more from toroweap

couldn't resist posting a few more pics from our summer adventure...memories...
for more info on this amazing place, go to: http://www.zionnational-park.com/toroweap.htm

picasa

my darling husband downloaded picasa & started the arduous task of organizing all the pics we've taken since we got married... almost 4 years ago... very few of which i've organized & almost none of which i've printed out...bad.
anyway, he came across some amazing pictures like this one... from our drive across utah, on our way to colorado from the northwestern rim of the grand canyon. gorgeous.

summer

here's mike & me in our bungalow on Ko Jum... when we arrived in krabi (the closest city to the island), the locals tried to convince us not to go to the island because, "nothing is on Ko Jum... no one is there... it is closed!" what's the problem? we were even more convinced it was, in fact, where we wanted to go. we were often the only ones on the beach, save a few stray dogs. it rained most days, too... we didn't mind.

we had a wonderful visit with my mom & grandmother here... Grandmother said she really felt like she'd been "immersed in Thai culture" :). Here we are on Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand....
and wearing the silver jewelry we made at a local studio... with some training from the master jeweller, we did the designing, heating, flattening, cutting, soldering, shaping, and polishing ourselves!

we've been painting our new office.... the previous color was an appetizing cross between cooked salmon & pepto bismol. here i am jamming out to johnny cash & trying hard to paint a straight line between "brittany beige" & "olive grove" (i'm a freehander). i am also working on curtains... found a great deal on some thai cotton... under $1/yard.

gardening... we've been planting all kinds of stuff.... cucumbers, basil, oregano, LOTS of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, a flower i can't spell (thanks for the seeds Sandy!)... can't wait to make salsa & spaghetti sauce! mike made a lovely garden in one corner of our yard.... but you'll have to wait for pics.

all for now!

Healing the Wound

I get little snippets like this everyday from the folks at Ransomed Heart ministries... most are quotes from their books (most of which i've read) & are always short, but powerful, encouragements & reminders for me.

Healing the Wound 08/17/2006

If you wanted to learn how to heal the blind and you thought that following Christ around and watching how he did it would make things clear, you’d wind up pretty frustrated. He never does it the same way twice. He spits on one guy; for another, he spits on the ground and makes mud and puts that on his eyes. To a third he simply speaks, a fourth he touches, and for a fifth he kicks out a demon. There are no formulas with God. The way in which God heals our wound is a deeply personal process. He is a person and he insists on working personally. For some, it comes in a moment of divine touch. For others, it takes place over time and through the help of another, maybe several others. As Agnes Sanford says, “There are in many of us wounds so deep that only the mediation of someone else to whom we may ‘bare our grief ’ can heal us.”

So much healing took place in my life simply through my friendship with Brent. We were partners, but far more than that, we were friends. We spent hours together fly-fishing, backpacking, hanging out in pubs. Just spending time with a man I truly respected, a real man who loved and respected me—nothing heals quite like that. At first I feared that I was fooling him, that he’d see through it any day and drop me. But he didn’t, and what happened instead was validation. My heart knew that if a man I know is a man thinks I’m one, too, well then, maybe I am one after all. Remember—masculinity is bestowed by masculinity. But there have been other significant ways in which God has worked—times of healing prayer, times of grieving the wound and forgiving my father. Most of all, times of deep communion with God. The point is this: Healing never happens outside of intimacy with Christ. The healing of our wound flows out of our union with him. (Wild at Heart , 127–28)
From The Ransomed Heart, by John Eldredge, reading 229 Ransomed Heart Ministries

If you'd like to subscribe to this daily mailing, go to the "My Profile" section on www.ransomedheart.com and create a new profile... then you'll need to check the Daily Readings List checkbox in your profile.

quick fixes

thought i'd pass on some domestic wisdom i've learned lately...

when __________ .... just _________________.
1. one of the holes in your vinyl shower curtain rips.... apply generous amounts of hot glue to the torn section. it's clear (unlike duct tape) and seems to be working. i'll give you an update on durability after we actually take showers.
2. you turn all your husband's favorite t-shirts various shades of pink.... wash again with non-colorfast clothes that are a more "acceptable" shade for a guy. i threw them in a hot-water wash with a dark navy thai outfit... voila! sky blue beats pepto pink anyday, & looks great on my hubby!
3. you have a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.... rest a bit, & wait for a dear friend to show up with chocolates. thanks Catherine!

