the adventure I find myself in / das Abenteuer in dem ich mich finde

Category: Living in Thailand (Page 6 of 10)

Goodbye Mathias

Yesterday evening I drove Mathias to the Chiang Mai Airport. He was here for three month helping us with the work and take time off from his demanding work.

“Mathias I hope you had a good flight. Thanks again for everything. Have a good start on Monday… (oh boy I don’t know how you going to do it).

I’m going to miss our lunches in the food court, the coffee’s at the corner in Gad Suan Gauw, our many talks and the trips to the mountains.

Have a good start in Switzerland annd don’t forget to ask the important questions of life. ;-)”

Today in the afternoon I cut down a hegde in the garden when I heard an air plane pass. It just started from Chiang Mai international Airport and I could clearly recognize the Airbus A380 (superjumbo with two levels) Lillian wrote about it on her blog. Actually we wanted to go to the airport to see it but kind of forgot.

So I was standing in the garden and thought: “is this a sign? a new area beginning, … oh ney…. just another airplane.”

Tausend Dinge

Es gäbe tausend Dinge zu schreiben. Nicht das ich ein paar Minuten Zeit hätte zu schreiben. Es ist manchmal einfach schwierig mich hinzusetzen und das viele das hier abgeht abzutippen. So hatte ich gerade mal eine Blogpause.
Ich bin schon lange mit dem Team zurück, war schon wieder sonst in den Bergen unterwegs und werde am Sonnntag wieder für zwei Tage gehen. Freunde von uns sind hier in den Ferien und auch unsere Ferien sind nicht mehr allzufern. Wir haben eine Auszeit sehr nötig.

Gestern bekam ich ein Telefon wegen unseren Visas. Die laufen erst im Oktober ab. Der Prozess für die Erneuerung muss aber schon jetzt eingeleitet werden, da es soviel zu tun gibt und so lange dauert bis es durch alle Kanäle gelaufen ist.

Es gäbe soviel zu schreiben von den letzten zwei Wochen. Ich werde es aber einfach mal lassen.

Erdbeben in Chiang Mai

Gestern am Mittag sass ich im Büro, als sich der Boden plötzlich für ein paar Sekunden erschütterte. "Das war jetzt komisch?" dachte ich. Ich ging vor die Türe und wunderte mich ob es ein schwerrer Lastwagen wäre. Beim Hinausgehen kam mir der Gedanke. Es war ein Erdbeben. Ein leichtes, aber denoch gibt es Gefühl von Unsicherheit.
Heute habe ich in der Zeitung gelesen das das Beben eine Stärke von 4.3 auf der Richterskala hatte und das Epizentrum in Doi Saket war. Also nicht sehr weit.
Das letzte "grössere" Beben war am 8 Juni mit 5.3 auf der Richterskala mit Epizentrum nördlich von Chiang Rai. Am 19. Dezember 2006 war ich am Fernsehen als es anfing zu rumpeln und das Wohnzimmer erzittern lies. Dies war mit 5.1 und Epizentrum in Mae Rim (20 Km. von Chiang Mai) eines der grössten. Zuvor habe ich eigendlich noch nie ein Erdbeben so erlebt.
Wann wird wohl Chiang Mai von einem grösseren Erdbeben heimgesucht? IIch bin ja kein Prophet und es gab sicher viele Erdbeben in dieser Gegend. Eine 5 ist ja nicht extrem stark. Könnte es aber sein das irgenmal die Aktivität unter der Erde hier stärker an der Oberfläche zum Vorschein kommt. Ich hoffe es nicht.

Hochzeitstag

Heute sind es 15 Jahre seit wir damals in der reformierten Kirche Bümpliz Ja zueinander gesagt haben. 15 Jahre verheiratet. Wer hätte das gedacht. "Thanks Lillian for sticking with me". Ich weiss das ist nicht viel für manche Leute. Ich konnte mir dies aber nie so vorstellen und hatte damals vor unserer Hochzeit auch Angst dieses Versprechen einzugehen. Heute würde ich wieder Ja zu Lillian sagen. (Just for the record). Meine Frau ist das grösste Geschenk, das mir Gott anvertraut hat.

Neben vielen Entscheideungen, Verplichtungen und Versprechen die ich in meinem bisherigen Leben eingegangen bin stehen zwei ganz besonders hervor. Die Entscheidung dem Ruf von Jesus Christus zu folgen und den Bund der Ehe einzugehen. Die Erste ist für die Ewigkeit und hat mein Leben auf eine total neue Grundlage gestellt. Die Zweite Entscheidung ist für dieses irdische Leben (auf bis der Tod uns scheidet). Ich bin aber Überzeugt das auch diese Beziehung auswirkungen in das Ewige Leben hat.

