Caylahall’s Weblog

It is still hot hot hot outside but Bangkok is already reminding its shop-obsessed population that it is never too early to start spending that Christmas bonus. I remember the malls in America rushing the holiday, but it seems even more out of place when the 100 foot Christmas tree goes up right next to a giant elephant shrine.

I guess I really can’t complain though, hearing “Winter Wonderland” as I walk past the mall just floods me with warm memories of Christmases past – baking cookies, decorating the tree, long road trips out to Houston. You know, all those things that just aren’t the same in Thailand. Also not in Thailand: snow. But for some reason Primo, the little boy I teach, has become obsessed with it. It isn’t even Thanksgiving yet and we have already read every Christmas book they own (which is actually quite a lot), had a snowball fight and built a snowman out of paper. What will we do when it actually is Christmas?

And coming right along with the season of giving, the teachers at Kids Drama have decided to put on an British panto production of Cinderella to raise money for charity. They have cast me as Cinderella- the poor, love-struck, SINGING servant girl =/ Now if you know me at all, you know that I generally avoid singing in front of or around people at all cost. Not really because I am shy, but because I care for their sanity. It’ll be an interesting production. As long as no one asks for their money back =)

One thing that I am really excited about this Christmas is that it is Matt and my first Christmas as a married couple. It is time for us to start our own Christmas traditions! And we won’t even have to worry about whose parent’s house to spend it at =)

To all the married people who read my blog, what did you do on your first Christmas?

Only one more day in Iraq and it is time to head back to Thailand. Mixed feelings. We have had such a good time here – with the team, with the Kurds, working for PLC. It has been quite a visit.

A few days ago we had lunch with the team leaders here and talked about what it would look like if we decided to come join the team. They answered a lot of our questions and filled us in on things we hadn’t even thought about. We wouldn’t be able to get here until the end of 2010 or early 2011, but there would be lots to do before then.

We are excited because this would be our chance to do something on purpose; to go somewhere with a clear idea why, with goals and something to work. Not only would we be helping children receive life saving heart surgeries, we would be investing in the lives of families by spending time with them and loving them with Jesus’ love, a love most of them have never known.

Our specific roles here would be working on public relations for PLC and caring for families of the children. It has been fun to see that there are very tangible and specific ways for us to serve here.

I was also excited to find out that in order to learn the language we would live for a few months with a Kurdish family, hopefully out in one of the villages. This is actually on my top 100 list of things to do before I die (as is kill and pluck a chicken with my hands, there may be opportunity for this too =) Living the way they live would be so far out of our comfort zone, it would pull and stretch us so much, but I think it will be so beneficial to us too, not only to learn Kurdish.

So we have a lot to think about when we get back to Bangkok. We are leaving for Turkey tonight and will be in Bangkok Wednesday afternoon. Please keep us in your prayers as we are traveling and as we make this huge decision.

More to come – picture too =)

There are over 3,000 Kurdish children with congenital heart problems and tens of thousands of others with a range of other health problems. Last week we went out to a village to visit a boy who had surgery in February, he is doing great, but afterward we visited his cousin whose muscles didn’t develop correctly so he cannot stretch his legs out or control his limbs at all. Then we went to see a little boy with spina bifida and his sister who also had a problem with her spine. It has just been amazing to me how much these children have been effected by what their parents were exposed to. On top of poverty and malnutrition, these people were effected by Saddam’s chemical attacks in the 80’s. It just makes you realize how blessed we are to have legs that walk and hands that can move. It has been amazing to watch the PLC team care not only for the families who have received heart surgeries, but also for their relatives and neighbors, anywhere there is a need and a hand can be lent. One of the girls on the team has a background in physical therapy, which is amazingly useful here. Just yesterday she taught one of the mothers of a heart surgery girl some exercises to help her aching back. It makes me wonder why I chose such a vague field of study. But even with that, I have been able to lend some help, so I’ll learn and keep doing what I can =)

When a family comes to PLC for help with their child, it is not just the child who will get attention. Each family is assigned an advocate from the PLC team to make sure they along the child are being cared for throughout the entire process.

