Saturday, July 18, 2009

My Life in Chiang Mai

Slow..slowER...

Hmm...many are wondering what exactly I do in CM...yeah..some with curiosity but most with envy..Wahahaha...that's life man....one's person vacation is the other's reason for 'jealousy'..

OK! OK! For the first 1 and quater month...work lo..painting etc etc, then it's waiting time for relevant parties to reply to us to get the library and Mercy Home moving..

So while waiting..what to do leh...nothing..absolutely nothing..just hang around the center and do nothing. It's not easy initially coz I used to be on the move all the time..when suddenly dun have anything to do..felt kind of 'lost'..if you know what I mean...well NOW...... aahhhh.....that's a different story , I enjoyed getting up late. Although I still put effort to get up for morning walk
( see the word 'still'??), then plan to do things...sometime massage, sometimes cross-stitch,sometomes sleep, sometimes day dream...you will be surprised how boredom can lead to self discovery...I learn that I can cook ( good food OK), can sew, can sing , can pray for people, can help people to grow in their walk with God...like superwoman but very slow pace...imagine that instead of flying at 200km/hr, the superwoman is flying at 50km/hr...something like that la..

Life in CM is comparatively slower than Bangkok..people here tends to be gentler, soft spoken..They are generally very polite with alot of smile and 'Vai' ( the Thai greeting with both palm together)..they are so polite that they may agree with everything they say in front of you but may feel the exact opposite in their heart. A lot of their words have double meaning..so it's quite hard to catch what they think....It's even hard to know if we offend anyone..we'll never know and they are too polite to say otherwise..

Some of the exciting things happened during my short here is:

I attended my 1st church service in short and singlet..and my hair was a mess...



That was because it was done in my host's house and no one told me..I was suppose to grab my morning coffee..instead they asked me to grab my bible...

Su Foong was sharing the Word..and I could assure you although she looked like she was sleeping..she was wide awake!! The fault was her eyes too sepet!!



We also have CG ( cell group) in various locations...sometime in CM Living Center ( or Green House)



Moe and Cham..they stay with me in the center..they make great musics..and T-shirts



sometime in friends' houses....






you know how I sing...ahh..the secret is to ask someone ( Sarah) to write phonetic on the song sheets!!



Spiritual aside...I also got the privilage to visit one of a hillside restaurant famous for food and flowers...









and not to forget all the tourist spots!!!




























Sometimes take time off to enjoy self-pampering...





And to have good food with new found friends....



So life is pretty cool here...good food, good friend, good time....

and just before I end...can anyone tell me what is the coiled stuffs cooking???



Sawadeeka........

Monday, July 6, 2009

Darkness


My heart felt funny..not exactly painful...No,No...it was not pain but discomfort...felt like chest tightness..suddenly I felt unwell, like my whole world was caving into me..My heart was beating extra fast...lup dup lup dup lup dup.....My doctors friends would have diagnosed me of having an angina ( heart attack) but I knew it was not that....I was not having a heart attack, I was having a panic attack!

Never understood why until I began to talk to a friend. She said something like..."Feli, I can sense that there is a lot of fear in you!". Fear??? Mua?? The fearless woman?? My family and friends could testified  that fear was not in my blood....Asked them, asked them how I faced the world, how I faced the dying, how I faced the nature...Fear...HAH!!! Funny woman...gently she said, "I think you are fearful of darkness."

Darkness...Darkness...Why? Why was she saying that and so sure of it? Was it true?? It couldn't be true.Then I knew....this feeling, the panic attack happened only at night when I was alone in the room...in a big big house...not knowing what was looming at the coridor..and it happened everyday!! Perhaps it was just a fraction of my imagination...

I was trying hard to think...why should I be afraid of dark...I was definitely not afraid of dark back home or was I? Was it because KL was always fill with sounds and noises that I had never been 'alone' at home. Perhaps the sound from tv or radio drowned the silence..perhaps I stayed up real late and then went to sleep before I could feel fear. Did I always switch all my lights on when I was at home...Hmmm.........To think of it, I was always uncomfortable in the dark from a young age..but who wasn't??? I assumed everyone was not comfortable in darkness...why should I be any different?

She said..look back into your childhood and try to find out when you started to be fearful of darkness....wow! My friend was not even a psychiatrist...do you have the image of me lying on a couch in front of a psychiatrist and started relating to her about my childhood??? We were just talking sitting cross legged on a mat...but then something in me stirred...

To be honest, I was so tired. I was exhausted! I had not been sleeping well for the past week. Every night when I went into my room, I had this panic attack. I heard things at night. My mind refused to shut...my eyes were close but not my mind...my heart would race...I just couldn't sleep. The next day, my exhaustion set in and I would  be lifeless...I was suppose to come to CM to rest..and that was the last thing I was getting....perhaps if I could just deal with my fear face to face...perhaps then, I could sleep ...

OK dear fren, let's just do it...I began to think, to recall the things in my past....a lot of memories came flashing by...she asked me to concentrate on those time or events  that gave me chills and fear...I went through phases of my life when I was young...times when the western doctor said there was nothing much they could do to improve my polio...times when my parents were so desperate to cure me..they tried everything...slowly pictures of darkness came in....yes...my mom or dad would take me to see medium or bomoh...and many times, the room were very dark...I felt my heart skipped...I was kinda transported back when I was a child...held unto my mom's skirt in this dark room, clutching to her...the sound , the smell, the darkness...the fear...pictures of those statues...the dark- faced statues...their grins, their laughters, their eyes...always looked angry and ugly and scary.....darkness again...fear followed...

I could see a helpless child holding unto her mom, asked to go home...just wanted to leave...but mom said it was our hope to cure you...I wanted to leave, I wanted to stay, I cried in silence.....suddenly I could feel my tear dropped, I was sobbing, I was crying ...for my past and my present...the past and the present were interconnected....I was sobbing...and my heart felt the pain...

My friend was silence all this time, then she said, "come let's pray for you...let's just let go of the past...you have to forgive your parents....surrender everything to God and get your freeedom!"

Forgiving my parents was easy, they done it out of love...they wanted me to be able to walk like other children..they hoped someone, somewhere could cure me.."Mama, Papa, I forgive you....God please please take away this part of my deep seated memory. Liberate and free me from the torment of darkness...take away the pain, the fear.."

I entered my room last night without that fear...i dun feel my heart ache anymore...although I did not get a good nite sleep, it was not because of my fear from darkness...darkness has no hold in my life anymore..I'm free...