Month: December 2008

Some poor taxi driver comes up to me outside and tells me that it is “only” 600baht to downtown. I tell him it is only 35baht by bus. He looks at me and says i’ve been here a long time, then looks down, dejected. I tell him i hope he can get some business soon, and he brightens up and walks away. Thai people are a very “maipenrai” people, not lingering long over things. One security man is playing games on his cell phone, and the other one is walking around smoking a cigarette with an absent look on his face.

My friends are ready at their 14th floor apt., working on the 1858 Great Controversy in Thai and Romanian. After the intense time in Myanmar with several hours each day spent in a complete detailed proofreading of this book, i’m in full-aware mode, and hit the ground running. It is so nice to see especially the Thai translator really giving this translation priority in her life. Up to now it has seemed like just about everything little thing has been an excuse to lay off work on this book, but now it the attitude is opposite – she’s got fire!

The days flow nicely, with at least part of nearly every day spent with this 1858 Great Controversy book. Even at the Bangkok Chinese Seventh-day Adventist Church, the studies i’ve held with around 7,8 people go well. The first Sabbath back is the last one with my only Thai church friends, and we part, encouraging each other to stay true to Jesus. The next week we finish the book, and all of us are quite moved at how God has planned to save us in a beautiful home forever and ever. I’m quite moved too at what the two sisters who’ve been the mainstay of our study group do for me. May God especially bless you two, and may you stay strong for him.
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super detailed great controversy proofreadingRead More »

In walking around the city, it seems like even more shops are closed than when i came almost 3 years ago, and that there are more little stalls on the streets. Has the economy worsened? One morning in a group, one man says that the global economic difficulties don’t have much impact on Burma, because they’ve been in difficulties for 40 years! – ouch! But in an interesting way, he is very right. That interesting point, is when i think about why God allows this to happen. One possible reason that comes to mind, is that if everybody was plugged into the same economic system and thinking, it would be easier for Satan to get his one-world government going. But with some countries totally “out of the loop”, it is harder. Also, some very good qualities such as helpfulness and modesty are still practiced here, which are rapidly disappearing from richer-freer countries. It is so nice to walk around and not be greeted with belly buttons or vertical smiles.

The food for lunch every day is amazing. I’m pretty much used to rice with one cooked vegetable and one or two raw vegetables, but here it is like a full-course non-stop array of cooked veggies coming – eggplant with tomato sauce in oil, okra, some kind of curry, bean sprouts, little fried gluten pieces, etc. etc. I’m sure i’m going to gain at least one kilo from this 🙂

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myanmar musingsRead More »

What to do? I walk a bit down the same way, thinking that i will go to the closest bus stop and catch the next bus. I ask the lady in the VCD shop if bus 551 stops in front of her store, and she and several others have a fun time trying to communicate with me (at least the one lady smiled a lot). I gave her a pamphlet when i see the next bus going to the circle, and sure enough, in a minute it comes to pick me up 🙂

In around 10 minutes i see one of the most horrible sights in my life. 4 police cars with their lights on – OK, must be a drunk-driving test seeing it is 12:20 midnite – wrong. There is a form with a white sheet covering it and a slightly bruised motorbike already put up in a pickup nearby. Oh no!!! God, please comfort his family…….. All his hopes and dreams and family’s hopes and dreams for him, wiped out in an instant……. Next thing he knows, he’ll see Jesus…… Hope he is in the 1st Resurrection!

With a touch of dread i make it to the airport around 1:00 and try to curl up on a chair in front of the check-in counter as many others are doing. It is cold. After sipping a bit of cough syrup i drift in and out, not being able to drift anymore when two people on the chairs on the back side of me tell about their experiences in Thailand. After they get up, i rub my eyes and put on my glasses. Within one minute a visibly agitated youngish white man comes up to me, and tells me his story of how he was robbed the day before, and he has overstayed his visa and needs 2,000baht. My self-preservation indicator is pinging pretty solidly in the yellow area, but i think what i would want him to do if the situation was reversed, and after showing him that i only have 800baht on me, i gave him 600 and prayed with him. Later i saw some other man walking with him to the entrance of the immigration area, so i guess he was able to get the rest of the needed funds. Lord, please bless him and myself too.

Finally i check-in around 5:40, and go to the even colder boarding area where i get on the AirAsia flight to Yangon. I don’t have any bags, but notice on my boarding pass the RGN code, causing me a smile at how place names may get changed, but some things remain the same 🙂 The flight is around 90% full, amazing. I eat some bananas and gluten steak sandwich my friend made for me, and leave the starfruit alone as i spilled it out on the dirty pavement once, and forgot to wash it. Sorry to waste the one banana that went out to the sea via a grate to the sewer in Bangkok – ha!