feel free to share any of your own tips.

map to our house

(click for a bigger size)

29/16 Mu Baan Sri Suk

ireland

O Ireland isn't it grand you look--Like a bride in her rich adornin? And with all the pent-up love of my heart I bid you the top o' the mornin!
John Locke
"The Exile's Return"

if you haven't heard, after our last recording trip, i abandoned my husband for 10 days and went to ireland... a good friend had been planning to go there on her sabbatical and was without a travel partner at the last minute, so i obliged her...
the really miraculous thing was that we were both able to get free plane tickets through our frequent flier programs within a couple months of the trip and even arrived in dublin within an hour of each other!
we drove our way around the south to glendalough, avoca (for all you ballykissangel fans), wexford, kilkenny, waterford, cork, killarney, the dingle peninsula, galway, clifden/connemara, & all the beautiful roads in between surrounded by goats, sheep, cattle (sometimes on the roads, as well) and fences made of stone.... we saw tons of buildings, abbeys, castles, rocks, ruins, shorelines, churches, graveyards, & gardens... all considerably older than the country of our birth.
the place was gorgeous and the people were just beautiful... they were always friendly & welcoming... a few times we were approached by strangers on the street who thought we looked lost & did not want to mug us, but actually wanted to help us...
if you'd like to see oodles of great pictures of ireland, debbie, and me, go to debbie's ireland photos on snapfish... you'll need to get a login if you don't have one, but it's easy... let me know if the link doesn't work.

faR&R away from the city

mike & i saw an article in a local magazine about ko jum... an island not a lot of people have heard of (yet) down in the south of thailand... we've been really busy -- & itching to go somewhere "lonely" for a while -- & decided to go for it next week since we'll be in bangkok for work...

just had to share with you the correspondence i had with the sweet thai man who owns the "beach bungalows" we'll be in.... i didn't edit anything so you could get the full experience...

(this is his response to an email from me asking him about the difference between the 2 ends of the island where we will be staying... we had already spoken on the phone, which was an equally delightful & cultural experience)


Dear Caryn
I just get my mail today after already have conversation to your goodself, the diffirence between Nort and South are:
1. local people call nortern part Ban Koh Pu and Southern part Ban Koh Jum end up with the island have two name.
2. northern have high mouthen the highest in the regien while the southern are flat land.
3. more resort on the south than the north because the road access to the north beach is resently constracted,
This may help you to know abit about Koh Jum and Koh pu before arrive their.
Since we have quite limited choise of food on the island and no refigirator to preserve food because no public eletric supply may I ask you very ood question that can you take see food? so we can prepare proper row meterial food for you.
Best wishes
Paul (Somporn Sangsuwan)

note that we are staying on the NORTH end of the island, "ko pu"... the one with high "mouthen" (mountains) and less "resorts" (mostly just little beach huts that run around $7-$12/night)... and that neither end has electricity... we are very excited about the fresh "see food" (fish & whatnot)....

the 4th

we had a great time celebrating our country's birthday last week...

there is a US consulate in chiang mai, so we joined many other americans, as well as thai guests, in an evening of "american style hotdogs", sodas we'd been missing from the states (like sunkist & dr. pepper), make your own patriotic necklaces, and a "rousing sing-along" followed by fireworks to end things right.... all very fun, but we have no evidence of this fun since cameras & cell phones were "discouraged" at the consulate....

afterwards, we invited friends & neighbors back to our place for dessert, games, & patriotic movies...

it's amazing how patriotic you get when you leave the country... caryn decided to decorate the party cups and wrote a line from all 8 stanzas of "my country 'tis of Thee" on each one. yes... there are 8 stanzas! go here if you don't believe it: http://www.montney.com/flag/hymns.htm

a family from texas came... they brought a really cool cake, & we didn't try to explain to them that texas is only a part of the US, and not the entire country...


hope yours was great, too... feel free to leave a comment & tell us what YOU did!