This week I have had the opportunity to accompany these advocates on home visits around the city and out in the villages. We visited little Heran to make sure she was gaining weight so she can get a needed follow-up surgery. We visited Honya who will be getting surgery in November to ready her family for the trip to Istanbul. We went out into the villages to visit Teban to plead with the school board to let her back in school now that she has recovered from her surgery. Every family has needs and PLC wants to do all they can to meet those needs and ease the pain.

It is also a time to build relationships with the families, friendships that can go beyond their child’s health. The Kurdish people have been through a lot and though there are many institutions offering aid and handouts, there aren’t many offering Truth and love.

It has been a really neat experience spending time with Kurds in their homes, though most of the time I have no idea what is being said. From the outside the houses look like cement bunkers, but inside they are quite inviting. Most families have a sitting room where they take us, usually two long rugs on either side, maybe couches to sit on. They are very hospitable people and will always offer whatever they have, though I am learning that you should not always take them up on their offer because it might really be all they have. The woman will bring out a tray first of water, maybe cookies or nuts, then tea and the last thing to come out is the fruit. The tea comes out in little shot glasses with a spoonful of sugar at the bottom. Just yesterday, throughout my various visits, I drank 6 cups! That’s a record so far =)

So lots of you are probably wondering why we are up here in Iraq. Well, this post is dedicated to telling you more about where we are and whom we are with.

PLC – The Preemptive Love Coalition

This is a team of both foreigners and Kurds who have dedicated their lives to helping Kuridish children attain much needed heart surgeries. They have partnered with many other organizations and doctors as well as raised money through donations and the selling of local Kurdish shoes so that they can offer families expensive surgeries at a much more affordable cost. Once a child is chosen for surgery, the team members offer support and love to the family during the entire process and long into their recovery.

The Team

So we are staying in the home of the founders of PLC along with their two young children. They are Americans who we met for the first time in Waco two years ago. Right now there are three short-term team members, all about our age, who have been here since June. Also on the team are a few Kurds who help with translation and understanding Kurdish culture as well as a young Irish woman who has been here since the beginning and speaks excellent Kurdish. The rest of the team is currently away working from America.

Sulimanye

The city we are in now is nestled among rolling sand hills in Northern Iraq. As can be expected, it is a very warm and dry climate (I have been drinking a gallon of water a day just to stay hydrated!) The city has many foreigners living here for various reasons; our host’s daughter even goes to an international school. Most women cover their heads and the men wear Aladdin pants. They are very hospitable and generally friendly. I would also like to add, knowing many of your ideas about Iraqi people, that they think all Texans ride around on horses and shoot people for fun. We all know that is not true, and I have found an Iraq that is peaceful and in need of Truth and love.

So that is a bit of what is here… but why are we here? Well, we met these people our last year in college and were inspired by their passion and their mission. They have been on our minds ever since and we always wondered if joining them could be a possibility for us, but all we had were vague ideas about what really goes on here. So here we are trying to get an idea of what life is like working for PLC and living in Sulimanye, Iraq, as well as if there is a place for us to fit in and really contribute to the team. It would be a big life change and a huge step of faith, but we are willing to take that risk if God shows us that this is a place we can glorify him. It hasn’t been long, but we are still open to the idea… so we’ll see how we feel after our three weeks are up and it is time to go back to Bangkok.

Hello from Iraq! We made it =)

It was a loooong trip. We left home at about 9:30 on Friday night, caught a few winks on the red-eye to Cairo… landed, got visas, changed some money and dashed out to make the most of our 10-hour layover. We took a bus to see the pyramids… which were awesome. We even got to ride a camel! We started talking to one of the guys and he threw us up there, stole my camera and led us around posing us for various pictures. Of course he asked for an obscene amount of money at the end, we gave him a bit, but it was totally worth it. We took a cab back to the airport, had an interesting ride when a rock shattered the front windshield… he kept driving for a while and finally stopped to break out the glass completely, totally calm the whole time and he still got us there with two hours to kill before we boarded a plane to Istanbul. We had plenty of time to get our stuff and get checked back in for a short flight up to Sulimanye where our friends were waiting to take us home for some much needed sleep.

