Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Camping Next to Clubs

There is something about heating up water in a little pot over a campfire to make MaMa (the far superior Thai form of Ramen noodles) with new friends chatting in Thai, warm tea in your hand, a tent at your back, a river and mountains before you, and lit lanterns finding their way up into the sky. Something that beckons you to ignore the club music pounding its way unabashedly through the cool night air, the drunk neighbors tenting two meters from you, and what feels like a floodlight hung on the tree next to your tent. And yet there is something about the noise and artificial light that makes you value the stillness, the glowing globes God placed in the sky, and the warm tea all the more deeply.

My life in Bangkok feels a bit like that moment by the fire sometimes. I am learning that you have to hold the two together prayerfully and in trust. If all you do is focus on the loud music and the city lights, you miss out on the beauties of the campfire and the people around you. If you focus too much on the pursuit of peace in the midst of the noise, seeing only the coziness of your campsite, you lose touch with the reality of those beyond your firelight. We are not called to ignore what is uncomfortable, what is challenging. But neither are we called to live a life void of peace and rest. God promises that in this world we will have trouble-- but He has overcome. He promises that His peace will be with us, even in the chaos. So there is both.

Post-soccer snack? Mystery-meat-green-papaya sandwich! 
Much has happened since my Cambodia trip in December-- too much to write about here. I have gone on a couple camping trips, spent a couple days back in Cambodia with our students and their families (village soccer included flipflops flying, dust blowing, old ladies biking through the "playing field" of a road, and push-ups for the losing team), visited a southern beach with the Thai family that "adopted" me, started learning to read and write Thai, and have begun volunteering with a separate organization that works with women who have come out of sex-trafficking. Life is busy, often offering only a 4 hour window of "time off" on Monday mornings to compensate for working Tuesday-Sunday. I was recently surprised when I biked home at 5:30pm and could still see the sun. What a gorgeous time of day! The sinking light bouncing off of the high rise buildings, the birds starting to nest in the trees (raising internal wishes and prayers that I wouldn't get a milky white shower from them as I biked below). Sidewalks filled with people on a mission to get home and buy their street-food dinner. I usually bike home at night-- near or past midnight at least 4 days a week. Friends and family sometimes seem concerned about me biking home that time of night, however I have found that apart from the risk of drunk drivers and possibly ill-willed individuals, the traffic situation is much more relaxing than the adrenaline-pumped traffic weaving I do when biking the rest of the day. I could write a blog post about that alone: the different maneuvers used on the daily to avoid being Bangkok roadkill. A few of my favorites include the elbow-tuck and shoulder-duck to avoid the car mirrors, along with the median-push (when you have no room stay vertical on your bike because of an uncomfortably close taxi-- you have to master the art of walking/pushing off the median or curb as you lean into it).
Trip south with my Thai family :) 

Regardless of what time of day, there is noise, and in all the noise, God is still my place of rest. Having the Holy Spirit inside of us, our constant companion and true peace, enables us to face any challenge of schedule or situation. So we embrace the club music and loud neighbors, even though we might rather be alone in the mountains with only the starlight and the sound of the river. There is beauty in every place to which God brings us.






My weekend job:  Farmers' Market Vendor.   
My mountain transportation to reach a waterfall hike and hot springs. 

2 comments:

  1. Great written thoughts, Jodie! Good to check out your blog once in awhile!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great written thoughts, Jodie! Good to check out your blog once in awhile!

    ReplyDelete