Longee's for Men; Skirts for Women

In Myanmar, I found that both men and women wear lower clothing made from a wrap around cloth. These cloth coverings are not interchangeable between men and women, so I don't think there is any gender confusion in this form of dress. The men wear longee's and they are tied in a knot in the front center, where a belt buckle would rest.

Women's skirts are tied differently, and are perfectly smooth where the men tie with the knot. The ladies secure their skirts via a strip of cloth extending from the top of the skirt that is attached via a clip to one side.

I find both genders dress very modest and beautiful. It is so nice to see modesty in these beautiful people. Just as a guess for the average general public: 70% of men on the street wear longed's and perhaps 90% of women wear beautifully colored, long and very modest skirts.


Now the question is, should I get a longee to wear to the wedding we will attend here on Monday? Leave your votes as comments!


Pray with us for a spark.

Salt

Bangkok is close to the ocean. They say the city was built on marshland, which was a source of physical protection from marauding armies at the time. The city sinks 2 inches a year and is slowly sliding toward the sea.

We drove out to the Tha Kha Floating Market and along the way saw large fields that were flooded with ocean water and then evaporated to concentrate the salt. This process repeated enough, they would have a solid white crust of salt that they could scoop up with a special shovel and transfer to wheel barrows. Then they would wheel the salt to the roadside and make great mounds with it.

The mounds were shaped to look like the base of a pyramid and then flat on top at the height of around 4 feet. The parimeter may have been 15 by 30 feet. I am not sure if this mound was for further processing or just for storage while they flood the salt flats again. It appeared the color of the sea salt they were selling by the roadside.

I appreciated the idea that these people were doing what they could, and using even a difficult salt marsh to their employment advantage.

Perhaps when the way we think we have to proceed seems blocked, we will pray and see that God can use the situation to His benefit anyway.

Pray with us for a spark.

Electricity

In the modern world, we have electricity. I have seen litteral shacks here-- barely a house, but it had electricity for a TV and a fan. Now getting this electricity around is another matter.

First let me say that I am a bit incredulous that any of it works. If you have heard the term rats nest, you can start to appreciate what power poles look like. This is a tame example from Bangkok.

In Cambodia one evening I saw a power pole with a ladder on it. Curious I looked up and saw a blue glow up in the darkness. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a man in street clothes making a new custom connection. He was using a cellphone screen to shed light on his nadarious deed.

Want a new connection? Just tap in.

I understand that the reason these countries send out 220 volts is that volts is the "push" of the electricity, and the higher voltage gives more push through the poor electrical lines.

A missionary here in Bangkok shared that one day she saw a strange glow up on a power line near her home. As she watched, it started to smoke, and she could see fire up on the pole.

She called the campus custodian, and he came over and looked at the pole with the missionary. He shrugged his shoulders, and went back to his work. As far as the missionaries know, nothing was ever done to that pole. They wonder if a line was affected in the conflagration. Since nothing was ever done, they think the fire must not have changed much.

What powers your outlook? Are you in 12 volt mode, thinking that others will finish the Gospel work, or you ready to receive the infusion of God's power in your life?

Pray with us that God will empower a spark!

Friends International

The best example of inner-city education, welfare, industry, vocational education I saw in Cambodia was Friends International.

Check out this video: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/globalhealth-jan-june12-cambodia_05-09/

Let's stand on the shoulders of others, cooperate (lift them higher as well), and make a spark.

Everything Stopped at 6pm

Our family enjoyed a public park named King's Park in Bangkok on Sabbath afternoon.

It was a beautiful park with flower beds, grassy lawns, trees. ponds and river flowing by. The park seemed to be a fairly good sized area.

Our host brought large mats and we set them on the grass in a shady spot. The men talked and dreamed of reaching Asia with media and personal contact. The boys and ladies explored the park, saw new bird species and took pictures.

As we were heading back to the entrance of the park and the parking lot, we found the entrance area packed with people. There were perhaps 500 people within view, all going in different directions and at different speeds. There was a main road way filled with only pedestrians. A perpendicular road was filled with people following a leader doing some exercise-- much like some excercise clubs I have observed in America. One leader and a microphone leading in motions with a loud music beat via speakers.

I was standing there just taking in the people and activity. There was a lot going on, in all directions.

Then there was a whistle blast, much like the ones that every traffic policeman loves to ply at any busy crossway. And the entire nation of Thailand stopped. Still. The exercise leader stopped all motion. The music beat stopped. People striding along the various paths froze.

My view had suddenly became a bit surreal. I looked as far as I could see, and the was nothing moving. The people were not facing any specific direction. People did not have their hand on their hearts, but everything was still and quiet.

Then in the distance I could hear at least two different locations in the city playing what I later learned was the Thailand National Anthem. I did not get a good quality preview of the anthem-- it was distant and a little hard to pick out the melody since I was not used to the tune or words.

