Well, I’ve already posted a bit
about this trip, but let me continue the story. I left off with my arrival in
Washington State. It was a great time, a time to connect with family and
reconnect with old friends. I was so busy, every day was full with reading for
the missionary conference I was attending in June in Chicago, speaking
engagements at churches, Bible studies or schools, and hours spent on the
internet trying to find some information about how to get Sophie US
citizenship, since she has been denied Thai citizenship.
I spent time with my entire
family on my moms’ side, other than my cousin Meghaann in Mozambique, saw a lot
of past high school teachers, saw kids I used to babysit, reconnected with lots
of people who helped raise me my first eight years of life in Ephrata, and
visited with some dear friends in Seattle who I hadn’t seen in several years.
I went back to LA after the
whirlwind tour of the Northwest, ready to jump into a big fundraising event
that had been in the works for months: Traffick Jam, an evening of music, dance
and art paired with a silent auction. It was so amazing to get to hear some of
my friends from Bible study play their original stuff, when I had only ever
heard them play in church before. I got to catch up with so many people I hadn’t
seen in a long time, and connect with new people to share what I’ve been doing
in Thailand. It was an amazing night, and couldn’t have been such a success
without the tireless efforts of Angelina Lee, my LA pastor’s wife, behind the
scenes putting it all together, and adding an original dance of her own to the
performances of the night. It was powerful!
I sold most of my stuff from
storage the following morning and made a few bucks to pay for food and travel
as I continued across the country.
Here’s a tangent storyline: When
I first got to LA, I got my fingerprints done so that by the time I got back to
LA, I would have my background check done and could get it certified by the
Secretary of State’s office. Well, someone, somewhere screwed up, so when I got
back, they had sent me the wrong paper! Hours on the phone being redirected to
multiple answering machines, and I finally decided to go downtown to the Secretary
of State’s office and just try to get them to call the DOJ in Sacramento to fix
their screwup.
I got right in to the SOS office,
but there was nothing they could do for me, so they directed me to the Dept of
Justice on the first floor of the same building. I explained the whole saga of
a situation to them and the lady disappeared for about 10 minutes in the back.
She came out with a direct email, direct phone number and name and said she had
left my number with the Sacramento office to call back before noon that day.
Thank you Lord! I went off to await the call and call them if they did not call
me by noon. But, about 10am, they did call. I was able to get special
dispensation from the office to expedite the report to be sent out that day
with all the correct signatures. Thank the Lord, again!
Meanwhile, I was driving my stuff
from my storage unit up to Helen’s house to sell on Saturday, when I got
another call from the office in Sacramento saying that I also needed to get a
CACI background check for overseas adoptions, so she processed that for me
overnight as well, and just took it on faith that I would send the check for
the amount it cost. Now, armed with all the paperwork I thought I needed, I
went to the Secretary of State’s office for the signatures. Here begins Saga
Part II.
I get to the office, I’m the only
one there, so they do the authentication for the first set of overnighted
papers, but say the CACI ones are faxed, not originals, so I have to go to get
them notarized, then come back. I try to find a notary, and discover the only
one in the area opens in an hour. I decided to kill some time with my book at
McDonalds. After an hour, I get into the notary’s office, he stamps my stuff,
and off I go, only to discover that now there are 20 people in the waiting
room. I patiently wait my turn and get up to the counter to be told “Nope. It’s
notarized wrong. Take him this paper and come back with it done right.” You
have GOT to be kidding me. I try to contain my frustration and the waste of
time this has all been from the beginning, and go BACK to the notary, two
blocks away to get the correct thing done, which is just me signing the back of
the paper. Real hard to remember, right? Isn’t that this guy’s JOB? What the
heck? I go back for the third time to the SOS office, only to discover the place
is PACKED with people. At this point, I’ve been there for 3 hours. THREE HOURS
for what should have been a simple authentication, in and out in 5 minutes
tops. So, I throw American rules of courtesy out the window, and access the
Middle Eastern side of my, jumping the queue and saying, as politely as
possible, “I’m so sorry, I really don’t want to jump the line, but I’ve been
here for 3 hours and I just want to get this signed.” Thankfully, the lady is
super nice, takes it and stamps it and hands it back to me in under 90 seconds,
asking just for the check to pay for the authentication. Such a sweet lady, she
should get a commendation from the mayor!
At this point, I am supposed to
take the papers to the Thai Consulate for some additional stamp. I am excited
to speak Thai again! Which I do, immediately, and then discover that the
security guard is Middle Eastern, not Thai. Whoops. Upstairs, I fare better and
talk to two Thai people, doing my best wai and “ka” to ingratiate myself into
their good graces. Not that it does much good, they say I have to now mail the
papers to the authentication place in DC, which makes NO SENSE because it’s a
State background check, not Federal, and then take them to the Thai Embassy in
DC. So, the saga continues. Stay tuned for next week’s installment.
The week after the fundraiser
included Disneyland with Tricia and Amber, a flight to Tucson, a zoo and
bowling with a two year old, tantrums (from the two-year-old, not from me),
barbecues, shooting guns for the first time ever with my brother-in-law, and
getting to share my story with about 30 ladies at my sister’s Mary Kay meeting.
FYI, largest gathering to date where I knew no one and was able to speak for
more than 60 seconds. And I didn’t talk too fast, I promise! I also sold almost
all the rest of the handicrafts I had brought from Thailand. People love that
stuff! I’m so excited to share with the families in Thailand about how well
things sold.
