What I Need and What I Want

I've been reviewing the video footage I captured in Thailand. My poor little camera (my better camera was too big to take on this trip) has seen better days. It began crapping out a little, the tiny flip-out screen beginning to flicker and sputter every now and again. The footage I got with this stalwart soldier of a camera is adequate, but I've certainly reached the end of its usefulness. Perhaps this was this little camera's last hurrah.

Working within the limitations of my equipment is something I'm fairly accustomed to. I'm used to taking sub-standard equipment and either making do, or pushing it to it's limits of use. Using my little camera has given me reason to reflect on whether my dissatisfaction in my equipment is justifiable: am I ungrateful for what I have, or do I really desire to do the very best I can? I long for the chance to work with equipment that does what I want it to do, that allows me to be limited more by my own creativity and less by my gear. I've begun to pray that God would allow me to have a couple pieces of equipment, including a particular video camera which would be perfect for the kind of work I will be doing. This camera costs thousands of dollars, but I'm beginning to understand trusting God in prayer. Please pray with me that He will allow me to have the proper tools for this work. I want badly to give my very best, and while I don't know how I can get this equipment, I know He can do it. Pray with me. Thanks.

5318

Impressions Part 1

I shall return to Chiang Mai.

I’m starting this blog around 11:45 pm in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport, arguably the least comfortable and least inviting airport in the world. We are wrapping up our two and a half week trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, desperately trying to reset our internal clocks back 14 hours by staying up far beyond the point of exhaustion. Well, I’m staying up as late as I can. Mandi is currently trying to sleep on the cold and hard airport floor, which seems to be inviting the stares of every Thai person walking by. I don’t know if we’re being culturally insensitive or just some sort of farang freak show on display for everyone to gawk at. Either way, I’m just tired enough to be less understanding and more irritable about the one-sided staring contest. Great time to write and reflect on our trip, no?

Mandi and I, on our plane ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, were talking a bit about our return to the states, and the slight dread of the inevitable repeated question, “How was your trip?” Every major trip involves about a week of that same question, slowly driving you mad, or at least motivating you less and less to give trip details, and motivating you more and more to hone in on that elusive under-one-minute synopsis. So I’m going to provide my take on our trip here in digital form so that we have a place to refer people to if they desire further information.

The phrase “I shall return” seems to encapsulate my feelings about this trip. I began the trip with the goal of impartiality, to observe and weigh my options without getting too caught up in the experience. That mode of operation didn’t last long. Once we really got into the trip, experiencing life in Chiang Mai, meeting loads of Pioneers personnel, I was hooked and sold very quickly. Coming in, I really didn’t know what, or rather who, to expect. I had “met” a handful of the people working in Chiang Mai via email or Skype, but had no concrete reference as to who these people were and what they were really like. I can get along with a wide spectrum of personalities, but I truly enjoy a much narrower slice of that same spectrum. It’s like my personality can coexist with a full rainbow of colors, but really does well with emerald green, or chartreuse, or mauve. Much to my surprise, I found that many of the people working in the SE Asia area are remarkably close to that emerald green, chartreuse, or mauve I was really hoping for, a huge blessing and relief, to be sure.

4539

Impressions Part 2

There were three distinct parts to our trip, so distinct that it felt a bit like we had taken three separate trips. Our first trip was with our friends the Sheahans, who were extraordinarily generous with their time, and kind in helping us secure some fabulous and inexpensive housing for the first few days. We were shown around several markets in town, given pointers on how to navigate the city, and were exposed to a variety of ethnic foods (and to the concept of ridiculously-cheap eating out.) We got lost for the first time, took our first songthaw and tuk-tuk rides, and began our crash course in Thai culture. Our second trip was out at Pioneers’ SE Asia retreat. There we got a chance to meet the area and team leaders before most of the others arrived, got a chance to meet handfuls of really great people originally from the US and Australia and all over Asia, and told our stories over and over (a bit of foreshadowing of telling about this trip over and over up our return...?) We spent a lot of time in the sun, chatting with new friends, and played the coolest game of Ultimate Frisbee ever with the youth and their incredible retreat leaders. (Ever played Ultimate at night in the dark with a light-up frisbee and 2,000 glow-sticks marking the field and the two teams as a thunderstorm approached? If you ever get the chance, take it!) We were able to make some real connections with real people, and it was awesome. Our third trip was back in town, a whirlwind tour of CommNet’s (the team I’ll be joining as soon as I can) future beginnings and teammates. We celebrated Easter with the regional leader here and felt very much like a part of the family. We participated in Songkran, a three-day Thai celebration centered around the world’s largest waterfight. (I’ve never experienced anything like it. People stand on the side of the road near the center of town, or drive in vehicles around the center of town, and spray, splash and douse every human being in sight for three whole days. And everybody loves it. Not a sour face to be seen, despite perhaps having been sprayed right in the face while riding a motor scooter. It’s crazy.) I ate my first calamari (in a fantastic curry) and my first grasshopper (deep-fried, everything tastes the same, though the texture of eating a good-sized bug was a little unnerving.) I also got to drive for the first time on the left side of the road, shifting with my left hand (Thanks Kelly!) My future CommNet teammate, Jason, is an intense, insightful, and passionate photographer (and an INTP like me, for those of you who know Meyers-Briggs) with whom I am very excited to work. He’s the man, for sure, and I very much look forward to working with him. And now we’re heading back home, despite not really wanting to. Three trips, all great in their own way.