But I had the impression that this was not just in the park, but all across the city and all across Thialand. It is a show of respect for the king / government, and the National Anthem is played twice daily across Thailand at specific set times of the day. And for that assigned time period, everyone that can hear the Anthem stops.

Being in a public pedestrian place was a dramatic introduction to this ceremony. This was the first that I had seen it, though the ceremony had been described in a prior comment by our host.

There was a reverence that was powerful. No one was changing body positions. They were really still. Everything was just frozen, and so was I.

In the distance the anthem ended. Another shrill blast was heard from some where nearby, and all the motion picked up again. Conversations resumed; people continued walking. Within a few seconds the exercise group was back to its loud music and gentle lunges, twirls and arm motions.

Everything continued on, but nothing was the same.

I saw a people who had respect for their country. Just as I appreciate my nation's anthem, I appreciated their respect for their own. Something deep in my heart felt good in seeing their loyalty to their country.

What are you loyal to? What cosmic anthem do you respect? Are you firmly under God's banner or do you accessionalily flirt the the enemy and defect? God wants your whole heart before He will trust us with the outpouring of His spirit which will sweep the globe in the loud cry. 

God is wanting you 100%. Then we will see a spark.

Hard Workers

One thing I can say for Cambodia is that most of the people here are hard workers.

What they may lack in mechanization, but they make up for it with hard labor. As we pass by various shops going to and from our hotel, the shops seem always open for business. There is no 8-5 vacationing ethic here! We regularly pass a primitive looking welding shop, and each time we pass the owner is throwing sparks beside the road. Day or night the sparks are flying.

The little shops stay open late into the night, I am not sure how late, but I would guess till around 2 am, and I have asked several how long they work, and they say "early till late".

I guess this goes along with a survival economy, where people make so little margin that they have to work a lot in order to survive. But while they may be weary at the end of the day, I see a resilience here in their attitude about work.

I have seen some very interesting ingenuity along the road sides as we pass by, where groups of men are effecting various repairs. Things are created and hauled around in ways that we would never imagine in the west, and here it just gets done.

I looked over 100 dump truck piles of dirt in front of a brand new new Adventist elementary school, and I asked if they had a tractor to help smooth it out. The school master said, "Well, we will see how lumpy it is after we work on it a few days with hoes and shovels." I think this was a nice way of saying, "We don't need an expensive tractor to be hauled or driven here. It just takes some hard work, and it will be fine!"

Wow, that is refreshing!

I am all for labor saving, but sometimes it is just great to see a group of people who will not take "No" for the answer. If they have two hands, there is a way to proceed.

How about us reaching others? Do we need some fancy bulldozers like an religious Internet website, or nation wide TV ministries? Are we truly incapable of grabbing a shovel and just doing the job of reaching our neighbors on our own? What would it look like if each of us said, "There is a way! I will make it happen!"


Let's grab a shovel and make a spark!

Genocide

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/past-present-collide-cambodia/

"It’s now nearly 40 years from the April 17, 1975 morning when the Khmer Rouge Maoist guerrillas marched into Phnom Penh and embarked on a three-year, eight-month and 20-day reign of murder that killed at least 1.7 million Cambodians in a population then numbering 8 million. The country is still struggling to find its feet."

My heart goes out to these people. Anyone as old as I am lived through this time period, and remembers. 40 years is not long enough to really say this genocide was a thing of history.

Every person with glasses -- must be educated -- was murdered. Anyone with a book in their home -- was killed. Anyone with any connection to Christianity -- was systematically eliminated.

Almost a quarter of the entire population of the country was slain in genocide. The Adventist church of Cambodia was exterminated in the mid 1970's. It is very sad to learn about these things.

Lessons that come to mind:

1) Satan will push mankind under his control to great depths of depravity. When a group of people devote themselves to anti-God mentality, Satan then has full control to wield carnage, suffering and death.

2) Man has no goodness on his own. The natural inclination of the heart of man is oppression and cruelty to his fellow man.

3) Having gone through all of this, the people of Cambodia are incredibly kind and courteous. Seeing how sweet the people are makes the genocide even more tragic. I can only imagine it was sheep led to the slaughter.

4) The children are also kind -- the parents have not been so mentally damaged with suffering as to ruin the next generations outlook on life.


My heart goes out to these people. Who will strike a spark for Cambodia?

Roads

Today is Sunday on our side of the globe, we are traveling from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. This used to be a 2 day boat ride way around. Overland was just too dangerous with the KumerRuge controlling the countryside. When the war calmed down, road travel was possible, but because of the poor roads the trip was over 12 hours. Some claim this trip can be completed now in around 6 hrs, though with the road construction going on, the size of our group, and the videographers on board, I hope we make it in 10. (Took 11!)

