Epilogue (because I've always wanted to write one!)

Travel changes your mental metabolism. A part of you is perpetually wandering--a nomadic sheep--simultaneously seeking both the novel and a niche, a dwelling place, an abode of belonging. "Home was a moveable feast; you strapped it to your back, stuffed it in a jar, dried it in the sun, dug it from the ground. Home was wherever you broke bread with people you loved. You built it out of hotel rooms or the trunk of your car or couches in your friends' living rooms. You coaxed it into existence by reading books and cooking food and learning languages, by sharing meals and words with others. You carried it with you, folded up like a picnic basket, and spread it out wherever you happened to be" (Annia Ciezadlo, Day of Honey). Travel is leaving your footprints all over the landscape of the globe and planting pieces of your heart in the soil of the souls you encounter along the way. When He guides your steps into His countries, you find they are all your home because they are all His! I am beyond blessed by the opportunity to teach and serve the Lord in Laos this summer. 

Although I came to bless others,

It is I returned blessed.

Although I came to pour out my life,

It was mine whose life was poured into.

Although it was I who came to teach English,

It was my students who taught me the universal language of love!

This summer in Laos has been unforgettable,

and I hope to return to the States indelibly changed.

As World Vision program leader Thuso Mpholo in Lesotho, South Africa, so eloquently expressed, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart but my heart has no bottom as no duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. 

Kop jai lai lai! Thank you!

Lao Traditional Massage

It would be a shame to travel all the way across the world to spend a month in Laos without experiencing a traditional Lao massage. And what better opportunity to indulge than during our weekend visit to Four Thousand Islands? So into the massage house ventured, my expectations as blank as the plain white bed on which my masseuse directed me to recline. He provided me with a cloth tunic reminiscent of Biblical times, I stretched out flat on my stomach, and away he went. He pressed my back into the mattress until the oxygen in my lungs was expunged. He dug his fingers into my neck like talons, clawing away the tension in my muscles. He bent my legs across my body, curled my torso into a pretzel, and stretched my entire body like a bridge in the air--contortions of which I was not aware I was capable! Although the duration of the experience lasted a mere half hour (and the soreness a couple of days!), I floated out of the massage house intoxicated by my relaxed state of being.

Later in the week, while reading Acts 28:27, I was reminded of the spiritual implications of the experience. "For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." Like the Lao traditional massage, spiritual healing is a holistic experience. It requires eyes, ears, heart just as a physical massage requires back, neck, arms, legs, and even feet. According to the Lao belief, the foot is the most important part of the massage as the foot is the "heart" of the body. Various parts of the foot are connected with various muscles and determine the ultimate health if the whole. Likewise, the soul is the seat of our spiritual health; if we have submitted ourselves--heart, mind, and strength--to Christ the our conversion is complete. He is our healer. He restores us to a right relationship with our Creator, and massages the "kinks" in our spiritual souls.

A Convenient Season For Obedience

In my quiet time this morning, I was convicted and challenged by two passages: Acts 24:25 and 16:6-11. In Acts 24:25, Paul writes, "And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." This passage compelled me to consider, how many of us are waiting for "a more convenient season" to say "yes" to His call on our lives? How many of us are waiting for a more convenient season for obedience? How many times have I put God off until faith becomes sight when faith precedes seeing? Convenience is fickle, circumstantial at best and a cop out at worst. I am convinced that obedience season is now; faith requires a leap into the nebulous unknown. Whispers of this concept are conveyed in the Old Testament in 2 Chronicles 29:11, "My sons, be not now negligent: for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him, and that you should minister to him..." Let me not be negligent in my obedience by waiting on convenience.

Which brings me to my second challenge Acts 16:9, in which Paul recounts a dream, "And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us." The verse is embedded in a context of closed doors, denied access, and inevitable frustration and disappointment. Paul and his traveling companion Timothy were attempting to spread the Gospel to Asia, but the Holy Spirit forbade them and "suffered them not." This is when Paul was given the dream/vision beckoning him to Macedonia, a place previously overlooked and unconsidered. This verse resonated with me profoundly as I had always felt called to Latin American countries or possibly African countries, but Asia had never even crossed my heart or mind. And yet here I am on Don Khone, one of the Four Thousand Islands in Laos, teaching English in Pakse after having taught in Mongolia last summer and China the summer before. And yet it is here in Laos that I have heard the call, the cry for English teachers, like nowhere else. From acquaintances off the street to brothers and sisters in the church to foreign full time staff in the schools, the sources are myriad but the supplication is the same. "Come over into Laos, and help us; we want to learn English!" So I have decided to go. Choosing to give obedience precedence over convenience.

And yet, like Gideon, I do so with tenacious temerity. In accordance with the way the Lord sent the animals on their journey on the ark two by two and the disciples out to spread the Gospel in pairs, I lay down my fleece: if God is calling me to be a missionary, He will provide for me a community of teammates who are like minded and together we can serve of one heart and one purpose, lifting one another up and encouraging one another in the faith and in glorifying the God to Whom we have been called and Who has called us.

Lao Vida

Bread was something I was not suspecting upon arrival in Laos. Certainly not white bread, a flavor I disdain back in the States. But here. Freshly baked. Soft and moist and so light it practically dissolves on your tongue. Almost sacred. Like the sacraments. Precious and delicious and rare. Handmade to nourish both the consumer and the hands that knead it. At the little fair trade bakery cum skills centre cum language training facility. Lao Vida. Vida. Life. My team leader mentioned how bread brought her closer to understanding Christ. The myriad ingredients, the kneading/suffering, baking in the blazing oven and being resurrected from its former state as a flat lump of dough to a risen golden loaf, nourishing the body and yet delicious to the tongue just as life in Christ is satisfying and also filled with joy as we delight ourselves in Him. 

Ten Things I'd Say About Pakse

1. Verdant; I've never seen so many shades of green

2. It's better when it rains. It's nature's air conditioning, it's soothing and it transforms the landscape into something tropical.

3. It's both larger and smaller than you'd expect

4. There are two types of organic materials cultivated here-- the flower on her way to becoming a piece of garbage, and the garbage on her way to becoming a flower. In the landscape of "wheat and tares," suffering and compassion coexist.

5. There's a giant golden statue of Buddha (reminiscent of a golden calf) situated on the mountainside, perpetually keeping watch over the city

6. There's a bridge crossing the Mekong River that commemorates the alliance between the Japanese and Lao, over which you can watch solitary men in wooden slivers fishing for food and friendship

7. Often the places that look least inviting have the most to offer--two of the most breathtaking waterfalls Tat Fan and Khon Phapheng Falls are tucked away along the backroads outside the city 

8. Must break for roadside vendors with hanging clusters of durian. The process of knocking, cutting, and scooping out the sweet and slimy fruit is rival to none. 

9. The sin is the traditional women's skirt. Wearing one as a foreigner demonstrates modesty and respect; it will also garner admiration and appreciation with the citizens

10. It's not a place you ever really know.