Spinning

I was reading The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp to prepare my heart for the Christmas season.  I read this paragraph, which sparked the following thoughts:

“The earth outside your window is tilted right now at just twenty-three degrees.  ….So the planet’s bulk of six sextillion tons (that’s twenty-one zeros) spins perfectly balanced on an invisible axis, spinning you around at one thousand miles an hour, nine million miles a year.  Hurtling you through space even right now in this sun orbit at nineteen miles per second, 600 million miles a year. You, held in this moment by this unseen belt of gravity and turning these pages slowly while the miracle happens all around you.”

I sat for a while and tried to picture this universe, this earth, tilted in space, tons of tons suspended in mid-air, spinning around itself and spinning around the sun.  While I can picture it and know it’s true, it doesn’t really connect to my day-to-day life.  The earth to me doesn’t seem to be spinning, it seems still.  And from my perspective it’s not tilted, it seems straight.  And most of the time it doesn’t even seem round, it feels pretty flat to me.  My perspective on earth doesn’t always match what I know to be scientifically true.

I know the earth revolves around the sun, but in my day-to-day life I think of the sun revolving around the earth.  I mean, why do we call it a sunrise or a sunset?  The sun doesn’t rise or set.  The sun is constant, stationary.  As the earth spins, the sun appears to go up and down in a day, but really the earth is just constantly turning right. 

From my kitchen window one morning I watched the sunrise.  I could just see the tip of the sun when I started watching; it was bright orange and just peeking over the trees.  And at that part of the day the sun seemed to be rising pretty fast.  Within 5 or 10 minutes it was a full circle above a tall building and shining more clearly and brightly.  While it appeared to me that the sun was rising over the earth, I know that really the earth was just continuing to spin east as it orbited the sun.  I picture the sun going up and down, around and around the earth, when really the sun stays still and we are the ones spinning around and around it.

Sometimes I think we live as if God revolves around us, rather than the other way around.  While in our heads we know that God is most important and that our lives should revolve around him, do we really live that way?   Our lives can seem so big and significant and urgent, and God can seem so small and far off and irrelevant.  From our perspective, we are central, our agenda is most vital, and our needs are the most important. 

While God does love us deeply and does care about the small details of our lives, we are not the center of the universe.  He does not revolve around us to fulfill our every wish and temporary desire like a genie in a bottle.  He is the center.  Our lives should revolve around him.  Our eyes should be fixed on him; our purpose and meaning should come from him.  We should order our lives around what he is doing, not make him fit into what we want to do.   He is the main character in this story.  This whole universe is God’s story, to give him glory, and yet so often our perspectives are skewed to think the story is all about us.

Am I so caught up in my work and my life that I am trying to force God to revolve around my life, rather than making my life revolve around Him?  Are my thoughts on God and focused on what he is doing, or are they on me and focused on what I am doing?  Am I calling Jesus my Lord, my center, my everything on Sunday, but then quickly re-focusing on my to-do list, on clothes and food and work and friends, the minute I step out the church door?  Or maybe my focus lasts for the day but what about Monday morning?  Am I still revolving around God then?  How about Friday night when I’m tired and worn?  Who is the center of my life at that hour?  Do I think I am the main character of the story or am I truly living like it’s all about and for God? 

In this Christmas season, during Advent, am I so caught up with the decorations, and the presents, and the preparations that I am trying to make Christmas revolve around my life, and me, rather than stopping and letting my life revolve around the quiet manger?

It’s so easy to get caught up in the bustle – both of Christmas and of life in general.  We get busy.  We get harried.  Our world spins and our lives spin with it and eventually we feel like we are spinning out of control.  But advent is about waiting.  Slowing.  Expecting.  Christmas is quiet, simple, incredible.  Are we missing the incredibleness of Jesus’ birth because of the extravagance?  Are we slowing our lives down, stopping the spinning, so we can sit quiet before the manger and gaze upon the Lord?  Are we like Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet, or like Martha, busy with the preparations (Luke 10:38-42)?  Which one is better?  Which one does Jesus desire?  We may think our spinning is for the Lord, but Christ wants us to slow down, to sit at his feet, and let our souls spin quietly in His love.

