The Amblings and Ramblings of the Ingalls Family

Just Frances Sharon

2007-05-14T06:27:00.000+07:00

Here is frances, frances, and more frances.

By looking at photos here you may be led to believe that the world (or at least our lives) only revolves around Frances. Well, Frances believes that, and she’s not entirely wrong. Actually there is a lot going on presently with the health project and agriculture project in Sangthong district Laos..and that explains why we have not had the moments to write to many of you or update this site. Again, we are unable to expound more on our lives—but we want to invite you to re-acquaint yourself with Frances….or some of the faces of Frances.

She’s just 7 months old now and has her first tooth, sits happily for long periods at a time, and has recently learned to stick out her tongue and blow 'raspberries'...

Sustainable Agriculture Project Sangthong

2007-02-07T03:45:00.000+07:00

Dear Friends and Relations,

I have finished modifying the page for our agriculture project, SAPS. On the side bar of this page, you will notice the project logo, which is a link to the project page (the logo embedded within this message is not a link). Please do visit to get a better idea of what I have been working on. As Heidi's project, the Sangthong Primary Health Care Project, is rather larger and already requires a significant amount of reporting to our funder, Brot fur die Welt, she has opted to relate her work to you through this blog.

Most sincerely, Micah

Untitled Update

2007-01-14T10:17:00.000+07:00

We do not particularly have news to relate. We wanted just to post some more recent pictures of Frances for you all! We are also aware that the content of this blog has almost exclusively to do with our personal lives, rather than professional. The reason for this is that we are in the throes of considering how best to go about this.
When these are more under way we will update you all.

Baci for Blessed October

2007-01-13T17:18:00.001+07:00

Traditionally, the Lowland Lao and other groups hold a baci for anyone who is sick, or has recently had a significant change in their life situation, who is coming away, coming, etc. In Buddhist society, this involves someone from the local temple who chants whilst everyone sits around a central stupa praying. At the end of this, everyone will tie small white strings around the wrist of the person(s) for whom the baci is held, whilst saying a blessing or a prayer for them. The strings then represent the prayers of the community, and are believed to bring the person protection or good luck, etc.

Catholics in Laos also carry out bacis. Our host father, Lyntee, explained it as ‘doing Lao custom but praying to our God.’ When we first came to Laos, we spent our initital months living with a Lao Catholic family at the western side of Vientiane. It was perhaps the most encouraging moment for us when our family gave us a baci. Micah had recently all-but succumbed to an infection and has spent a couple of weeks in hospital, we had recently moved back into our family’s home and were about to leave for Phialat to begin work. Perhaps one hundred people gathered for our baci, singing worship songs and praying for us corporately and then each, individually as they tied strings on our wrists.

This past month our family held one for Blessed October (Frances) as well. These pictures are from this ceremony.

Heidi, Micah and Blessed October in Vang Vieng

2007-01-13T16:52:00.000+07:00

To Vang Vieng

2007-01-13T15:59:00.000+07:00

On the 26th, we headed north to Vang Vieng for something of a reading holiday. Vang Vieng is a lovely area, surrounded by karst mountain formations.

During the American War, hundreds of people in this area lived for several years in the limestone caves in the these mountains throughout this region. The caves provided the only escape from the bombs which leveled any man made structures in the area.

Many of the new families in our district are from this area of Laos, which is home to many ethnic groups, particularly Kh’hmu and some Hmong.

Some of these pictures are from the market in Vang Vieng, where many wild animals are sold, included rats, bats, deer and birds.

2006-12-24T18:08:00.000+07:00

Christmas Blessings.....

The three of us are heading out to a Christmas Eve service at one of the Lao Christian churches here in Vientiane city. We want to share with you all some of the blessings we have received this Christmas....the first of which you'll see is our beautiful healthy daughter Frances.
She is now smiling, laughing, and "talking" all the time. This cannot quite be captured in a photograph--but here you can see some of her many new
expressions.

In these other pictures you can see the church in Hoi Kam Village in our district. It is the only legally recognised church in Sangthong district, and we are rejoicing this year that they were given permission to hold a Christmas service.

