my prayer for today

When You lead me to the valley of vision
I can see You in the heights
And though my humbling wouldn’t be my decision
It’s here Your glory shines so bright
So let me learn that the cross precedes the crown
To be low is to be high
That the valley’s where You make me more like Christ

Let me find Your grace in the valley
Let me find Your life in my death
Let me find Your joy in my sorrow
Your wealth in my need
That You’re near with every breath
In the valley

In the daytime there are stars in the heavens
But they only shine at night
And the deeper that I go into darkness
The more I see their radiant light
So let me learn that my losses are my gain
To be broken is to heal
That the valley’s where Your power is revealed

Words and music by Bob Kauflin
As recorded on Valley of Vision

Roots

A few weeks ago I had to opportunity to go work along side some westerners who have coffee farms in our area. I was very eager to do this for a number of reasons. 1. We are hoping to eventually do something similar for long term access to village life, 2. Farming here has hardly changed at all for hundreds of years and I wanted to try my hand at it, and 3. I love coffee and I love growing things. This all makes for a pretty fun and intense couple of days




Here is the view of the village from where one of the fields was. It took roughly an hour to hike to this plot.


If you notice where the vegetation meets the bare spot, that is the ridge we climed to get to the field. It was just on the other side of this ridge.



The village.

Village from road.



Here is the first part of our journey to one of the fields. Don't worry I didn't fall in.



Light hiking...



Here is a shot of one of the plots. No mountain will stop these farmers. A few months ago this was jungle.



Soy beans and coffee plants. The soy fixes nitrogen into the soil



I have heard it said that you can tell the quality of a gardener by the simplicity of his tools. This was the tool of choice for pretty much everything. We had a few hoes as well.

"Choosing Thomas"

If you keep up w/ the same blogs that we do, you may have already seen this video.  If not, I encourage you to watch it.  I think it was the saddest thing I have seen in a long time, if not ever.  But I also think it is worth passing along....

--da

Spiritual Depression Sermons

I just received an email from MLJ Trust announcing that they are going to begin broadcasting the late Dr. Martyn Llyod-Jones' sermon series entitled Spiritual Depression.

I am passing this information on to you because I read the book earlier this year that was birthed out of this sermon series and found it extremely helpful in seeing myself rightly in light of the Scriptures and the daily struggles we all as believers face. Daryl-Ann is reading the book right now and would echo my appreciation for this man's work.

Here is the website where you can download the 30 min. weekly broadcast, and I expect for the series to go on for a few months.

I highly commend this to you.

First real dinner....

So...on Thursday I went to the market w/ a friend and learned how to buy meat.  Believe me, it isn't like United, Wal-Mart, or any of your other favorite grocery stores.  The market itself is quite an experience, and I'll post some pictures of that at some point...I love buying super fresh, super cheap vegetables (like 2 cucumbers for 15 cents, but the meat section of the market can "gross one out."  The floor is often a bit slippery too due to butchering, etc, and so that just adds to the experience by making me terrified that I'm going to slip, knock over a table of meat, and have the big piles of fat fall on top of my head.  Oh well, I digress.......

Anyways, my friend and I "reserved" what we thought would be comparable to pork chops, and I went back the next day to pick them up.  (FYI:  you usually don't have to reserve meat, this was just a special case.)  Anyways, I went to pick them up and paid for them...and then came home w/ mainly a bag full of worthless (in my standard) meat.  However, I took this:

away from the "good" meat, and got this:
and then turned it into this, pork chops w/ apples and walnuts, with sides of mashed potatoes and a fresh salad w/ ranch:
YUM-O!!!!!!!  Logan clearly loved our dinner!  It was pretty tasty, and even though it was a little bit more work here than in the states, we really enjoyed having a meal at home.  Tomorrow, I'm trying my hand at a breakfast casserole and some pumpkin-apple muffins for breakfast w/ some friends.  And then, dinner has honey oven-baked chicken on the menu.  I will let you know how it goes.  

