Ric and Sharon Bruce On a journey with you to Thailand
As I write this on my iPhone laying on my hard-as-a-rock dorm bed I’m staring at my glow-in-the-dark wristband with the words “With-Him-We-Can 1 Million 2015″. The first words that come to mind are, “Not-In-This-Lifetime”. But that’s not quite right is it?
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On the road again. This time it’s to a four day leader’s conference down in Bangkok. The gathering’s primary purpose is to work toward unity in the Thai church, to discuss strategies and progress toward goals and to pray for Thailand. We have the privilege to participate this year.
For us the opportunity couldn’t be cooler: over the course of the next four days we get to rub shoulders with the leaders of the Thai church, meet other missionaries and sense their heart for this nation. We’re going with friends from a local seminary that we plan to spend more time at this next school year so we’re praying this will be a time of getting to know them and experiencing this event with them. Other prayer requests for this time include: (more…)
It’s been raining almost every afternoon as the rainy season begins here. Today’s rain was the hardest we’ve experienced yet with strong winds, hard rain and lightning for about ten minutes. Today’s rain reminded me to pray for those who live along the Mississippi River in the US and for families of the recent victims of floods in southern Thailand. Fortunately no one died in this rain. All it did was give our motorcycle a wash. Our neighbors were bummed by the rain though. They didn’t get their clothes off the line in time and they had to scramble all over their flooded yard in the rain scooping up clothes! (more…)
Several friends in the past year have mentioned they sponsored or are currently sponsoring a child through Compassion International in Thailand. We don’t know all 32,700 children Compassion sponsors are involved in helping but we’ve met a few dozen at least. Yesterday we went to a graduation ceremony for an elite group of Compassion kids: those that went through the grueling five year Leadership Development Program for college students. Pictures (more…)
Most mornings as I’m walking by the neighbors invite me to eat with them. Today Uncle Ah kicked my usual chair a yard into the road as I walked by and I joined he and Auntie for spicy pork curry and sticky rice. Actually it’s not just one chair it’s two green plastic lawn chairs that have been stuck together so long they’ve forgotten how to separate. Uncle Ah sits on an old stump without a shirt on sometimes wearing nothing but a towel.
America is a favorite topic of conversation and Auntie never tires of Michigan snow stories. Today the conversation took a strange turn when Uncle Ah looked at me intently and said, “Do you have hair on your chest?” Taken aback a little I paused for a moment and his next question surprised me more, “Can you make rap music?” (more…)
We had a great time of fellowship, worship, prayer and encouragement with our Thai church this weekend. It made our first Easter in Thailand and away from family much easier. The best part was this weekend showed us that all our hard work is paying off as people around us began to notice our language ability growing. We’re slowly getting out of that awkward first stage of language learning where you’re no fun to be around because you don’t speak the language but you need to speak the language so you can get better. Below are some pictures but be sure to check out the YouTube video too. Enjoy.
One thing we could never say our church in Thailand lacks is passion. Our first Easter here is shaping up to be a very memorable one indeed. Last night we marked good Friday with our church by not sleeping until morning. Tomorrow morning we’ll be at a public park at 6:00 AM for an early morning prayer and worship service then we’ll head back to the church for the regular service and probably stay afterward for a Bible study. (more…)
The results of our first three months of language study in Thailand were very positive and encouraging according to an email we received this week from our leadership. The email contained a few suggestions for fine-tuning our method and a general summary of what we’ve been doing since we arrived. This report represents the culmination of several meetings we’ve had with leadership and it’s an attempt to gauge our proficiency in the Thai language and culture – a tall order! So the results…. drum roll please… (more…)
Lots of things make Chiang Mai famous: stunning temples, the zoo, jungle adventures, etc. Beyond that, however, the thing Chiang Mai may be best known for is its annual water fight during Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year. It’s insane. Today we walked for five hours around the city’s moat throwing an empty bucket into the moat, hauling it up by a rope and dumping the contents (trash, muck, scum and leaves among other things) on people as we walked. Check out our short video (more…)
April 13, 2010 Thai people offering water to a monk during Songkran Festival
Thailand has its own New Year celebration from the 13th to the 15th of April each year. It’s a really big deal and we’re gearing up to participate in it this year here in Chiang Mai. Honestly we don’t know too much about it but we’ve been prepared by our Thai friends to get very, very wet and to watch out for drunk drivers. We know that part of the festival includes celebrating your parents and honoring them with gifts and praise. We also know lots of people wear Hawaiian style shirts. 
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Most weekends we go out with our friends from church. Primary activities include: visiting sick people in the hospital, going to weddings, spending six hours praying, boiling eggs at hot springs, going to a revival or riding a hot bus for hours and hours. Not exactly the way we would have spent our weekends back home.