May 30, caught a jet plane (well,
not really a jet, I guess, just a Southwest plane) to Chicago, my first trip to the Windy
City. I was ready for two solid weeks of having my head crammed full of useful
info about what it means to be a “Covenant missionary.” Also to have my myriad
questions answered. I was not disappointed. We were in class 10 hours a day,
sometimes ending with several more hours of dinner with various important
people in our denomination, like the president. (Churches have presidents, who
knew? Maybe you did. I did not.)
It was a great experience, and I
met a bunch of new cool people, with whom I quickly bonded for life and then
realized, too late, that I would in all likelihood never see again. Well, I
guess I’ll see some of them again. Stephen and Soo are in Japan, Caryn is in
Taiwan and Chris and Diane are going back to China at some point in the future,
so it’s more likely I’ll see them. I probably will never see Jen, Doreen,
Amanda, Daniel and Cassidy or John and Letha again though, cause they are in
Europe and Latin America. Well, it was a great, intense, bonding, learning
experience nonetheless, and I loved nearly every minute of it. The only
downside was that because of our intense schedule, I had no time to take care
of the jillion things I needed to do to continue fundraising so I can go home
in July, which meant I would be up til midnight every night and then up at 6 am
to get ready to go back to class. By the final day, I was falling asleep during
lecture with exhaustion, despite drinking lots of chocolate and Coke to stay
awake, and really interesting speakers.
It was so terrible, I was
literally falling asleep as the president of the Ecuadorian Covenant Church was
speaking. He was speaking Spanish, and we had a translator, but my brain would
not stop translating anyway. I was like “Brain! Stop translating! You are using
up the last reserves of energy we have. I am fall…ing….as…leep…zzz” and then when
my head dropped, and I startled awake, I had to get up and go to the bathroom
to splash some water on my face and smack myself around a bit. Oy, barely made
it through that hour.
The other great part about
Chicago was staying with the DeNeui family, who had lived for 18 years in
Thailand. I was SO excited to talk to them about their experiences and share
mine with them and get their advice on things. It was so healing and helpful
and I was overjoyed to learn more about Thailand and have Thai spoken to me.
Highlights of our METE missionary
training conference:
SOUL FOOD, not the movie, just
the food. We went to an awesome African-American church on our first Sunday and
then two of the ladies took us to this spectacularly awesome soul food place
and I could barely contain myself, I was so excited. You can ask anyone. I was
literally jumping up and down outside the restaurant as we waited for some
people to finish eating so we could all sit. Oh, so much food. Oh, so much
goodness and oh, so much great conversation. LOVE IT. Love those people and
that whole experience!
Enneagram. You may not have heard
it referred to that way, but it’s basically a personality typing format that
tells you what resourceful and non-resourceful qualities you are using, what
personality type you revert to under stress and when you feel safe and what
your partner type is. Shockingly, I know, I’m an enigma and am almost equally
split between “Goodness,” “Love,” and “Loyalty.” I was actually really
surprised to discover that I was not scoring very high on the Wisdom chart,
since the descriptors of that are “always seeking knowledge, questioning,
wanting to know the hows and whys of things, introspective, a voracious reader.”
What in that list does not describe me? Yet, it was a distant fourth in the
personality list. Oh, well. Good news is that in every personality type, I used
vastly more resourceful qualities than non-resourceful qualities, so at least
I’m well balanced. Ha! Clearly, I cheated. (Just kidding, I don’t think it’s
possible to cheat).
Thai dinner and string tying
ceremony. I so super duper miss sticky rice and chicken, so it was awesome to
have that for dinner, and then Paul did this Thai blessing ceremony that is
pre-Buddhist, but usually attributed to Buddhism, where you say a blessing over
the person’s life as you tie a string of cotton thread around their wrist to
bind them to God. He says bless in the name of Jesus, rather than Buddha and
reclaim this practice. He did one for me first as an example and did it all in
Thai, which nearly made me burst into tears, despite the fact that I only
understood 75% of it. Then we were all supposed to pair up and bless each
other. I tell you, God was present in that room that night. It was powerful,
and was really hard to keep from crying, especially when Chris and Jen did
theirs for me. In fact, I’m crying typing this right now as I remember it. God
was definitely using them to speak truth, power and strength to me, that I
desperately needed as I’m so far from Sophie and home. Paul challenged us to
pass on the blessing to those who weren’t able to stay that night as they had
little kids to tend to, so I made a concerted effort to do that before we left,
even though I ended up doing most of them our last night at dinner before we
all left one another for our respective homes.
Hanging out with people
one-on-one. I love big group talks, but you only really get to know people when
it’s just the two of you, so I liked that I had time to spend with just me and
every other person for at least a few minutes during the course of the two
weeks.
Missiology. Who knew that the
study of God’s mission in the world would be so fascinating and deep? Well, I
knew it would be deep, but fascinating? That was a surprise. Paul teaches it so
well that it’s simply captivating and I want to know more and more. I hope I
get to go to his Missiology conference in January. It’s in my town, so I should
be able to go for a few days at least!
The Missionary Prayer Calendar.
Did not know that a) such a thing as an MPC existed, b) I would be the very first entry in the new book. Awkward.
And Awesome. (to borrow my friend Rosa’s phrase. Sorry, dude, it seemed
appropriate.) So, my official prayer days, according to this calendar, are the
first of July, September, November, January, March and May. Let the miracles
commence! I prefer miracles of cash. J
Just kidding, people! Calm down! Of course I prefer much more amazing miracles
of lives changed. Although, if someone wanted to give us cash to buy our much
needed new Taw Saeng building, I would put that in both the cash AND life
transforming categories.