Let us slow the spinning in our lives, sit still before the manger of the sleeping Savior, and then slowly start to re-spin our lives around Him in the year to come.

Thanksgiving Video

Last year on Thanksgiving day I wrote a blog post.  This year my church wanted to put it together into a video to show during their Thanksgiving Eve service.  I know some of my friends and extended family wanted to see it so I am posting it here, as it is too large to send through email.  Hope it encourages you once again to remember all of the Lord's blessings in your life!

p.s. Sorry the quality is a little bad if you enlarge it.  I had to lower the quality to upload it...

p.p.s Thank you to Dave Sweet for putting this video together!

As cool as traveling is...

I think there is a tendency for people to see the pictures of Singapore and Bali that I just put up and think that my life is so amazing, so cool, and that they wish they had my experiences.  While I am blessed to be able to travel, see the world, do cool things, and get new perspectives, please do not be jealous of my experiences.  As cool as traveling is, it gets old, it fades, it doesn't last.  Sure I have pictures and some already-foggy memories, and I suppose my perspective on life changes bit by bit the more of the world I see, but traveling is not all it's cracked up to be.

I feel like these days people idolize travel.  You see pictures on Pinterest of glorious sights from all around the world and people pin them on their bucket list board.  But it's different when you are there.  You see the sight, you snap a few photos, and that's it.  We romanticize travel and turn it into this glorious adventure where you get to see the world.  But that's not the reality.  That high you think you are going to have when you see that sight, those pictures you are going to capture, that experience that is supposed to change your life forever, doesn't really fill you and make you feel what you think you would.  Well, perhaps it does fill you for a little while, but it will soon run out.  It's not a joy that lasts.  You will go back to your normal life and not much will be different.  Read what I wrote in my journal while I was in Bali:

October 20, 2014  

"As cool as traveling is, it is not all its cracked up to be.  People hold travel as this great ideal.  And while you can have a unique and cool experience like riding elephants and trekking volcanoes and petting tigers, I can say with Paul that in comparison to Christ, it is all rubbish (Phil 3:8).  Seriously, every cool experience I've had while traveling abroad pales when compared to knowing Christ.  One of the only benefits of these experiences is that they point me to Christ - to how creative and amazing he is in all he has made - from steaming volcanoes to huge animals to beautiful sunrises.  The only thing I really get out of them is being amazed by God and praising Him for all he has made.  But the experiences themselves are pretty worthless.  People like to show off where they've been, to add it to their resume of what makes them cool, and to be honest, I have fallen into that trap a lot.  I want to do things not so much for the experience but just so I can brag about all the cool things I've done.  But then I spend time with Jesus and realize that is all silliness.  What can I brag about other than Him and His incredible creation and his undeserved work in my life?  What can I boast about other than my amazing Lord?  My heart resonates with the lyrics that say "You can have all this world, but give me Jesus."  I would readily let go of every experience I have had to have more of Jesus.  I don't care about the stamps in my passport, about the photos on my blog, or the cool things I can say I've done.  All that really resonates with my heart, all that really fills my heart with bursting joy and love is being in the presence of Jesus!  I guess I am like the man in Ecclesiastes.  I have done the things that people idealize and idolize, the things that people think will make their lives full and complete.  I have traveled the world and seen what there is to see only to say, meaningless, meaningless, except for Christ.  These experiences will only leave you empty and poor in the end.  You can stay home and find the greatest adventure, the richest treasure, and that is living a life with Jesus as your Lord and friend. 

The best things about traveling aren't really the places you go or the things you do... For me it's about the conversations I have, the people I get to meet and travel with, seeing God's beautiful creation, and the ways that I see Jesus in all of that."

I would sincerely say: You can have all this world (my experiences of petting tigers and riding elephants and hiking volcanoes and lying on beautiful beaches...) - you can have it all.  Just give me Jesus.  He is the only thing that fills my heart fully and completely and forever.  Travel may fill that void for a while but it will soon fade.  Jesus forever satisfies our longings when we are completely filled with Him.

