Hillary Gatzke's blog

Goodnight Wiang Kaen

In the great green village of Wiang Kaen there was a fish pond,

Fish Pond

and friends

 

Christmas Caroling

and everyday views

 

 

 

Pha Tang

Goodnight preaching

 

Preaching

and goodnight teaching

 

Teaching

Goodnight visiting

 

Visiting

and visiting

 

Visiting 2

and visiting

 

Visiting 3

Goodnight friends

 

Baby Ray at wedding

 

 

Bridal Party

 

 

Kids at Pha Tang

Sing's Family

Tanatat's Family

Goodnight church

 

New Life Church of Wiang Kaen

and goodnight to this ending of life in Wiang Kaen

 

 

 

Hot doesn't even begin to describe it...

....nor can that phrase do justice to the amazingly warm/sweaty/itchy weather we've been experiencing.  This is the kind of weather where I need a cold shower in the morning and then the freedom to just sit still and try not to sweat throughout the rest of the day.  However, life with little boys does not make room for no-sweat only sitting still activities- so by 10am the boys are ready for the first bath of the day. 

The weather has also been itchy.  Yes, itchy.  The supremely hot days bring the furry caterpillars in from the fields and onto, and sometimes into, our house where they drop furry pieces of their annoying little coats and cause at least 50% of our family to break out in itchy rashes for most of the day.  When I first heard of these caterpillars I thought it was a joke, now I am seriously looking for ways to get them out of our lives.  The locals use a piece of white chalk which is laced with something  that ends in -zone and has a lot of Chinese writing on the outside of the box.  So, we use the chalk to draw a line around the outside walls of our house, far above the reach of our curious and hard to explain about dangerous things to our sprouting almost 3-year old.  As the itchy caterpillars leave the fields and inch their furry little way up to our house, they climb up the wall and inevitably cross the "chalk line".  Usually they pass the line and just a few inches above it, they miraculously fall off the wall, curl up into a ball, wait for a observant passerby to find their unfortunate location and then succomb to the same death that most itchy caterpillars face, death by foot crushing  . 

I'm excited to return to America.  I'll tell you the truth though.  The leaving behind of those little menaces fills my heart with joy overflowing.

 So, I've been looking for ways to entertain my little adventurers, inside the house.  Although Rudy is rarely bothered by the fur of the above caterpillars, just like his fortunate father, Ray is another story. 

 

hard at play

   

 

serious business

 Ray loves being outside and can entertain himself in the greatest ways, collecting bugs, climbing trees, looking for rocks, etc .  He gets so caught up in his work and play that he doesn't realize that how covered he gets with welts from the caterpillars and inevitably returns to the house in an itchy and miserable state.  Of couse the condition is exacerbated by excessive scratching- which is so hard for little ones to abstain from.  Anyways, one of the things we do when it's hot and we're trying to stay away from the bugs is take funny pictures. 

goofy grin

serious pout

cheerful cherub

funny faces

 

Refrigerator for sale.....

Some of you may know that we will soon be headed home, again I know, for an extended furlough.  We recently found out that Jeremy received the scholarship that he applied for to study at Wheaton College for the next 2 years.  We’re excited but that news has sent us packing and planning into super fast mode!

Thailand is not a storage safe country.  In other words, if you end up storing a household worth of goods, you’re only providing a place for vermin to lodge for however long you’re gone.  We’ve decided to sell,  or leave with friends, all of our furniture/appliances etc.  I could really use one of those Real Simple organizing teams at the moment! 

I love our friends here dearly, therefore I was not offended when we shared our news about going home and often heard as the very next question, “what are you going to do with all your stuff?” Our friends here take bargaining and getting a good deal to an almost obsessive level.  Don’t get me wrong, they know how to spend money, but there is always the “how much did you pay for that?  Oh I purchased it for much cheaper etc”.  Even down to pennies, these friends of ours will argue about who got the better deal.  Spending a lot of money on something here is not exactly always a good thing in their eyes.  I’ve seen them prefer to buy a cheap toy from China, which will without fail break within a week of purchase, versus buying something more expensive that will last longer.  Anyways, it’s funny when I’m listening in on the conversation, not when I’m being questioned about how much I paid for the mince pork in my freezer.

