A Few Days in Cha-am

Sometimes I have to pinch myself about where I am right this minute. I'm sitting in an internet cafe in a coastal Thai town called Cha-am. Almost everything is different that it would be back home. Even logging into Blogger, I have to remember where the log-in link is on the page because the normal Blogger text has been replaced with Thai script. It's probably ninety to ninety-five degrees and quite humid outside with just enough breeze to make sitting in the shade tolerable. I smell local street food mixing with the salty sea air and fumes from the cars, trucks, busses, and scooters lazily motoring by. Nobody is in a hurry. The light turns slowly golden-yellow, making even the nastiest of sights

beautiful. It's pretty great.

The last few days have been some of the most satisfying I've ever had with regard to shooting video. Last Sunday, future teammate Jason, a new acquaintance Joel, and I went out on a photo field trip, slowly walking down the beach, shooting anything that caught our eyes. After a while we came upon a small fishing community. The men were cleaning out their nets, pulling out the tiny remnants of crustaceans and fish they had caught throughout the day. Jason took the initiative and clambered out onto the bamboo structure and though he didn't know the language, he was able to get permission to shoot candid photos of the men and women working. I piggybacked on his initiative and got some incredible footage of the weathered hands and faces of the men sitting around cleaning their nets. So real. So unpretentious. As we moved on, we heard rhythms in the distance. We discovered the music was coming from a Buddhist monastery full of children studying to by monks. There was a group performing for them. They had a dragon like you would see at a Chinese New Year celebration, and they made a human tower in the span of a minute. As we were covertly shooting, one of the monks, perhaps in his late twenties, early thirties, approached us. I thought for sure he was going to ask us to leave, or that we had committed some sort of faux pas, but it turned out he was really interested in Jason's camera equipment. Jason let the monk use his camera, and our new friend proceeded to give Jason incredible flexibility to pose or shoot photos this monk. It was amazing how quickly something like photography was able to strike up a conversation, begin a relationship in a way I had never imagined. It was amazing.

The next day, in the evening, Jason, Joel and I went with our new friends Andrew and Jim on a dusky scooter drive along the coastal road our hotel is on. We dismounted our scooters, and

went on foot down the beach a ways to one of the tallest hotels in town, around 37 stories to the top of the roof. After walking right by the sleeping security guard, we made our way to the top of the building to catch the tail end of dusk, wind whipping us like crazy. From the top you

can see the whole town, for miles in every direction. You couldn't help but pray for the people

living there. Powerful stuff to see man's creation and God's creation overshadowing it in

the sea and mountains and night sky. On the way back, I climbed on the back of Jason's scooter and shot video as we zoomed down Cha-am's major streets. I took some of the most satisfyingly cool video I've ever taken, gripping Jason with my knees so I could have both hands free to shoot. Brilliant.

Today Jason, Joel and I went on a lit

tle trip on a couple scooters to see what can be seen. We ended up back at the same monastery as the other day, but had a much greater degree of comfortability going in. Our monk friend from the other day met up with us again, and I was practically invited to take video of the young monks in training. At least some of the kids were around ten years old, and were definitely boys, shoving and messing with each other. Never before have I assigned such a high degree of reality, of humanity to the Buddhist holy men. They've always seemed so austere, so distant, but these boys were boys. My heart began swelling with joy for these young monks, and yet gripped with sorrow at the way their time and lives are so far from knowing Christ. But if a simple visit with a camera can begin fostering a true relationship, there is hope abundant!

I have begun to learn to love the Thai people. They are beautiful and warm (at least outside of the big cities) and full of possibility. I can hardly wait to share more with you all, and want so badly for you all to love them as I am learning to do.

(All the photos here are screenshots from the video I took.)