Hoi Kam Village is one of the poorest in our district, and the Sangthong Primary Healthcare Project I (Heidi) work with has been very involved here to bring clean water, latrines, and to train village health volunteers and a local midwife. Upon arriving at the Christmas service I was met by the midwife who shared with me about a woman whose newborn baby had just died the day before from an infection that I recognised was very preventable and could have been easily treated with access to medication. After the service I met this woman and it was painful to hold my own healthy baby in the face of her loss. But she asked God to bless me. It is hard for me to express to you as well as to her how blessed I was to witness God's presence and peace in that place. The simple church has a dirt floor and many inside it don't have enough food to eat or clothes to keep them warm this season. Yet I recognised many people I knew in that church, people whom I've met and worked with and didn't know were Christians. We were warmly welcomed and Frances was held and passed from hand to hand throughout the service. It was like finding our family in Laos. These pictures show only a glimpse of the church, some faces. I hope this Christmas as you meet with family and celebrate our Lord's coming into this world, you'll remember your Family all over the world. Maybe particularly you'll think of those parts of our Family who suffer from want of basic things, and those who have lost their children. May God bless you all with Joy and the Peace of God which passess all understanding. We'll write again soon to share with you more of our lives here and our Christmas.

Love and Merry Christmas,

Heidi, Micah, and Frances Ingalls

Winter Chill and Blessed October

2006-12-09T20:00:00.000+07:00

We have, yet again, been some time from our blog. We have returned to our work and daily lives in the village. Our projects are moving along happily but relentlessly. Frances, now two months old, sleeps well at night but is up with the roosters in our village (it is a fallacy, by the way, that roosters arise with the dawn- generally they begin to crow around 3:30 or 4).

We wanted mostly to post new pictures for you all, and to ramble somewhat less than usual. Two or three of the pictures do not need explanation as they are pictures of Frances sleeping.

These are pictures of Frances carried in her sling, which is how Heidi usually tows her around in her work in the villages. This method of carrying a baby in a sling across the front is characteristic of the Lowland Lao, who comprise the majority of our neighbours. Other groups, such as the Khmhu and Red and Black Thai, tend to carry the child on the back in order to leave their hands free for work.

This is a picture of Frances being held by Nang San, a Khmhu woman with whom we have become friends through our work. Like many of the Khmhu in our district, she lives in a new village, made up of people who, due to national policies, have had to leave their homes. She is a widowed mother of four children and has been recently diagnosed with cancer.

It is our hope to post at least once more before Christmas, so if you have not given up checking this blog entirely, you may hear from us again soon.

All our love and blessings. Micah, Heidi, and Frances.

post-script: Frances does not go by Frances here (and, when she does, it is rather more like 'Flan suh'). Since before her birth we very much wanted to follow the Lao practice of giving two names. Accordingly, we have named her Dtulapon, or Blessed October.

Coming to an End in Bangkok

2006-11-10T22:10:00.000+07:00

Having received Frances' citizenship and passport, we are all but ready to head home to Laos. These weeks here have been both tiring and enjoyable (perhaps more the former than the latter, though it is hard to tell). Whatever they have been, we do at least have something to show for it. She is a lovely thing, and easy to love.

We do long for the Wolery- our home in Laos, and for a return to the lives we have made there. Bangkok is a large city-- through and through. I suppose that each city has its own character, but I think it also true to say that, at the end of the day, a city is still a city, and we miss our forests and hills.

We have had several visitors in these last two weeks. Some are featured in our pictures here. The little girl is named Anna, the daughter of good friends of our here. The little boy lying beside Frances is Innes, the younger brother of Anna. The picture does not do him justice. At just eight months he (only slightly) outweighs Heidi...

St Francis of Assisi

2006-11-10T07:28:00.000+07:00

Although we are only just beginning to acquaint ourselves with St Francis, and thus are ill-qualified at present to give you a worthy account of his life, we wanted to at least give you a faint idea of the nature of the person for whom we have named our daughter.

In doing so, we wanted to write rather more about his theology and his philosophy, than about his history, per se. But history must provide the background. The life of St Francis is known to us largely through anecdotes. The book ‘The little Flowers of St Francis’ is one such collection of these stories. More complete and historically-oriented biographies have been written as well.

The man we know as St. Francis of Assisi was born Giovanni di Bernardone in 1182, to an Italian father and a French mother. From youth he was raised as a wealthy merchant’s son, known for his love of festivities, of fine clothes and wine. While he was still quite young, however, two things occurred to change the course of his life and, I do not believe it exaggeration to say, the course of western Christendom.
The first was his meeting with a beggar. Whilst conducting business for his father, Francis was approached by a beggar asking alms. At first, the man was repulsed from the shop. Francis, however, ran through Assisi until he could find the man, gave the fellow all he had, and swore that he would never again refuse the requests of the poor.