Anyways, back to the selling of our stuff.  I heard several people mention under their breath to me, “if you do end up leaving I’d be interested in the oven/toaster/washer/whatever you want to give me.”  So, there has been the not so pretty task of trying to remember who said they wanted what and were they before that other person who said they might buy it.  I’m actually thankful at times that they usually speak Mien with each other and that I don’t have to understand every word.  On the other hand, I’m realizing, because of friends who translate things to me later, that living here 5 years has not rendered me completely useless in the Mien language, only 98% useless I suppose.  It’s incredible how much is communicated by eyes and arms, hands and even lips (which are used here to point).   Yesterday one of my good friends brought her older sister over to check out our fridge.  This visit warrants a description.  The sister is about 35 and wears the traditional Mien baby backpack, an intricately  embroidered  pattern on a black piece of cloth that is wrapped with a number of twists and loops in order to perform the task of carrying a young baby.  The baby and the mom are both sweating profusely, as it’s near 95 degrees.  A husband is along, although he has little to say in response to his rather loud and talkative wife.  There are two other children along for the visit, both silent and staring with wide eyes at my large nose and light eyes.  I take them into the kitchen to show them the fridge.  The sister’s reaction is bold and strong.  She is speaking Mien remember.  I’m guessing that either she thinks we’re charging way too much for the piece of equipment or that she just wants to tell everyone she knows to come and look at the huge fridge we have stored in our kitchen.  Thai people have the habit of going to the market daily, often many times daily, so their refrigerators are usually the size of a large suitcase.  Ours is smaller than the average American size fridge, but it is taller than the ones here and has a separate freezer compartment.  So, the sister immediately gets on the phone and calls someone.  I’m guessing now that she is leaning towards thinking the price is good, not unreasonable, and that she’s doing the normal thing of figuring out how she’s going to pay for it- clearly by calling her relatives.  As the conversation progresses I can tell they’re talking about the monthly electricity bill and if buying a bigger fridge will increase it to the point where they can’t afford it.  In Thailand if your monthly electricity bill is less than 100 Baht, about $3, you don’t have to pay.  Our bill is usually around $21/month- a unbelievable amount for the people in our neighborhood.  The sister’s excitement starts to die down a bit..  I can tell she’s rethinking things, probably not going to buy.  After a few minutes they take their leave, usually a very awkward thing here.  Well, maybe we’ll be storing the fridge with friends after all. 

 

 

Wedding Recap

Preeschool Wedding Processional

First of all I feel obliged to give a bit of a wedding recap.  Everything came off without a hitch!  Amazing.  I suppose when you don’t have all those different people to contact, venues to reserve, invitations to send out you tend to just sort of go with the flow.  The florist couldn’t make color mistakes with the arrangements as there were no ‘wedding colors’.  The church was not overbooked.  The weather turned out sunny and cool.  That’s another thing I’ve learned from living here, sometimes the more you plan, the higher the expectations get and then unfortunately that multiplies the disappointment when things aren’t exactly as you’d expect.  Don’t get me wrong, planning is a wonderful thing-  but in certain situations I’ve found that it only increases my opportunities for frustration.   

Ray was chosen as one of the ring bearers.  There were 2 boys and 1 girl chosen to take part in ring bearing, flower petal tossing parts of the ceremony.  One of the head leaders in the church suggested that the boys throw the flowers and the girl carry the ring (she was the oldest of the group).  I had to stick out my neck a bit there and insist that it is traditionally the girls who toss the flower petals.  Trust me, it would not have been good to have Ray and little Thai friend Tim in charge of gently tossing petals.  As we practiced the night before the wedding the young flower girl was given directions of how to toss the flower petals from her tray.  The ring bearers looked on with interest.  Then Ray asked if he was supposed to toss the rings as he walked down the aisle.........  We had a good talk about how he was chosen to protect those rings and keep them safe and steady on the tray- he took it seriously and did a great job.

 

Flora and Styrofoam

Fruit plates ready and waiting

cool dudes

It has taken us awhile to recover from that whirlwind week, hence the lack of updating

The preparations continue....