long live the king

did you know Thailand has the longest reigning living monarch? the country just pulled out all the stops to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his reign...
he's a huge part of life here -- a picture of him has a prominent place in every business and home... at the beginning of movies, the audience stands to pay homage to him... & every once in a while in the supermarket, a special song plays and everyone just stops to think good thoughts of him... it's even punishable by law to say anything bad about him... this doesn't seem to be a problem though, since from everything we've heard, he's a really great guy...
here's a link if you are interested in learning more about His Majesty King Bhumibol:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/60yrsthrone/

back from blog darkness

since i last wrote, we've finished 5 awesome projects for work, & caryn went to ireland with a friend (she had a free plane ticket -- yes, our family seems to have more than their fair share of free tickets to ireland)...

mike gives his hellos... he's out climbing a wall (literally), as now that we are back in the office, our jobs are lacking in physical & artistic challenges (other than keeping our eyes open in front of the computer as we work on admin & fill orders)... we are looking for every opportunity to chop wood & do some serious fingerpainting, as our birkman personality assessments would have us do (i'll let you figure out who's doing what).

more pics & updates later, but just wanted to let you know we're home safely & slowly catching up on paperwork, emails, and life....

thanks for all your comments, by the way! i've responded to a few of them, so if you're really interested, you can hunt through the comments :)....

oh -- any creative ideas for celebrating the 4th of july in asia?

out of the loop

thanks for all of your fun comments... we treasure each one... sorry we've not had time to respond or update the blog lately! any special requests for content? i know i need to get some pics op of our local markets!

we were out of town for work most of last month... we returned on tuesday with just enough time to do laundry & pack for our our next recording trip...

we leave early tomorrow morning & would appreciate your prayers!

We just returned from our last recording trip to a neighboring country a few days ago… thanks SOOO much for your prayers!

*We have very few technical problems – the least I have experienced on ANY trip.

*We were able to record, mix, & edit the Film, Audio/Radio product, & Old Testament introduction/close on the field – that means we got to hand the finished products to this people group to take back to their village BEFORE we left the country last month. This is usually at least a 3-9 month process – when the recordings are normally sent back to the Studio in Orlando to edit & mix, then returned to the field for approval.

*We finished ahead of schedule & were able to enjoy the scenery & a few days of relaxation.

We leave early tomorrow morning for Chiang Rai (a city in Thailand just north of Chiang Mai) to record a children's product in the Akha language. Please pray:

*As we travel with our supervisor, Doug, & his daughter, Rachel, to Chiang Rai (Mike will be driving us in our truck).

*For a good quality recording that will communicate the Message clearly to the Akha people in Thailand and the neighboring countries where they live.

*That we would be an encouragement to the ministry we are working with & the children they care for at Akha Outreach (go to http://akhachildren.com/homepage.htm for more information on their ministry).

*That Rachel would enjoy her time with us – she is 12 and has a heart for working with orphans.

More later… thanks again for all of your prayers and encouragement…

our street

we've had a request for a pic of the street we live on... here it is:

our truck is parked in front of our gate.

we love that it's an older neighborhood with lots of big, green trees...

if you missed the pic of the outside of the house, click here. I need to update the inside pics, though!

blue vivaldi

meet the puppy formerly known as "blue" & "our favorite".

you met annette, his new owner, on a previous post... well, she came by today with "vivaldi" (his new name -- we mentioned she's a flautist, i believe), happy to report that he is doing quite well in obedience classes. the teacher even suggested that she enter him into new dog shows they are starting for mixed breeds.
we couldn't be prouder.

reflections on large, sharp objects...

I (Mike) have a firm belief that specific tools are made for specific jobs...I could be one of two people in the world that thinks like this...but there it is.

Now... my beautiful wife and I do not agree on this...at least in practice. It is not an issue we would fight about...but if I get an ulcer someday it will be the result of repeatedly walking in on Caryn using a machete (such as this...) to chop garlic while she holds the garlic with her fingers...or from repeated exposure to watching her use my pocket knife to open a package by pulling the knife TOWARDS herself...

(...in her defense...she can throw a football and play catch with the baseball and if she really had to, I believe with all my heart that she would in fact take a fish off the hook...)

The picture you now see is one such example...your eyes are NOT decieving you...she is using a pair of hedge clippers to open a bag of dog food...I have no further comments on this...

P.S...she has actually never used a machete...technically speaking...to cut garlic...but I submit it is because I don't keep it in the kitchen...