The fog is thick and cool, resting atop the rice fields as the truck I'm riding in rumbles up.
Rice fields in the morning. Photo by Sidney Ann Fowler.
I'm back to village life for 3 days with X-Life. It took my group three hours on a public bus winding through the mountains and jungle to get here. Here is where my ministry contact's father lives and works. Here is where people sleep at sunset and rise before dawn. Here is where there is a noticeable absence of anyone in their teens, twenties, and thirties . . . all gone to the city to try their luck, to work in the sex tourism industry, to hopefully capture the attention of a farang or two or three . . .
X-Life team with our village hosts.
I'm spreading hay in the rice fields. It's to prepare for burning season, when the harvested fields are burned to fertilize the soil. I'm grabbing armfuls of dried, yellow rice stalk and shaking them out in a backwards-moving pattern with 6 other Americans and 2 Thai women.
The fog lifts around 10:30AM, and I start to sweat in my rain jacket and pants–which I'm too afraid to take off because the other women's skin are already inflamed from the hay. The unforgiving Thai sun beats down on me as I continue to spread hay over field after field.
It's like how the Lord brings all my junk to the surface. Moments I'd rather forget, injuries I'd rather grin and bear, He wants me to bring it all to the surface and spread it out in the light so they can't have power. I'm chatting with the other women about this, when the revelation hits,
Even what we're spreading out to burn was necessary for the rice, what was harvestable, to grow. And now it's being used to re-energize the ground for the next harvest. Likewise, the Lord redeems even what seemed unprofitable in our lives.
I wonder if villagers are the ones who really understand the Scriptures. All those parables and metaphors about sowing and harvesting–they're somewhat lost on suburbanites who can get fast food delivered to their doors by ordering via iPhone app.
Our ride to work. We sit in the back, obviously. Photo by Sidney Ann Fowler.
I miss this simple life. The lack of internet and steady electricity. Even bucket showers and squatty-potties have a strange appeal.
Preparing for burning season.
It was only three days, yet what a full three days it was. Life with Jesus is full.
When He had said these things He cried, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"
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