It’s now the day before the wedding.  Chaos is unleashed as the church is cleaned and decorated.  Church members race in and out of the lane to the main road, presumably on some last-minute errands.  However, there’s nothing about this wedding that is not last minute.  Our family shows up at the church this morning around 10am with our excited boys in tow.   The church has been cleaned, meaning the floors were swept and mopped.  From the ceiling and overhead lighting the usual displays of cobwebs and dust still hang in their own decorative way.  Plastic chairs are organized in neat rows, about 10 times the normal amount that would be arranged for a Sunday morning meeting.  A group of young 7 ^th grade girls are seemingly busy with cutting and folding and stacking crepe paper.  After watching them for awhile though, I realize that they’re much like the rest of us; trying to figure out how to be helpful and productive in the midst of preparing for a big wedding tomorrow, but in reality accomplishing very little.  It’s like trying to start the foundation for a building, but no one has the plans, and the architect is hoping that the workers will just figure out something that works. 

At the front of the main meeting room there are basins of floral foam seeping in fresh water.  A large kitchen pot is transformed into a flower basin where the varieties of floral beauties are awaiting the hands of the arrangers.  Flowers are incredibly inexpensive here in Thailand and the whole lot of what was purchased probably cost less than $50.  No one has been hired to arrange the flowers though, and the women of the church are busy taking on that responsibility.  I am asked of my opinion about how to decorate but I bow out and encourage the enlistment of the eldest female in the room as flower arranging director.  I soon  realize too that my own opinion of what is beautiful and classy for a wedding is light years away from where this decorating pow wow is headed.  Scissors are soon produced, a general plan is formed and we begin our task.  There is some friendly bantering going on about how so and so’s arrangement is slightly narrow, or the main bright white dahlia that was supposed to be front and center is missing from her display.  It’s mostly fun though and we finish our task at noon.  At this point an element of Thai party decorating is brought in to hang in the front of the room.  This element is the Styrofoam sign.  Somehow and for some reason this wedding tradition of spray painting the couple’s name on Styrofoam boards, cutting out hearts etc and pinning it up behind the podium has become a necessary part of decorating.  I keep my thoughts to myself. 

Where is the bride?  She is there, quiet as a mouse.  She’s the youngest woman of the party.  I think I can understand why she has so little to say.  I wonder what she’s thinking, how she’s feeling about the big day tomorrow.  She is a mere 16 or 17 years old and she has just finished 9 ^th grade.  What a different world this is. 

It’s time to head home though, Ray and Rudy have taken in enough of the decorating festivities for the day and are getting ready for lunch.  Tomorrow will be an exciting day for them. 

Wedding planning ala Thai

Despite the fact that I’ve lived in Thailand for the last 8 years, I still often find myself laughing and suprised by the cultural idiosyncracies of this corner of Asia.  Today’s topic is how to plan a wedding in a week.  For those of you who are already married, sit back and enjoy.  For those of you who are thinking of planning a wedding in the near future......don’t even consider doing it this way, trust me.

We thought today would be a normal day at church.  (note another thing I’ve learned is to always expect the unexpected, or enjoying living with minute by minute suprises)  As it turns out, there’s a need for a young couple in our church to get married soon.  The eager groom would like it to be ASAP, meaning next Sunday.  The bride looks down and quietly nods agreement with her future husband.  So, the planning begins. 

After church the married men of the church congregate in a circle, after the regular Sunday lunch of course.  The married women form a sort of second string group on the outside and offer insights and gentle reminders as needed.  The first topic of conversation in the planning is how much money the groom is going to give to the family of his bride-to-be.  Then he is asked how much money he’ll be putting towards the wedding.  After he gives his sum the married men of the group have much to say.  “Make it more than that, so that you can proudly tell people in the future how much you spent!” says one man whose wife is almost 20 years his junior.  “You only have a wedding once!” another man says.  This brings on some grumbling from the women’s circle as clearly some former brides do not look back on their wedding day with happy memories.  Somehow the conversation suddenly shifts into makeup and how one must be very careful not to wear so much that you look like a “corpse”.  Now there are comments all over the place about “I had to throw away my wedding pictures because my makeup was so bad” and “did you see so and so’s wedding pictures and how bad her makeup was?  Her makeup artist must have been the absolute worst one in Thailand.”  These are real quotes, translated of course, but it gives you an idea of how honest they can be with one another.  Painfully honest.  One has to have the skin of a rhino to survive some of the verbal comments around here.   Notice that the bride is nowhere to be seen, she is purposely off hiding somewhere.  All the better for her I think.  For those of you American women who are overwhelmed by the idea of being a full-time wedding planner in preparation for your big day, you might want to look into marrying someone in our current neighborhood.  All you’ll have to do is put  your dress on and smile.  The thing is though, that you won’t even be able to choose what you’re going to wear to your own wedding.  No way.  This young bride’s outfit was chosen by a group of 30 and up men.  Men.  Next topic.  Food.  Not suprisingly, this topic takes up the largest portion of the planning time.  The goal is to find food items that are attractive, but inexpensive.  The menu is decided and people not even present at the meeting are nominated for rather important roles in the food prepartion process of the wedding meal.  There will be no caterer.  The people in the inner and outer circles of this meeting will be in charge of every detail for the wedding.  One man looks relieved that he’s comitted next weekend and won’t be able to attend or take part in the preparations.  Did I mention that the wedding they’re planning for is next Sunday!  Wow.  A guest list is informally mentioned, names are thrown around.  Everyone stands up to arrange the tables a bit and see how many can fit in the outdoor cafeteria where we’re meeting.  Then it’s off to the house of the bride-to-be to pay her parents and do some wedding planning.  I’m thankful that the boys are ready for a nap and I can stay home.  My seat in the second circle was an interesting one and a perfect spot for observing.  I don’t know how, but I think they’ll pull it off.  It’s going to be a busy week. 