I am not saying traveling is bad or wrong or worthless.  It can be a great experience and change your perspectives, build friendships, and increase your appreciation for creation and people throughout the world.  I'm just saying that it does not fill our void, it does not complete our lives like we think it might, it does not leave us with a lasting emotional high.  The only thing that can completely fill us and not run out is Christ, and with Him, all things are much more meaningful.

Bali

Sorry for the delay in posting the second half of our trip.  October break round 2! 

After Singapore Sarah and I headed to Bali.  We were there from Thursday to the next Friday!  Plenty of time to see lots of things but also relax.  After a busy 5 days in Singapore we were ready for a little down time.

This is the street we lived on while in Bali.  We stayed at this cute place called Sayong House at the end of this road right near the center of town.  The family that owned it and all the people that worked there were so nice!! Here is a koi pond near the entrance.  There is also Sarah in the entrance to the compound, which was this cute stone archway covered in ivy. 

The orange building in the top left was a new addition they were building (downside: early morning construction noises every day).  But it was still a really nice place, down a quiet road, and really peaceful.  There were only 10 rooms in the whole place and it came with free breakfast served on our balcony.  There was also a nice pool and gardens where we spent almost every afternoon.  All in all, it was a great peaceful place to stay :)  

These are some things you would see on the way to Sayong House.  The first two are offering houses.  One of the main things I noticed in Bali were the offerings.  Every day people would put their offerings out either in these houses outside their compound or in spirit houses and other places around their compound.  They were everywhere.  There were also these super tall grassy things hanging on the side of the streets.  I'm not sure what their significance is. 

Here is the balcony we ate breakfast on most mornings.  It was a beautiful view and peaceful way to start the day.  Here are Sarah and I with our breakfast.  Most mornings we got banana bancakes, which were really like banana crepes with some kind of interesting (but delicious) sugary carmel sauce on them.  It also came with a whole plate full of fruit (pineapple, watermelon, banana and papaya) and coffee or tea.  It was delicious! 

Here is the building we stayed in.  We were on the second floor on the right.  And here is our bedroom (it looks really pink because of the pink curtains).

On Friday we walked to the Monkey Forest.  This is a huge area of land full of tons and tons of moneys.  It was pretty cool to see so many of them up close.

I loved all the baby monkeys!

We walked down to this temple area.  The bridge was pretty cool and the giant lizard is a stone sculpture.  The trees are super cool!

Here is another temple area.  The architecture is so intricate and detailed.  Here is a typical offering with flowers and a little food and sometimes incense.  

Sarah was brave enough (or crazy enough) to buy some bananas and have the monkey eat them on her lap (I was more concerned about avoiding the rabies) but it was a pretty cool experience.  The girl before us had the money standing on her shoulders and eating the banana off her head.  Crazy!

These are the temple grounds in Ubud (the town we stayed in).

This is another temple right down the road from the last one.  To get to it you have to walk down this long walkway surrounded by waterlilies on either side.  Beautiful!

We found a Balinese Starbucks!  It was probably the nicest Starbucks I've ever been in!

Here are some views of the locals.  Motorcycles are EVERYWHERE!!! 

On Sunday, Sarah was kind enough to go to the art museum with me.  We walked a ways to get there (and stopped at an awesome art gallery on the way) but we made it.  I was in heaven!!! 

Here is an example of traditional Balinese art.  It is sooooo detailed!  I can't imagine doing all that work!  It is also usually pretty dark, using ink to outline everything and only using a little color (if any) to highlight the details.

This one is kind of a mix between traditional and modern.  The style is still fairly traditional (but a little lighter and more playful) and you can see more modern things - like cars, surfers and tourists.  The shape of the land is the shape of Bali.  I thought the symbolism in this one was interesting.

Here are some more modern examples of Balinese art.  I really really enjoyed looking at the art.  It was so cool to see their style and learn more about their culture through the art.

On the way back we stopped to look at this place.  It is some kind of religious place that seemed really interesting.  We also went to this delicious Indian restaurant (and the low table was fun).

