A Village and Some not so Scary Food

Alright so first of all I did not forget about my blog and did not get too lazy to write or run out of things, I was just up in a village, Wiang Kaen, for the past few days and didn’t have a way to write so don’t worry dear reader, I did not forget about you! The village was interesting. A lot happened so I’m going to take you some of the daily highlights during my time there. Also, sorry if this gets long, a lot happened. Here we go!

Wednesday: Dragged myself out of bed in order to catch the bus to Wiang Kaen (WK). My friend Win, who speaks pretty good English, wanted to come along because he had friends and family in the area. Looking back it was a great thing he decided to come because without him coming, I wouldn’t have even made it to the village let along understand what was going on while there. The first bus was a nicer air conditioned bus, but after 3 hours and then having to switch buses in Chiang Rai, ended up with a non-ac bus for another 3 hours but it turned out to be ok because the windows were wide open and it was slightly raining which helped on the temperature side of things. The bus ride was one of the scariest moments of my life, well maybe not, but driving through the mountains in bus, around super sharp turns at high speeds is not the most comfortable experience. Every time I saw a turn coming up I shot a little prayer up to God letting Him know I might be coming home soon. After finally getting to WK we were met by Tanat, a man who spoke a little English and who worked closely with my Dad back in the day and moved from Chiang Mai to WK to start a church. He was so happy to have us in his home for the next few days. In the village near the church, they set up some dorms for young people from the neighboring areas that come from poor families where they are giving beds, food, education and the gospel. The night we got there was the men’s small group night and we were joined by a few guys from the dorm and a few older men from the church. It was a great experience and while not knowing what was going on, their desire to know the Lord better was encouraging to see.

Thursday: We had plans to head up to the highest mountain in the area, but woke up to rain so that was called off, but we moved ahead to what was planned for Friday which was making coffee. Now when I say making coffee I don’t mean taking it out of the bag and into the coffee maker and into the cup, but this was MAKING coffee. Tanat grows coffee on one of the nearby mountains so we started with a huge bag of coffee beans which were unroasted and still in the shell. The first thing we had to do was get the shell off the bean. This was done using a large mortar and pestle (which was a hollowed out tree trunk and a log) multiple times, again and again. I think it’s the best workout I’ve gotten in a long time. During the process of doing that again and again, when one batch was de-shelled then one of us had to separate the shells from the beans which was done basically by throwing everything into the air and the shells, which were lighter than the beans, floated away and the beans came back down into the basket. After that was done we still had to pick through the beans to make sure there were no shells left on the beans because if we didn’t it would make for a bad cup. Then the roasting began! There really wasn’t a special science to it, it was just done in a frying pan and you just had to keep the beans moving so they all got roasted evenly. The tough part was that we only had two frying pans and tons of coffee so the roasting process was done again and again and again until all the beans were roasted and cooled. And yes dad I do have some to bring back for you. When we were all done with the coffee we headed out to lunch which. Now Thai food is great! Northern Thai food can be scary. Now this experience wasn’t too bad when we went for lunch on the banks of the Mae Kong River. Here they were all about fish. They didn’t have the time to do everything to get the meat out and I think they’re totally fine without doing it. So in my soup was just a chopped up fish with the head, tail and everything in between. I finished most of it, leaving the eyes, brains and a few other things. In the evening, just like every evening there, we played soccer (or football as they call it here and in the rest of the world). Tons of guys came both from the dorms and from the town. They were so interested that a white guy was playing with them and just like the world cup most years, USA got dominated. These guys were good! It was a blast though.

Friday: Woke up again to rain, but we decided to head up the mountain anyway. It was worth it. The way up was extremely beautiful. We stopped at Win’s grandmother’s house on the way up and she was so happy to have us in her home she made us stay for lunch even though we had just had breakfast only an hour ago. After another not-scary mealtime, we kept heading up. The top was covered in fog and we couldn’t see clearly more than ten feet in front of us, but that didn’t keep me from basking in the awesomeness of God’s creation from there. Once again, like on the bus, the mountain roads can get a little freaky, but Tanat handled the roads like a pro.

Saturday: We headed to Chiang Rai, which took over 3 hours on the bus and took Tanat only about an hour and a half, to pick up Tanat’s son and my old friend Purin from school. After picking him up and saying our hello’s and how have you been the past fourteen years, we hung out in Chiang Rai for a bit before heading back to WK. A dental team from Korea who is doing work in the area over the next couple weeks got there in the evening and joined us for soccer and the Thai/USA team was victorious. I really don’t deserve any of the credit though. I kicked the ball a few times and let my teammates do the rest.

Sunday: Church in the morning which was great! Tanat asked if I would play a song as a special part of the service and I chose “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever.” The most beautiful thing was hearing it sung in English, Thai and Korean all at the same time; just another little reminder that we all come from different areas of the planet, but we still worship the same God. After church, we all had lunch together which was another non-scary meal (thankfully the only scary one was the soup with chicken heads and talons in it) and after that it was already time to say goodbye.

Looking back I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. It was hard at first not having someone who I could have a full on English conversation with and sometimes going hours without saying a word, but I think God was teaching me to use the silence and dive into Him and His word.