Sunday Lunch

One seemingly necessary aspect of Thai church, whether the fellowship meets in Thailand or America, is the presence of the after-church Sunday lunch.   There’s no doubt about the fact that this tradition seems to be almost as strong as that of taking the weekly offering or singing the doxology at the end of the service.  It’s a blessing to be able to attend church with one’s family knowing that the normal rush home to feed hungry kids and adults need not happen, since the meal will be served right at noon!  It’s a blessing of course unless your kids happen to have just returned from a 6 month furlough in America and have decided that rice isn’t something they want to eat, even though everyone else around us at the church has eaten it 3 times a day for their ENTIRE lives and can’t understand why our kids don’t love it.  I won’t mention whose children I’m referring to…. 

 

At any rate, the noon meal is not the normal church potluck type function where families are assigned an appetizer, salad, main dish or dessert, according to their last name.  At our church here in Wiang Kaen we’re currently on a two month rotation where each family takes turns providing the entire meal for the church on a given Sunday.  That means 50 people, some of whom happen to be very hungry teenage boys who apparently eat twice their weight at each meal.  Anyways, for the Thai member of the church, this meal preparation opportunity is not an overly difficult affair.  Simply steam enough rice for 50, plus said teenagers, purchase 2 large bags of a single vegetable, enough ground pork for each person to consume about 2 spoonfuls worth, fry said vegetables and pork in a single enormous wok, add sauces and serve.  No problem.  The problem comes when people realize that our family hasn’t taken a turn in the lineup yet….hmmm pizza for 50 made in our oven which is the size of an extra large shoe box, I don’t think so.  Roast a turkey….at $50/bird that’s a little out of reach.  Try my hand at making Thai food for 50 rather critical tongues…rather not.  So, it’s decided, spaghetti.  It’s different enough from Thai food that they can’t say it tastes wrong and we can always leave out a dish of spicy peppers for them to add in the sure event that they’ll consider it bland.  Well, it worked.   They liked it and we got our names crossed off the list for another 2 months.  Not only that but our kids ate their noodles like champions today.  Any ideas for next time? 

Let's follow this path.....

....see where it leads us...

...chat with our friend on the way..

...pass a blossoming beauty..

...getting closer...

...take your pick...

...ripe, rosy, red, strawberries....

.........delicious...

...little brother likes it too...

...just two of these is already a handful..

...soon to be a bucketful...

...partners in picking...

...full buckets, time to head back up the hill...

...just in time to see the sunset...

Back

Well, we made it back to Thailand!  What a journey.  Although it’s nice to be so close to home, as compared to what travel to Asia meant 100 years ago, sometimes the travel time seems too short.  It’s almost not enough time to prepare oneself for the completely different world that greets you when you step off the plane.  One needs a little time to mourn and move on and get ready for what’s to come. 

Saying goodbye to family is always difficult.  I think what is even harder now than my own grief about saying goodbye is seeing the sadness in my children.  Ray and Rudy are young though and although they still mention life in America, it gets less and less everyday, until they will again get used to relating to relatives on SKYPE and relying upon us to remind them of what they left behind. 