This is the Cambodian National Hiway 6, and some of the road was nice. For the last 6 or so hours, I would say this road is like a rough washboard dirt road back home. We are traveling from 3-20 mph. The bus is bouncing, jostling and vibrating in the most vigorous manner. In some places the dust clouds are thick enough to cut with a knife.

I would say this trip is right up there in the difficult trip category. But it is not as difficult as others missionaries who have gone before us. Will you travel under hardship for Jesus? Will you sacrifice comfort for others? Will you come to Cambodia to help spread the Gospel?

Pray with us for a spark!

Ingenuity

When you don't have a tool you need for a job, you have to be flexible and creative to get the job done.

We call it ingenuity. I had ah-ha moment when I saw a child's swing made without rope. This is a well used swing at the orphanage. If you look closely, you will see that the rope is made of used engine belts.

How can you improvise for the gospel? What is it that you lack, that you could accomplish with a different perspective? Missionaries need to be adaptable and ingenious, so start now in developing this aspect of your character.

If you are asked to carry more than you can handle, it is just a matter of balance, like this bike. Be flexible, be adaptable, have a can-do attitude!

Pray with us for a spark!

Communication

I miss talking with our church family, and close friends. Last night was Friday eve here, and we had an hour after sunset at 6 till we would have our group worship at 7 pm. My first thought? Who could we call and talk to?

I miss you all. Not that I am home sick, but I want to share verbally as well as in text. And this blog is public so not really a personal conversation. I have young people back home that I would love to encourage to mission service. Not because mission service is glamorous, but because when you come here you realize it is all or nothing. We have none of the props of our former busy life to get in the way here. We came with a few suitcases, some electronics and we are surviving well. But our lives here are much different than back home. Our focus here is entirely about serving others, and I like that feeling.

I have met some young people here that I want to spiritually adopt as my own. They are precious and pure in their desire to serve Jesus. Many are poor, it is only as God opens the way that they can gain higher education.

But I digress, back to communication. The morning here is our busy time. We let the boys sleep as long as we can, since they are needing more sleep than we are getting. This means that when we do get up, the morning is filled with activity: packing up gear for the coming days video shoots, getting to breakfast and group worship on time, and being ready to be picked up from our hotel by faithful Caleb from the SALT center where the training center, school, orphanage and campmeeting is being held.

So morning are really busy for us. Morning here is evening back in America. Evening would be the time easiest for our friends back home to take a call. So we have only called home once.

Last evening at 6pm I was thinking, who could we call? I was not sure who would want a 6am call, so we did not call anyone. That block of time was one of our few snatches of free time we have had on the trip. We visited in our room with Christopher who has recently joined our mission group as a professional videographer.

Our evenings are less rushed, but they are your mornings when you are gearing up for the activities of the day. Being 12 hours off, it feels like the ryhems are just out of sync.

I stayed up and joined our staff meeting by video conference call at 11 pm here (11 am back at the office) and it was really hard to stay up!

What would I share with you if we could talk? Well I would love to share some of the experience here with you. I would love to share an excitement for missions. I would also like to share some of the minor things like prayer requests that don't seem critical enough to blog about, but that for which we really need prayer. Pray that Andrew gets over a sore throat, and thank you for his recovery of intestinal issues. We pray for the O'Carey family that are all ill this morning.

Sunshine is scurrying around and trying to get her men moving, so I will sign off for now. Would love to communicate with you! Heading to church now.

Dirty Business

It is a fact of all living animals: poop. Sanitation is important because recycling e-coli brings violent reactions to the hapless recycler. As I mentioned before, treatment of sewage is a problem for many parts of the world, especially here in Cambodia.

An interesting thing to talk about is the facilities. It sure has captured our attention, especially when you need to use it.

Now, I don't want you to think that this is the only style of toilet here. Our hotel has western style toilets. But if there is a situation that needs an outhouse, or that does not have water pressure, this is the fixture that you will find available.

Now, I am not an official source of information here but I can share my deductions on doing the dirty business.

First, these facilities do not have toilet paper. Water is available, and if needed the left hand (dirty hand) is used. The right hand is the clean hand. You dish food, eat, shake hands on the right. The left hand is for dirty business.

The concrete water basin beside the squat toilet is for the flush. You can dip water out of the basin for the flush, and washing down the toilet.

If you look closely at the image, there is a widened porcelain area with traction ridges for each foot straddling the toilet trough.

It is named a squat toilet. Let the name instruct you.

One missionary of our group complained of falling over, so balance is important in this activity. Oh my. This is not a laughing matter, but... The joy of new things! All in all I would say that I appreciate these fixtures more than the experience of a pit toilet. They are cleaner in appearance and lack the oder of a pit toilet, as this offers a flushing action. I wonder how old this concept is... It would be fascinating to learn more.

Pray with us for a spark.