Here’s what we’re learning though: it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing. The most important thing is that you’re doing it together with friends. That’s certainly a strong value we’ve observed playing itself out over and over again in the six months since we’ve been here. Embedded on our website are some pictures from this weekend illustrating my point: (more…)
While in Northeast Thailand we visited a village temple with our friends and thought you’d enjoy a few of the pictures we took. Village temples are similar in form to temples in the city but they have a much more intimate and close-knit feel since obviously everyone in the village knows each other. Enjoy:
Some village temples use gongs and drums, something I haven't seen in the city yet.
The head monk leads the ceremony.
The men and women split up for the ceremony. Sharon fit right in.
While listening to the sermon most people have their hands together.
I definitely don't understand the ceremonies yet.
The temple isn't just for religious activity. It's also an important hub for social life.
Offerings are given to the monks.
Be sure to check out all the pictures of our journey on our Picasa Web Albums.
Thought I’d put a quick update about my surgery back in October. Hard to believe it’s been four months now! Honestly I almost never think about it now because I can do basically anything I want with it. Thankfully looking back on that experience it’s barely registered as a blip in our time here… unless you count dealing with the insurance over getting paid for the procedure. That’s another story though.
I visited the Doctor last week and he said I can begin running but only in a straight line or on a track. No soccer yet because any sudden stopping or stopping in a lateral direction could risk damaging the repair. We’re counting this progress in the “blessing” category. Thanks for your prayers.
Day two in our ongoing saga of pictures from Chiang Mai, Thailand brings you photos from the market. Be warned, you may find some things in these pictures you will NOT see at your local Walmart super-center. To enjoy all the photos at our web albums click here. Enjoy a few samples below:
This kid kept staring at me...
Pig anyone?
Stacking chickens.
Fish. It all universally smells like fish.
Cow's ears. I actually tried these things. They were crunchy and half-cooked.
"I'll take..."
The stuff on the left is SUPER spicy. Some sort of pepper seed I think.
A heart to heart. Or a teachable moment. Universally embarrassing in public.
Smelly charm things to go in your car.
Check out 20 more pictures at our Picasa Web Albums.
This week we reached the 26th lesson in our Thai language program. We don’t go to a school to learn Thai. Our language helper comes to our house and we begin a complex lesson we’ve prepared for him to teach us. Each lesson takes about two hours and generally speaking involves us asking our language helper what is happening in a picture and him explaining it in Thai. After we can easily point to the appropriate pictures as he says their description in Thai we then record him saying the description and match those recordings with the pictures we printed for our session in the computer.
Although all this sounds complicated… it’s really not too bad. Anyways. Lesson 26 we added a new element: speaking. Imagine that. We’ve been here two months and we only know how to say a few simple survival phrases in Thai. That’s all changing. We’re beginning the long process of speaking after listening our language helper’s voice say these words and phrases many, many times. Check out the video embedded below on our website or at youtube.com of Sharon speaking and our helper correcting her pronunciation.
For the past month we’ve been getting around the city by “tuk-tuk”, which is basically a natural gas motorcycle with a cart attatched to the back. It’s fun but we’re very thankful to be moving on from that phase! We purchased a motorcycle two days ago and already feel so much more freedom to move around the city. We don’t have to call a driver or worry about what he is doing while we’re shopping or eating, etc. Here are some pictures:
It's more like a scooter really.
I had no idea what to expect from physical therapy but I’m pretty proud of what I did on the first day. After keeping my knee completely straight for 3 weeks I:
I can now begin bending it, putting some weight on it and pretty much using it like I normally would. I still use the crutches to keep my balance and to help with the weight. I still wear the brace but now it will allow me to bend the knee to 90 degrees. Enjoy these pictures:
Tonight we saw the surgeon who performed the ACL / meniscus repair on Ric’s knee two weeks ago. He confirmed the plan we’d discussed then: four more weeks on crutches, traction beginning next week and full recovery in six months. He said the leg appears to be healing very well and that my quadriceps muscle is still strong. The only thing that’s different at this point is that the staples are gone and the bandages are off. Feels good! Thank-you for your prayers as we begin therapy next week. That will be painful.
We’re out of the hospital! It was an amazing experience really… but we’re glad it’s over. Here are some pictures of our experiences. Enjoy.
Us
Waiting for surgery
View from our hospital room
Our language helper visiting.
What the Dr. did.
Up close and personal.
Breakfast.
They just wheeled me into my room after two hours of surgery. Apparently it was successful? I am still alive and do not have too much pain at this point. Immediatelya after surgery the doctr went home so we will have to talk with him in the morning about how things went and what my recovery will look like. We will keep you posted.
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