After the Indian restuarnt we were on our way home but ran into this parade.  We couldn't even cross the street so we stayed and watched what was going on.  Everyone was dressed up in their traditional garb and they were carrying sculptures of their gods down the street.  There was also music and sooo many people!  It was really interesting to watch.  We weren't able to figure out what holiday this was for them but it seemed like all the locals came out for it.

Right at the end of the parade it started down pouring so we all ducked into this huge meeting area to wait for the rain to stop.  It felt really weird to be one of the only white people in this huge crowd of Balinese muslims.

Early Monday morning (like 2:00 a.m.) we were picked up and driven an hour and a half away to the base of Mt. Batur.  We started hiking around 4:00 am.  It was pitch black out and it was just me, Sarah and this guide, our three flashlights and walking sticks.  This trek had been recommended to us by many friends, or else it would have felt a lot more scary and sketchy.  The first hour and a half of the trek were pitch black, but the stars were absolutely incredible!!!  I have never seen so many bright stars.   

We started out on a dirt road and then slowly got into a forest.  Eventually it started getting harder and harder.  It finally started getting a little light when we were about half an hour from the top of the moutain.  It was a hard climb!  The whole top half is really rocky and sandy so it is hard to get a good footing.

But we made it to the top!!!!  Just after it first started getting light we made it to the top of the mountain.  The guy with Sarah was a guy who met us about half way up.  He had a bag full of soda that he tried to sell us.  He ended up following us up the mountain and helped Sarah up the mountain after she had slipped and fallen.  He was really really sweet.  We bought some soda from him at the top just to say thank you.

Mount Batur is an active volcano.  At the top it was so cool because you could see all these places where the steam was rising from the rock!!  There is a big crater in the center.

Sarah and I and the beautiful sunrise!

Couldn't get enough of this view!!!

For breakfast our guide put some bananas and eggs into a little cave in the rocks.  He then covered it with some grassy stuff.  10-15 minutes later we had cooked bananas and hard-boiled eggs all from just the steam and heat produced by the volcano!!!  That was probably one of the coolest things I've experienced - cooking breakfast in the steam of a volcano!

It was super windy and cold at the top of the volcano (at least to this Thai-blooded girl!) so we ate inside this little hut.  Banana sandwiches, egg sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, bananas, snake-skin fruit and beng-beng bars.

Sarah and I enjoying the top and also freezing! Starting our descent...

This is just one example of the path we took to go up and down the mountain.  I am kind of glad going up that I couldn't see how close I was to the edge.  One false step and you can slide a long way down! 

Me, Sarah and our guide.  He does this trek every single day!  Wow!

Some more pictures of the path.  Because it was a volcano it had so much sand and dust.  I would take one step and slide about 3 feet.  We were really glad we ended up having two guides because we literally held their hands the whole way down so we wouldn't slide too far!  They were really nice and we were so grateful for their help!  Here is us with our other guide who helped Sarah all the way up, and me all the way down :)

We made it to the bottom!!!

Some views of the mountain...

After the trek we were taken to a coffee plantation.  Above are cocoa bean plants.  The one one the left is a regular cocoa bean and the red ones on the right supposedly make dark cocoa.

Above are the coffee cherries that the beans come from, roasted coffee beans and cocoa.

Sarah and I got to roast coffee!!  So cool!

After a short walk through the plantation we got to try all these different kinds of coffees and teas.  I also just had to try luwak coffee.  The luwak is the animal above.  In Bali, there is a specialty coffee where the luwak eats the coffee cherries, digests them and disposes of them.  The coffee beans are then collected, cleaned and roasted and made into coffee to make this specialty coffee (apparently the digestion helps make it better).  (The luwak is also called a night cat and so the resulting product is called a cat-poo-ccino) haha.

On a similar note, I had tried regular Bali coffee at our resort but it had grinds/coffee powder in the bottom.   The whole bottom of my cup was full of sludge so I just stirred it up and drank the whole thing.  It wasn't until the end of our vacation we learned that you are supposed to let the sludge settle to the bottom of the cup, drink the coffee on top, but leave the sludge on the bottom.  Oops! 

Finally, we stopped quickly at a rice field.  We were pretty exhausted by that point (12 hours after being picked up at our place) and ready to get back and relax!