I took plenty of video footage on this trip, but it’s going to take a bit to compile it and make something interesting and useful out of it. I’ll post it here when it’s ready, but it’ll probably be a couple weeks.

I think to a small degree this trip feels like a bit of a tease, a glimpse at what could be, but won’t happen for a while. But I’m going to see it as a taste of things to come, a shadow of things to come. I can’t say I’m looking forward to going back to life as usual, a job I’m not always satisfied with, but now there is the tiniest glimpse at what God has for me, and that will have to be enough. Please pray with me for the thing I’ve been praying for for so long: patience. I just can’t seem to understand the years of waiting, culminating to more waiting, soon followed by still more waiting. I’m sure my lack of patience is in part due to my inability to fully relinquish my life into His hands. I know that He is good and everything happens for a reason, a good and perfect plan, and I need to learn to put trust in that. He certainly answered my prayers for this trip: safety, revelation, and good health. And where He is faithful in the small things in life, he’s unbelievably faithful in the big things in life. I pray I can give it all to Him. If anyone can change my impatient heart, surely the creator of the universe can do wonders. Thanks for your prayers, and keep ‘em coming. Blessings to you all.

I shall return to Chiang Mai.

More video goodness!!!

4401

It's a video update!!!

4266

First day out and about

Hello everyone in internet land!

Our second day here in Chiang Mai was a bit more eventful than the day before. (Wouldn't take much excitement to beat a day of napping and eating, I suppose.) Our friends the Sheahans treated us to lunch (never would have thought to put pork and mint leaves together, but it was quite tasty) and then took us out to a large market area in the heart of the city. While Mandi and Anne headed deep into the bowels of the market (okay, so that's not really accurate, but I have a daily quota of semi-gross words to meet, and "bowel" always seems borderline-crude) Dave and I went and met Andy, a man who's been doing media in Chiang Mai for a couple years. Andy is certainly a great contact to have here, and it was great for Dave to arrange this meeting.

We met up with the ladies at the market, where I WAS HIT BY AN SUV!!!

Okay, I don't often take the chance to play with a bit of sensationalism. The fact is that on a crowded market street, as an SUV tried to get by me from behind, its mirror nicked my elbow. It was surprising, but not painful in the least. And now I'm done exaggerating. Well, we'll see.

Mandi and Anne

Fruit and the feet of a monk.

People and things.

Getting coffee in the market.

The markets were not quite what I was expecting. Last time I was in a market like that was in Nairobi with Daylan, and the sales people could be pretty aggressive. The people here weren't aggressive in the slightest, at least not the ones we saw. We did a bit more perusing and then Anne, Mandi, and I headed to an eatery close to where we're staying. Anne explained how to get back to our lodging, marked it on the map we had, and we promptly got lost (to no fault of Anne's), despite being within easy walking distance.

Certain signs seemed to look familiar, but most places are written in the Thai script, and as much as I wish I could read the stuff, it all looks like a bunch of unintelligible squiggles. Being lost can have its charms, the whole adventure of it all, but after about a half hour I was pretty irritated that I couldn't find this place. It seemed so easy early on, and the fact that I couldn't find something easy to find annoyed me greatly. (I'm not fun at all when I'm irritated. Mandi can back me up on that.) So eventually we got in contact with Dave via the cellphone they loaned us (thank God for that!) and he asked for a landmark. I told him we were by the temple near the place we're staying. I knew it was a stupid answer because there are a bajillion temples in Chiang Mai. He asked me if there were any locals around, and told me to hand the phone to someone. The nearest person to me was guy with motorbike grease on his hands, and in English I asked him to talk on the phone, despite him not knowing any English at all. It was really awkward for me, and really confusing for him. Anyway, he talked to Dave a bit, explained where we were, and handed the phone back with a smile. I don't even know how to say thank you. That's gotta change. Anyway, within five minutes of getting directions from Dave, we made it back. The nice part is that we won't be getting lost, at least not in the same place, like that again. That was our adventure for the day. The rest of the evening is too boring to mention. That is all. Cheers.

