May 4, 2005
Isaac and I led devotions today. Anyhow, it was the First Official Day of our mission. Wednesday marked the beginning of the children’s camp, and I was right – we rushed through the skit. When it actually came time to act out the skit, from wad was supposed to be a 10-minute skit became an agonising half an hour due to excessive dialogue and therefore the need to translate. Haiz. Somehow I knew this would happen, and I wanted to kick myself for not being proactive and setting it right from the start. Nonetheless after that we had lotsa fun and games. We made paper tambourines for handicraft work and then the guys played soccer. Needless to say I didn’t participate.
Factors such as hot weather, timing (it was about 11am, hottest time of the day), and too big an age gap, made the soccer idea somehow kinda dry and even the Lahu children were reluctant to play. Amazingly though, they used tires as goal posts. How the heck do you get the ball through something as small as the tire hole! Well as I found out later on, as long as u hit the tire it’s counted a goal so wadever. I tried shooting but my aiming was so off even the village youth laughed at me, so that was it. After the day programme ended the whole lot of us went to the Huay Paplu Waterfall, including the girls and even Uncle Henry. We had a lot of fun indeed, especially me and Clara, who decided to splash water on poor Esther who was dry and refused to go into the water. By the time we were done splashing and she was done screaming she FINALLY decided to jump in.
Had a ball of a time basking in the midst of the warm sun and the cool waters, and watched Isaac, Brian and the village kids throw stones. Was pretty disappointed when it was time to go, and hoped that we could return soon, but it was just not meant to be. Sigh. On the way back all us guys actually ended up piggy-backing the kids back to the village. It was strange. Despite our inability to communicate and all, somehow I felt a certain bond with them. Something that I could only describe with these words: Patched Together by God’s Love.
Conflict began, however, when we arrived back in the village. First it was the children who kept shooting corns at us, to the irritation of almost everyone who kena-ed, then it was some big misunderstanding between the youths and some of the girls. We were all pretty exhausted as the day continued to unravel. Went to Phrao again in the evening, and the stars were, as usual, really beautiful. In fact there were more up this night than most others. On the way back me and Isaac got pretty mad, I believe we were singing our army songs and just about any song we could sing, and pretty loud too if I might add. Once of those nights I guess.
We practised the Agnus Dei skit and our dances when we got back to the village (I was about to say got back to camp haha). I think the Agnus Dei skit was really powerful. The concept was as such: There are 3 people with illnesses of some sort – The lame, the blind and the broken-hearted. And somehow I was the most obvious / logical choice for the lame man. Bah. Anyway Jesus sees the 3 men, and His heart is filled with compassion for them. As he touches them to heal them, he begins to take up their illnesses upon himself. So by the time He touches everybody, He is Himself blind, lame and broken-hearted. After which He then crawls towards the cross and then is nailed onto the cross. After the third day, Jesus comes back to life. Simple but yet the message is so clear. He took all our sin and sickness upon himself, and then He was nailed onto the cross for it. And I really thank God that He nailed my sin together with Himself on the cross. Lord, I am so unworthy of Your love, yet Thou hast loved me still. And I will worship You forever.
Something really freaky happened that night. I was doing my quiet time outside the parsonage in the open area when one of the dogs started barking at me. I chased it away, thinking at the back of my mind that I had had enough of all the irritating wild dogs. Though far away, it continued barking, and before I knew it the whole village’s dogs were barking. To make things worse, I heard a growl near me, and when I looked up, I realised that I was surrounded by about 5 dogs, and they started barking as if I was some evil spirit. I decided to stop doing my quiet time and went to the toilet. When I got back the parsonage I noticed that the rooster that normally perches in front of our windows was awake – and get this – the MOMENT i walked under it, it started flapping its wings and CROWED. And soon every single rooster in the village was crowing. I really freaked out then. I just wanted to get onto my mattress and go to sleep. The rooster continued and crow and the dogs continued to bark, then relief came in the form of Isaac, who, immensely irrtated by the rooster crowing, got up in a huff and said “THAT’S IT LAH THIS ONE DIE ALREADY” He threw a SLIPPER at it. Hahaha! The stupid bird started squawking after that, and then stopped crowing for A WHILE. Note: I said awhile. In about 10 minutes it was back to crowing again, and me and her started laughing all over again.
By the way, we did write a song about the irritating zao-sia rooster: Above all poultry
Above all meats
Above all crowing the world will ever need
Above all roosters
And all the ways of hen
You were there before the meal began
Crowcified laid behind the stove
You lived to die, the flesh and the bones
Like the duck, cooked for the hungry
You took the call
And thought of us
“Above all – Written by yours truly”
That night I kept falling asleep while talking to her again, and whenever I woke up she would be smiling at me saying “somebody’s sleeeepy”. Haha. But though I wanted to talk to her no matter how hard I tried to stay awake I somehow kept drifting in and out of sleep. It’s almost as if……………… My thoughts end there.