Unexpected Travels, Part Two

I don't know exactly where the saying "expect the unexpected" comes from, but it is good advice for anyone who wants to visit or live in Thailand. I think that unless you wake up each day expecting to do something that you aren't planning to do, then you will be quite surprised with what you end up doing. Some days, we have things that we need to get done on that day, like pick up someone at the airport. That has a set date and time when it needs to happen. Other days, we have absolutely no plans and we just do whatever comes our way. Other days, we have plans for the day and I'd say we generally have about a 50% chance of sticking to those plans. In America, I consider myself a fairly flexible person. If I don't have plans I generally enjoy spur-of-the-moment activities, and even when I do have plans I can be convinced to set them aside sometimes and do other things. Here in Thailand, however, being flexible means something entirely different. It has meant driving out in the early morning with Rodney to drop off kids at school before I even showered and got dressed and ending up in a parade down the main street of a small town. It has meant sleeping at one of Phimpha's friend's houses (actually, a few different places,) without a change of clothes or anything more helpful than a cell phone and a flash drive because I was assured that we would make it home that night. As I wrote in my last post, it has meant crossing into a different country in order to legally stay in Thailand. (I'm sure there are more examples, but you get the idea.)

Last week, I thankfully got a little bit of a warning before my unexpected travels took place. Monday had been a pretty quiet day so far. The twins were the only kids home, and I had gotten to spend some time with the two Australian volunteers who arrived for a two-week stay. Phimpha had some visitors over for lunch, and they planned to come back when the kids were home from school to have a time of worship with everyone. Sometime in the afternoon, Phimpha mentioned to me that she and Rodney would be leaving the next day to drive about ten hours up north to attend a body ceremony, which is similar to a funeral. They are good friends with two sisters who live in Pattaya and one of their brothers had just passed away from cancer. The body ceremony was taking place in their hometown, and Rodney and Phimpha wanted to go to support them. Phimpha said that since we had two extra volunteers at that point I was welcome to come with if I wanted, or stay and help out with the kids. By the time evening rolled around, I had decided to stay at the Timothy House to help take care of the kids. Rodney and Phimpha planned to be away just about all week, and I figured Aden and Sharon (the two Australians) could use an extra hand. I guess I should have expected that the opposite would happen once I decided to stay! At about 9:00pm when I told Phimpha that I planned to stay at the Timothy House, she said that the two sisters would really appreciate it if I also went up to the body ceremony. She also said that we might be leaving that night instead of waiting for the next day. So I decided to go, and went to pack a bag just in case we drove up through the night. It was good that I did, because we left the house by 10:00!

We arrived in Uttaratit (one of Thailand's northern provinces) at about 8:00 am on Tuesday, and spent a good deal of time over the next couple days in the temple. The man who died was Buddhist, so the body ceremony had a lot of traditions that I had never seen before. There were several monks involved that did a lot of chanting, and the people there gave them lots of gifts and bowed towards them and towards the statues of Buddha placed around the temple. I don't know a whole lot about Buddhist beliefs, but as far as I have gathered, they think that when a person dies, s/he comes back in another form. If you're really good, you can hope to come back as someone more powerful or wealthy or with higher social standing. If you have been bad during your life, you will come back as someone with lower social standing, or maybe as some sort of an animal or a tree or something like that. Only extremely religious and good people could hope to reach nothingness, and only people even better than that could possibly reach Heaven. When they burn the body at the temple at the end of the last day of the body ceremony, onlookers watch to see if the smoke goes up or down. If the smoke rises, the deceased lived a good life. If the smoke falls, they did not.

So that part of the trip was definitely an interesting cultural experience for me, but it was also very good to go to be with our friends from Pattaya. I can't talk with them much, but whenever we stay at the church in Pattaya they take very good care of us. On the way home, we spent the night in Pattaya (Thursday night), and ended our journey with a surprise addition to our family: a one year and three month old boy named Moe! He is very cute. He will be staying with us for three months while his mother takes care of a court case and has no one to watch over him. Definitely a good way to end a trip that started out as a journey to a funeral!

So if you get the chance, please pray for Moe and his family! Pray that they all adjust to him being here and that the courts find justice and their hearts are healed and brought closer to Christ.
Please also pray for the country of Thailand. The political unrest has gotten worse and more violent.
And pray for the Timothy House, that God will provide everything that we need for continuing to do His work here.