--da

Can You Help Me?...Obviously Not

Today I was coming up our stairs to change clothes so that I could go help paint a friend's house.  When I reached the 3rd floor, I saw a man standing there, just kind of looking down into the square of restaurants and shops.  I stopped at the stairway and tried (again) to read the notice posted on the gate....and then I got the great idea to ask the man to help me read the sign.  I asked politely, "Excuse me, can you help me read this?"  He just kind of looked at me.  So I repeated, "Can you help me read this.  I can't understand it."  (Which isn't entirely true, I can read enough to know it has to do w/ paying the water/electric fees, but I wanted to know if it was polite notice to pay by a certain day, or more of a demand, or whatever.)  He shook his head "no" at me in an emphatic way, and I asked, "Why?"  To which he just continued to shake his head.  I sighed and made my way home.  

I'm not for sure why he wouldn't help me.....Even now, I'm still more confused than exasperated.  

--da

Countryside Pics

老人车

Today I tried my hand at driving a 老人车 (Old Person Car... literal translation) and to my disdain proved myself not to be an adequate driver of this three-wheel scooter that belongs to my supervisor's wife.

Here is the story... I was sitting at my supervisor's house when my friend Nick called asking our supervisor's wife is some one can come pick him up at the apartment's front gate because he has recently hurt his ankle and is on crutches. I willfully volunteered to drive her 老人车 and pick up Nick having never received any instruction on how it drives. Eban and I (Supervisor's oldest) jumped into the scooter and went on our way. Keep in mind we are in an apartment complex where no one drives over 5 mph. Before we even got to the end of the aisle where their apartment is located a car began to turn in and stopped in the middle of the street to let me pass. The path between the car and the curb was indeed narrow, but after trying the hand brakes and not slowing down at all I decided to commit (or should I say the scooter committed for me). While squeezing into this small space the scooter indeed did come to a stop... right up against this poor person's car. They backed up exposing some substantial damage to their bumper. The man jumped out of his car and was completely baffled. I looked at the scooter and seeing that it was in good shape (despite a bent fender) told the guy I will be right back and need to go pick up a friend at the front gate. I then told Eban to go get his dad and I will be right back.

Upon returning to the scene of the accident the man suggested me giving him 500 kuai (around 70 dollars) to compensate and calling it even. Knowing that it was totally my fault and delighted at how little money he wanted to fix his significantly new car (I estimate it was 300-400 dollars damage to US standards), I gave him the money and we went on our way.

I eventually learned that the hand breaks didn't work at all and that there was a foot brake that I didn't notice which is what should be used to stop the scooter.

Just one more example where I have proven myself the stupid foreigner who cant even drive a Geriatric-mobile in a 5 mph residential zone.

Another Entry on Running..Minus the Rain

Call me ridiculous, but this morning while running across a bridge that spans the MeKong, all I wanted was to be able to run like this man, minus the mustache of course.

I know, I know...ridiculous.  

--da

2 points to whoever knew who it was before having to read the caption in the picture or googling the name.  

One Long Day

Today (and yesterday) I traveled to BJ for my dental work and it proved to be quite the ordeal. First of all there was a direct flight from our current place of residence directly to BJ (good news) but it departed around 9:00 pm putting me in BJ around 1:30 AM. I deemed this undesirable since I am not too familiar with this mega city and did not want to be stranded in the middle of the night... with little language I might add. Option two, take a flight that had one layover in out provincial capital and then arrive at BJ before midnight. Deal!

Well I choose the later option which after all the delays put me in BJ around 3:00 AM. Add an hour taxi ride to that and that puts me in my hotel at 4:00 AM.

I am mainly telling you this because I made some good friends along the way and why I am thankful for the 12 hours of air travel I was able to experience.

One way a young Jewish lady heading back to Israel after many months of study in CHN. She invited me and DA to Israel where she will house us and show us around. Cool girl.

The other and perhaps more exciting acquaintance I made was the guy sitting next to me on the plain. I didn't say anything to him (my regret) until we were landing and my question was 'Ni shuo ying yu ma?' (Do you speak English) in which he replied 'keyi' (I can). I asked him if the subway was running and he told me no and this began a deep conversation. He had been visiting his mother in the hospital who is dying of cancer and he was returning to BJ to go back to work. What is crazy about this is this guy is from the province the team worked for many years prior to us joining, and even more amazing than that is that his english is great. I told him that I would pr-y for his mother and his eyes got big and he immediately asked if I was a X-ian. I told him I was and he told me he was too. So we immediately became friends and hopefully over the next few days of me being in BJ I will be able to meet with him and encourage him and he me in each of our own trying situations.

Lesson learned.... Don't hate delays