German Worship

This morning I led worship in the German Community we have every two weeks. This is my latest worship "project". (I wrote about this last year) . Even though I speak German more or less fluent it doesn’t come to me as natural as English. What I mean it is not my heart language. I personally pray in Swiss or English. So praying in "High German" feels a bit difficult.
I have a hard time motivating myself to learn new songs and to practice.  I get away with my experience, level of playing and contempt of the people who come to worship.
I like making music and leading people in worship is probably one my greatest strengths. But I’m kind of searching for something where my heart leaps again.

Today I played an old song in the set. I used to sing it more than 20 years ago. searching through the Internet for German worship songs I found it again and was taken by it’s simplicity, the melody and the text. Everybody seemed to know it and sang harmonies as well as in canon. The good old songs.

Die Herrlichkeit des Herrn bleibe ewiglich
Der Herr freue sich seiner Werke
Ich will singen dem Herrn mein Leben lang
Ich will loben meinen Gott so lang ich bin

Happy Birthday to Me!

I made it…. another year has passed and today I turned 39. Who would have thought I could make it that far. I’m one of the lucky ones. Thank you God for all those years. May they honor You and may I be pleasing to Your heart. Thank you for all the blessings and gifts You have provided for me. I love being part of Your family.

A lovely, beautiful wife
Great children
Good health and strength
Friends all over the world
An adventure
Monthly provisions to pay all the bills
And so many more things you brought into my life……. Thank you!

Please God I would like to understand life better and have more wisdom in dealing with it. Just in case you wonder what you should give me for my Birthday. I leave all the material stuff out. I know you don’t care so much about gadgets as I do.

Dream job

I took this photo in Bangkok. This used to be one of my dream jobs. Cleaning windows at sky scrappers. I must have been crazy to even consider something like this. It’s fear factor 🙂 I remember in Switzerland climbing tall trees with a chain saw in winter without security rope. " The good old crazy times". Now I live this "normal life" in Asia.
Window_cleaning

Travelling by train in Thailand

Train_rideIn April we had a holiday and decided to go down to the beach. To save money we took the night train to Bangkok. From there the third class train to Cha Am. Going by train slows the journey down a lot. Time to read, play games and just relax. The trains are pretty old and noisy. You can order meals on the trains and the staff is very friendly.

If you really have to go on the toilet you can be sure to have quite an adventure. The trains remind me of the very old trains we used to ride back when I was a child in Switzerland. Those trains are not in use anymore back in my home country.

The journey from Chiang Mai to Bangkok takes about 12 hours for the 900km. Sometimes more because of delays. To go to Cha Am we took a 3rd. class train. We paid 160 Baht for five people and it took us nearly five hours to get there. The train stopped everywhere. There are station which are not even on the train table. People who hop on the train for several stations would come by to sell their foods and drinks. The windows are open, it’s hot, noisy and very exhausting. Still it was worth for the adventure and the experience.

I hope Thailand will be able to improve their train system and upgrade the long distance lines with new trains and tracks. It is a nice and comfortable way to travel.

Buddhism and Thailands new Constitution

Thailand is a Buddhist country and in fact kept it’s religious identity very much through decades of globalization and influences from the other countries. Other major religion like Islam and Christianity co-existed in the country. Thailand gives freedom to all religions.

This might all change with the new constitution where Buddhism will be stated as Thailand’s Religion. At least this is the discussion right now and is embraced by the interim Government. If it comes to that is not sure yet, but this is the direction that is taken.

I wonder what implication this would have on the other religions being practiced in Thailand. Is this the end of religious freedom? Why does this have to be in a constitution, where everybody should have the freedom to choose their own choice of Religion.

The drafters of the new constitution say that this would not be a problem and it is not to exclude other Religions. I wonder if this is not a pretext for later marginalization or persecution of other faiths.

Monday Morning

It is Monday morning and I had one of those slow starts again. I must say I worked on the computer till two in the morning. Copying photos on DVD’s and backing up our computers. Then I woke up several times during the night for no particular reason.
Around eight in the morning I quickly got up to get my cup of coffee downstairs. Just to head up back to bed to do my bible reading. My readers may recall that I started reading the bible from cover to cover last year. I’m up to the book of Esther. After Chronicles and Nehemia very refreshing. I nearly finished the whole book, but my coffee was finished and I had to get up to go to work. A busy day today.
I wish you all a nice day as well.

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