I slept in practically until lunch. Which was delicious. They said you get tired of just rice and beans… I don’t know, these are pretty good beans =)

We went to the office afterwards and talked about business. I understand quite a bit more about what they do here. Tomorrow we will make some house visits. I’m excited about that too

After dinner was house church and some great conversation. It was a good first day! and I am tired… so you will have to wait for more details about where we are and how I am feeling and the people here and all of that… I promise, more to come!

Its been quite a while since I have been able to write. Well, I probably was able, I just didn’t have anything to say. But a lot has been going on, so I thought I would update you all on what has been up lately. 

I got a visa. Even the one I was trying to get… unfortunately though we were told that it would be for a year and I only got 90 days, which is longer than one month and definitely longer than 15 days, so it is not so bad… but I will have to go back to immigration and reapply every 90 days… another 2000 baht. Bleh. 

Classes are going well. I started at a new school a few days ago. In one of my classes I had 14 three and four year olds! It was an interesting hour =/ Until I start again at the Thai school, all my classes  are young kids so we don’t do as much drama as we do playing around, but it is fun. Challenging, but fun =) 

We finally bought tickets for our October holiday. Matt has the whole month off, and I had arranged to take off a few classes, so we had planned to go to India. Plans changed when our friends from northern Iraq came to visit and told us that we should come see what they do there. It is something we have been interested in a long time so we decided to take this opportunity to put some reality to what we know about what they do there. If you are interested in knowing more about it, visit their site at www.preemptivelove.org. We will be there almost three weeks. Pray for us =)

Pray also for my family, Grandma Dot passed away this week. It wasn’t expected. I hadn’t even responded to her last email. I miss her a lot, I miss her long notes about everything that is going on in the world and her silly forwards. And I know I will really feel it when I go back to visit. Wish I could have gone back this week. But love can go even all the way around the world. I know I always felt Grammie’s even way over here.

Well, that has been life here. Most of it anyway =) More to come later. I won’t wait as long for the next post I promise =)

The title of this really should be “The stress of growing up…” but we are particularly feeling right now because we are trying to live in Thailand.

There is a certain point in life when responsibilities start becoming more than just waking up and going to school, cleaning your room or showing up on time for work. Matt and I are feeling the growing pains of being out on our own a lot more this year than we did last year. Along with the difficulties of being newly married, we have been thrown into what has become quite a daunting task to renew our visas. It has been taxing not only on our time and energy but our bank account has taken quite a hit and I haven’t only lost sleep but a few tears in all the stress. On the way back from Cambodia today (a trip that really should have been avoided) we were sitting in the back of the van and my eyes just started welling and I got all choked up. What was it that put me over? It could have been the merciless officers who charged me extra for my Cambodian visa because I didn’t have a picture or maybe it was standing there with the immigration people knowing they were just telling me what I wanted to hear so that I would go away, or maybe even Matt talking about getting deported and just not coming back, but I was just crying there in the back of the van.

What it really was was me feeling the pains of growing up. Of having my own responsibility, of not being in control and not having anyone to come in and make everything better. If this process never gets us visas, it has definitely served not only to bring Matt and I closer together but also to teach us valuable life lessons (and not only the untrustworthiness of beuracracy =) I have been forced to realize that I am not in control of my life. I live in Thailand, but not for long without a visa… I might have a job, but it certainly isn’t what defines me. I can’t trust my money to back me up, because people keep snatching it right out of my pocket. I can say I hope to get a visa tomorrow, but with everything we have been through, that doesn’t mean much.