This is how I spend the rest of the afternoon, and actually every afternoon in Bali.  We would usually do an activity in the morning and head back in the afternoon to sit and read by the pool for a few hours until dinner.  It was so perfect!  It was a beautiful, peaceful spot, good temperature and weather, beautiful gardens, and good books (I finished the Chronicles of Narnia and read A Wrinkle in Time).  It was so nice to have lots of time to read, relax and be outside.

Tuesday we did a cooking class.  We were picked up and taken to the market really close to our hotel.  This guy gave us a tour of the market and told us a lot about the things there.  Here he is telling us about different kitchen tools most Balinese homes would have for cooking. 

Here he is explaining the different kinds of peppers and letting us see and smell a huge jackfruit.

Here are different vegetables you see at the market.  On the top right are flowers for the offerings and on the bottom are leaves folded to hold the offerings.

Here we are at the fruit section of the market getting to try many different kinds of fruit.  One of the new ones I was able to try was passion fruit.

We then stopped at a rice farm and learned about how rice grows and how much rice a family needs.  The canal above is water that comes down from the mountains and they are able to control how much goes into the patties.  Sometimes there needs to be a lot of water, other times the water needs to be low.  The fields were beautiful, but it is a lot of work!

The cooking class was really fun!  We were brought to a lady's house and her husband explained their housing compound.  It was really interesting to hear about all the different buildings they have and why.  For example, in the east section of the compound they have a meeting area.  If you have a problem with someone else in the compound you can go there and discuss your problem and work it out.  It is located in the east of the compound because that is where the sun rises, representing new beginnings.  Their family temple is always placed in the direction of the mountain, which has religious significance.  Housing compounds can have around 30 people living in them!   

After we were told about the compound we were served coffee and tea.  Then the lady in charge told us about many of the different vegetables and spices we would be cooking with.  After that we started chopping and cutting, each doing a different job and switching so we got to try lots of things (there were probably about 30 people doing the class with us).  Then we each got our own stoves and we got to cook the dish and then combine it all into one dish.  Finally, we had lunch and got to try everything we had made.  It was really fun and delicious!  It was also fun to meet the people we were cooking with.

Early the next morning we were picked up and driven to the north of Bali for a sunrise boat ride where we could see dolphins!

The dolphins were a little hard to capture on camera but here are a few glimpses of them.  There were tons of boats out there with us all looking for the dolphins.  It was fun to look for them and then spot them.  They would travel in packs of around 3-10.  I even saw some jump into the air from a distance!  It was really cool to see them in their natural habitat.   It was a neat experience.  I love boat rides and it was beautiful to watch the sun rise as we rode.  The boat we were on was really interesting.  It was like a canoe with high sides, floaters on the outside to keep us balanced and upright and a motor in the back.  It was really narrow - only 4 people could fit on it (and the driver).

After the dolphin boat ride we were taken to this beautiful waterfall.  It was tucked away in this beautiful enclosure.  Very peaceful.

On the last part of our tour we were taken to see this famous temple.  I think this one is dedicated to the water god but I can't remember.  Our guide was telling us that there are hundreds of gods - he doesn't even know them all!

It was a beautiful area right on a lake with beautiful gardens.  We had a buffet lunch there and then headed back to relax the rest of the day.

Our last full day in Bali we went to the market.  We were living right in Ubud, which is the art and craft center in Bali (I loved it!).  There were so many paintings and crafted things and everything was pretty cheap once you bargained for a while.  It was so fun to walk around and see everything and buy some things for family and friends (and myself ;).  After shopping most of the day I headed to a cafe and got a delicious carmel latte and chocolate cake and read a book.  A perfect way to end a vacation!   

Oh, at our resort we met this couple from America.  They are spending a whole year traveling around south-east asia.  We met Tess at the pool and got talking to her.  Then we met her boyfriend Scott.  They were really nice.  We taught them how to play Dutch Blitz one night and then they taught us spades the next night.  It was really fun to find some new friends and play games with them!

The next day we headed back to Bangkok.  Overall, it was a great trip, I got to experience so many things, meet and hang out with so many people, and see some beautiful parts of the world.  Grateful for this vacation!