4133

Chiang Mai, safe and sound

Still extraordinarily tired, but thought I'd let y'all know we made it safe and sound. Our friends have provided a wonderful place to stay and we're ready to commence resting and getting our internal clocks 14 hours ahead of where they normally are. We shall see how that goes. Ta for now.

Bangkok, nearly there...

Tokyo, not quite there...

Despite being a 12+ hour flight, the journey from Portland to Tokyo wasn’t all that bad. It was the first time I have been on a flight that served two full meals, the second one being breakfast despite the fact that it was not morning in either Portland or Japan, so I’m still a little fuzzy on that one.

Being on a flight with a significant number of Japanese people brought a whole new mindset for me. Being nearly 6’5”, I just don’t think about boarding a plane and getting my bag in the overhead compartment. As we were boarding I didn’t really notice anyone else getting their belongings properly stowed, but mid-flight I couldn’t help but notice what would be a bit of an issue for a smaller people. I watched as a man got up out of his seat and proceeded to climb onto the arm of his seat and blindly dig through a bag he couldn’t properly see in the overhead compartment. I wonder if this is just normal fare for smaller people groups, or whether planes designed with smaller people in mind have more readily accessible storage. A silly thing to occupy my thoughts, but many of you know I often think long and hard about things of little or no real importance.

I was thinking on the plane how long flights are a bit like some sort of odd, dysfunctional surrogate family. People can’t choose their family members, and on a plane you can’t choose your flight-mates. You’re all in it together and you all are experiencing the same basic things: turbulence, bad food, good food, foul odors (some experience more of these than others, depending on whether they had the chicken or beef), cranky flight attendants. And yet, there are still individual experiences to be had: the older man who feels obligated to tell his entire life story in order to explain why he has two carry-ons, the choir of colicky babies, the reading light right next to you still illuminated as its user fell asleep. It’s a bit of a microcosm of life, a mobile eco-dome of sorts. Strange, if you think about it.

So far I’m doing well staying up in a potentially fruitless attempt to quickly reset my internal clock. My computer clock says it’s 1:35am, but local time is most definitely 16 hours ahead of that. Once we arrive in Bangkok, I’m sure we’ll be ready to just conk out. Just have to stay up another nine hours, which isn’t too much of a problem for someone my size. Hard to curl up into a ball and just sleep the flights away. Hopefully I won’t give Mandi too many stories to tell about how grumpy I can get when I’m sleep-deprived. We shall see...

4034

Coming Up Quickly

Thailand is coming up quickly. We will be leaving this Saturday, early afternoon, flying to Tokyo, a short layover, and moving on to Bangkok. We have an 8 hour layover, overnight, in Bangkok, and are debating whether we'll just try to grab some sleep in the airport that night, or whether we'll be able to get a ride into the city and check things out. The next morning we'll take the puddle-jumper to Chiang Mai, and we'll be picked up at the airport by my family friends the Sheahans. It's going to be a long 35 hours from start to finish, but I'm going to see if I can't hold off sleeping Friday night and catch some sleep during the night of our destination's time-zone. It might make me pretty crabby, so we'll see.

I'm bringing along my computer, still camera, and my small and crappy video camera, and I'm really hoping for a good internet connection at least a couple times during the trip. Hopefully I can keep up my weekly updates, possibly with photos and video if I can work it out. We'll see. It's all very exciting, and I'm glad you guys will get some vicarious living through Mandi and me. Keep praying for us, for safety and that the trip will be productive and enjoyable. Thanks.

Been thinking about what I'm going to do when we get back from our trip. I really feel I need to move back to Portland sometime in the next couple months or so because Mandi, my great friends, and my amazing home church are all there. The thing I've been worried about is whether I can find work there. I was talking with my current boss here in Bend, and we're going to have a conversation, when I return, about helping him operate/sell a particular product we've recently begun selling. If you want details, you can get a hold of me, but the gist of this thing is that it is basically a live-video production set-up in a box, rather than an entire production van to do the same thing. Anyway, his company has recently become Oregon's representative for this product, and there's a chance I could continue to work for this company, but I could live in Portland. Nothing's for sure in all this, but if you guys could keep praying about this opportunity, that things would work out in a way that only God can orchestrate, that would be great.

I'm looking forward to leaving my next post from a yet to be disclosed location in Chiang Mai.

Cheers.

3889