Suddenly, there, crying in the back of the van on the rainy Thai road somewhere between Arranyaphet and Bangkok, the idea that Jesus is my life had new meaning. Jesus has to be my life because everything else is so hopeless and so temporary. It has no meaning. Yet I can live in this world with hope because Jesus is enough. Because he came to earth as a man to bring God’s Kingdom to us. Because he died on the cross so we could take part in that amazing relationship. And because he left the mission to us. Its not about me or my job or my money or my friends or even my family. It is about Jesus, what he did and what he left for us to do until he comes back. To live in God’s Kingdom here on earth and to keep spreading it. When I keep my eyes on that, everything else just seems so silly.

This week has been a bit of a stress because our visas are running out very quickly and we are being pushed/dragged through the process that should have been taken care of when we first got back to Thailand. Oh, the pains of living in a foreign country. It is so easy for me to get bogged down in all of it, in the “shoulda, woulda, coulda’s” of it all, but I know that is just me trying to take control of a situation that I really don’t have control of at all. It is teaching me so much just to let go and trust God, again and again. But at the same time where do I need to take responsibility and do more myself?

Something else God has been teaching me lately is contentment in my reliance on him. I listened to a great sermon the other day that pointed to Philippians 4: 10-13 where Paul says that he knows what it is like to have plenty, and what it is like to be in need… but that’s not even the point. The point is JESUS IS ALL WE NEED! Do I really believe that? Do I believe Christ is enough? If I really did, would I let such stupid things ruin my day. Would I become discontent over something as silly as not finding a seat on the bus or a meeting running long or coming home to a messy house? And if I really believed that would I place so much value on the things of this world? On how much money I make or possessions I see as ‘mine’. Nothing I have is mine anyway. All I need is Christ, and that is enough!

Something Josh Patterson said in this sermon was:

Contentment is not contingent on your circumstances. It is rooted in your confidence in Christ.

What about when I’ve completely lost control of a bunch of unruly kids and find myself at the end of my rope? Jesus is enough even there. What about when getting a simple visa turns into a grueling 6 month long endeavor? Jesus is enough! We live in a broken world. He never said it would be easy, it’s never going to be… but he has already overcome it. He overcame sin. We win in the end! It may not feel like winning now, but that’s life. If I’m fighting the same battle Jesus fought – to bring God’s Kingdom to earth (and when I’m not, I need to reprioritize!) then I can KNOW it is not in vain. We win. I can be content because I can be confident that Jesus will keep his promise to redeem this world.

In other news:

Today is Wan Maa! Happy Mothers Day! Yey for no school!

I have reached an all-time high in my flexibility. Yoga really does something!

The Courtney’s and more of the team from Iraq arrive in BKK on Saturday!

For the last two weeks I have been doing a summer school drama class at a school called the Early Learning Center. At Kids Drama, this school is known for their especially naughty children. The problem is that all of the families who can afford to send their kids to this school can also afford to spoil them rotten, and judging by the kids, most of them do. The kids don’t really know the meaning of the word ‘no’ and they all think the world was created to give them everything they want. Teaching becomes difficult because whenever I say “ok, now we are going to…” they each respond with what THEY want to do, followed by whining, pouting, I’ve even had tears! Or they will just stop listening all together and run off to do what they want to do. It is an interesting teaching environment. I am still trying to figure out what discipline should look like in classes like this, its definitely a lesson in patience. I am also learning how to keep the class doing things together and moving forward, where to throw in songs and games, where to go on with the lesson and how to keep the kids engaged. Sometimes it feels like crowd control, but it is so great when they actually get it and really participate and enjoy an activity.

Yesterday Matt was able to come to one of my classes with me. The kids noticed him immediately, “Who is that big guy over there?” I think they were a little scared at first, but they warmed up to the new guy =) He was able to snap a few shots and take a video of the class. This is one of my younger classes, they are really too young for the Kids Drama program, so I have to modify it a lot to get it to their level. Last week we did the three little pigs as a play and because they knew the story already, they got really into it and loved it. It was so fun and adorable to watch! Here is a clip Matt shot of my little pigs:

They are so cute when they aren’t crying and whining and fighting with each other. I have one more week of the summer school, ten more classes with these crazy little pigs =\