What is ahead of us now is the joy of reunions with friends, the fun of giving venison sausage to our meat-loving buddies, the warmth and humidity that refreshes our dry Midwestern wintered skin, the music of birds and crickets, and of course our house which has been closed up and secured during our 6 month absence.  Oh, how I wish I had multiple hands with which to complete the mountain of cleaning that must be done to get our home back in order! 

Maybe the low point came as I ironed yesterday and noticed a skinny little tentacle peeking out of the water fill hole in my iron.  I tried to grab the sneaky little thing and quickly realized it was attached to a cockroach.  Yes, I admit it, there are sometimes cockroaches in our house.  (For those who want to know I was able to remove him later with a toothpick, after he had drowned in the water reservoir of the iron).  There is some good news though:  I found a whole brood of gecko eggs in Raymond’s closet, and they all appeared to have made it as there were only empty broken eggs to sweep up,  all appliances are in working order, the ten pounds of peanut butter and multiple bags of chocolate chips were not confiscated on our trip, Raymond is rejoicing to see his friends again and doing his best to pick up on the Thai language where he left off, there are no mice or rats in our ceiling (!!!!!), and Rudy is healing up nicely from an ear infection and was treated at the Chiang Rai hospital for the whopping sum of $14.  We’re thankful and grateful.  Thankful that the Lord has brought us back rested and refreshed.  Grateful that we have the privilege to live in a place where we recognize the need to depend on Him fully. 

Where has the time gone.....

Ah, or maybe AAAAAHHHHH!  Where has the time gone?  This 6 month furlough is drawing to a close and I can’t believe I haven’t updated this site in months.  What a whirlwind this time has been.  I’m beginning to wonder why time seems to pass so much more quickly in the states than it does in our little town of Wiang Kaen.

  Since being back in the States I’ve found myself thinking more about how much I have to be thankful for.  At first it was just the simple things like having a DISHWASHER, a DRYER, HOT WATER IN MY KITCHEN FAUCET that made me so joyful, so thankful.  But I’ve gotten deeper than that too.  I’m thankful for the cooler weather, the lack of bugs, the gift of watching the seasons change.  I’m thankful for this time we’ve had to step away from our ministry in Wiang Kaen, to see it from a distance with the Lord’s perspective.  I’m thankful for how the Lord has stretched our income, somehow, that even though we’re living in a place where things are much more expensive for us than normal, we have never ended up short, not even once.  I’m thankful for the attention of family and friends to Raymond and Rudy, and for how they have blossomed under the love of such an extended network of people who care for them.  I’m thankful that God has called me to be a missionary and for what that has done for me personally, how it has opened my eyes wide to how the Lord has tenderly cared for me in every difficult situation. 

There’s something about living in the States that sometimes makes me feel kind of numb.  Do you ever feel that way?  We spent this past week with family, enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday together.  I noticed during that time how much I took for granted.  I sat down for Thanksgiving dinner and I didn’t give a lot of thought to what a blessing it was, to be in a warm house, to be surrounded by family, to have a splendid feast before us.  I thought about those blessings but they didn’t grip my heart in the same way as they have before.  A year ago in Wiang Kaen I remember what I was thinking on Thanksgiving Day.  I remember being thankful that the Lord gave me the energy I needed to provide a big meal for our friends.  I remember being thankful that we had enough money to buy gas to drive 2 hours away to the grocery store and then that we had enough to buy the provisions to  make a meal.  I remember being thankful for the faces of our dear friends and their shy smiles as they shared about how the Lord had been good to them.  It’s like everything is in bold, florescent color there- when we get sick we sometimes get really sick.  When the Lord answers a prayer it’s a huge blessing.  Each meal that ends up on our table there is something to be truly thankful for.  Here we are surrounded by so much.  Excellent medical care in a huge variety of nearby locations.  Stores that provide every possible necessity.  Friends and family who  are continually generous to us in many different ways.  When we return to Thailand though, that’s all gone.  Medical care is mediocre at best, and it’s far away.  Food is available but not always clean and not always providing the nutrition that we need.  Fellowship with other English speaking believers is far away.  But do you know what we have when you take all those other things away?  We have our Lord Jesus, and He knows all our needs.  We have never gone hungry.  We have never been in a seriously dangerous medical situation.  When all that I would have depended on was taken away, that’s when I truly began to lean on the Lord.  And how faithful He has been.