facebook messenger.  (Head over to New Family Foundation Facebook's page for more.)  And of course, Ken and I got to welcome in the New Year twice, since they were saying hello to 2021 at noon our time.  

Good times.  A few welcome days off school.  And then.

After months of having Covid-19 well under control, Thailand is now experiencing a similar kind of second wave surge, as is much of the world.  The numbers there are still astonishingly low, given the population is double that of Canada.  Last report (as of January 9, 2021) was 10,053 cases and 67 deaths.  But it's alarming enough for the Thai government to reinstate a lockdown that has the children learning online from home once again.

You have to imagine this for a family of 20.  

On Sunday, February 14 Highview's Sunday morning service will highlight the partnership we have with New Family Foundation, and you will hear, interview style, directly from Suradet and Yupa how it is to manage online learning for so many kids all the way from grade 1 to 12.  I'll wait and let them tell you themselves.  (hcckw.ca)  But, man!!!  I'm feeling this with them big time.

It's an interesting time to be doing this kind of work.  The demands are great and the future is uncertain.  Plans we had for property development chug on.  We now have a road!!  But then what?  For all of us, anywhere in the world, attention continues to be diverted away from the far away horizon into the immediacy of the here and now.  Understandably so.  Especially when politics and the economy are also so very adversely affected....and I'm not talking here about North America.

I find in these days of uncertainty great comfort in the inspiration of my Thai family and their long faithfulness in the midst of chronic poverty and distress.  We in the Western world are more shocked that such bad things as pandemics and political uprisings could happen to us, or at the very least, so very close by.  They are not so surprised at all.  We tend to believe that life is supposed to be tilted in our favour, and if, by some strange circumstance, we find ourselves in some sort of duress, it will be resolved quickly.  We might even think we can demand it to be so.  They make no such demands.

How we're responding is called white privilege.  How they're responding is called persistence in the face of reality.

As always, I learn so much from them.  I am humbled and rebuked.  I am as hungry for this kind of persistent patience as I am for sticky rice.

As I write, it's looking like, at the very earliest, October 2021 may open up as a possible time for travel to Thailand again.  That will mean a one year and 10 month absence.  Not even sure why I mention this, except that it helps me somehow to make that dreadful thought more real.  

In the meantime, there is some real possibility of starting our first major fundraising effort to secure the next steps in property ownership and development.  And, come to think of it, a big part of this might not have been possible except I'm grounded for a while.

So there's that.

Thank you from the deepest places of me for all those who are faithfully continuing to support us n our work of providing a loving home for orphaned and at-risk children in Northern Thailand.  It's our objective to help them achieve their best potential in their education towards a strong future.  No pandemic changes that.

Blessings and health to all.