The second was his vision in the ruins of the Church of St. Damian, on the outskirts of Assisi. Francis had joined the military, but had been returned home due to a prolonged illness. Dejected at this loss (rather more from wounded pride and thwarted ambition) he dwindled into a sort of depression, spending many days praying and asking God what had become of his life. One day, whilst praying in the church of St. Damian, the Lord spoke to him three times saying, ‘Francis, rebuild my house which, you can see, is falling into ruins.’ Thinking this to mean the ruins of the church within which he was praying, Francis sold his horse and his belongings, and some of the belongings of his father, and began to rebuild St. Damian’s. His father, who was rather more a fellow of business than of Christ, reported Francis to the magistrates, and had him arrested for theft. Francis returned all that had been taken and, more than this, took all of his worldly belongings except a rough cloth shirt, and threw them at his father’s feet, saying, ‘up until this time I have called Pietro Bernardone father, but now I am the servant of God. Not only the money but everything that can be called his I will restore to my father, even the very clothes he has given me.’ From this point on, Francis renounced worldly possessions and took on the life of a wandering peasant, devoted to rebuilding the churches in that area of Italy.

Already this history has taken longer than expected, but I think the events surrounding his life are of some importance for understanding the person. A little more must be mentioned. He was granted permission by Pope Innocent III to found a new order, which he called the Fratres Minores, of ‘Lesser Brothers.’ These, of course, became those whom we know as the Franciscan Friars, who, quite original to the time, were socialists and itinerants, claiming neither individual property nor home. During his lifetime, the number of friars grew to many thousands, travelling all over Europe and the Middle East, preaching to all classes of people in all walks of life.

In the latter years of his life, while praying and fasting on Mount Alverno, he saw a vision of an angelic bird or a seraph, crucified, in the sky. He said that while this vision lasted he felt an unutterable grief and pity which overcame him. When the vision faded, he found that he had been pierced through the hands, the feet, and his side.

So on 8 May 1213, Francis received the sign of the Stigmata.

His history now aside, I wanted to mention the particulars of his theology.
Francis was born into the so-called Dark Ages. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe had fallen into a period of intellectual and artistic paralysis. Warring kingdoms and barbarian hordes filled the vacuum of power which was left by Rome’s decline, crippling trade and scholarship. It was during these times that Christendom waged the Crusades. Chesterton writes of this time, astutely, it seems—as a time of purgation for Christendom. Scholarship and natural theology had, until the advent of Christianity, been the domain of Paganism. Although the intellectual and philosophical traditions of the Greeks and the Romans are the basis for much of our western culture, there was a time when these traditions bore with them darker marks than they bear for us today. The quaint and very human mythologies of the gods had grown dark in a time when the decadence of Rome was darker even than the Colosseum with its murder of slaves and Christians for entertainment. The religion of Greece and Rome were religions of nature worship, for they worshipped the forces of sex, growth, and death-- anthropomorphised into the pantheon. In terms of the environmental theology of Francis, I think this is worth understanding better than I do. For this was, and is, one of the great messages of Francis- the reunification of the natural world and humanity. Chesterton writes, ‘it was no good telling such people to have a natural religion full of stars and flowers; there was not a flower or even a star that had not been stained… it was no good to preach natural religion to people to whom nature had grown as unnatural as any religion.’ The Dark Ages was the necessary purgation of these stains on European civilisation and the consciousness of the Church which was, at that time, largely European. The Church had to be rid of the perversity of the natural religion of Rome to make room for the natural religion of the Son of God, the one by whom and for whom the whole Creation exists.
By the time of St Francis, it may be said, the Dark Ages had done their work.
‘Gradually against this grey background beauty begins to appear, as something really fresh and delicate and above all surprising… the flowers and the stars have recovered their first innocence.

Fire and Water are felt to be worthy to be the brother and the sister of a saint. The purge of paganism was complete at last… Water is no longer that water into which slaves were flung to feed the fishes. Fire is no longer that fire through which children were passed to Moloch…
…while it was yet the twilight of the Dark Ages, a figure appeared silently and suddenly on a little hill above the city of Assisi, dark against the fading darkness. For it was the end of a long and stern night, a night of vigil, not unvisited by stars. He stood with his hands lifted, as in so many statues and pictures, and about him was a burst of birds singing; and behind him was the break of day.’

It has been said that St Francis ‘anticipated all that is most liberal and sympathetic in the modern mood; the love of nature; the love of animals; the sense of social compassion; the sense of the spiritual dangers of prosperity and even of property.’

He saw beyond the created world as a merely something which points us to the goodness of God, but saw the natural world as our sibling in Creation. It was in this inspiration that Francis wrote the Canticle of the Sun, the first Italian poem and best known of Francis’ writings:

Most high, all-powerful, all good, Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all honour And all blessing. To you alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy To pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made, And first my lord Brother Sun, Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him. How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendour! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon and Stars; In the heavens you have made them, bright And precious and fair.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, And fair and stormy, all the weather's moods, By which you cherish all that you have made.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water, So useful, lowly, precious, and pure.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire, Through whom you brighten up the night. How beautiful he is, how gay! Full of power and strength.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our mother, Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces Various fruits and coloured flowers and herbs.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through those who grant pardon For love of you; through those who endure Sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, By you, Most High, they will be crowned.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death, From whose embrace no mortal can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those She finds doing your will! The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks, And serve him with great humility.

The work of St Francis in this regard is yet incomplete. Perhaps more strongly with the advent of Protestantism, there has been a widening of the gap between the human and the non-human Creation. Few among us would speak of Brothers Wind and Air, or Sister Water, or Sister Earth. Yet such an understanding is, I think, fundamental to a proper theology of God and of our place in His world and in the story of redemption. For the redemption of the Cross was a redemption of the whole Creation. As it is written, ‘the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.’

There is much else that we could write here about St Francis of Assisi, but I have become carried away already. One thing else which is worthy of note, was his visit to the Saracen sultan Melek-el-Kamel in 1219, where he sought to bring an end to the Crusades by testifying about Christ to the Muslim leaders. Rather unorthodoxly, he offered to throw himself into the fire on the condition that, should he emerge alive, they would acknolwedge Christ as Lord.

But at present we shan't go further. When we knew that we were pregnant, we determined to name the child Frances. Interestingly, at least for us, she was born just two days after the Feast of St Francis, which many Christians throughout the world celebrate on October 4th.

The Further Adventures of...

2006-10-27T07:57:00.000+07:00

‘Adventures’ is, perhaps, a misnomer. We continue to get along well, though seldom leave the house. We are becoming more used to the ways of this child, but find that getting out is a bit more work than pleasure. An unfortunate selection of chicken peddlers laid waste to what energy we did have, but we all seem to be recovering quickly enough.
Heidi’s mum, Julie, will be staying with us a for a few more days before going to back to Seattle.
For our part, it looks like we may be staying in Bangkok until the early part of November, as we are still awaiting US citizenship and a passport for Frances before we can return to Laos. We hope this will give us more time to explore Bangkok, though we have yet to do so. Micah was able to take an early morning excursion to the flower markets along the Chao Praya river bank, and up past the Royal Palace. The military who has taken over the Thai government has stepped up their presence in Bangkok this week following reports of Thaksin secretly re-entering the country. All very exciting… that is, for people who spend most of their days in-of-doors.

Frances Growing

2006-10-22T15:26:00.000+07:00

I have to apologise for having gone so long without an update on Frances. Over the past two weeks Frances has been visited by an unending stream of well-wishers. Friends and co-workers from Laos have come to visit, as has Heidi's mum, who is staying with us for two weeks. The staff of our apartment drop by not infrequently to see whether she can understand Thai. She is growing well and healthy, and she seldom ever cries. Our only trouble is that she insists on sleeping when we want to squeeze her.

We also want our families and friends at home to know how very grateful we are for the many, many presents and packages (we are planning to open a baby-apparel shop when we return to Vientiane)- and messages of encouragement.

We will write again soon, hopefully with less of a delay this time...

Frances Turns Home

2006-10-10T23:45:00.000+07:00

We have promised ourselves we will not become the sort of parents who inflict endless reams of photographs of their newborn, freeze-frame-esque, upon their unsuspecting friends and relations. The temptation is, however, considerable.

We have returned home today with our Frances in tow, together with our friends Larry, Jane, and Zaki Nafziger-Snider, with whom we will be spending the next couple days.

Frances continues to sleep and eat, etc., but is considerate enough to allow us an hour repose between each bodily function, for which we are grateful. She is lovely, though, and very much worth the effort.

The Ongoing Event of Frances

2006-10-09T18:34:00.000+07:00

In the past 64 hours, we have slept but four. Frances is hale and hearty, though, for which we are thankful. For the time being, we are staying at the hospital to give Heidi and Frances time to recover before we head back to our apartment in Bangkok. Between diapers and breastfeeding, we have found some time to read, Heidi reading Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, and Micah reading Ivanhoe aloud to Frances as she has yet to become literate. It seems to us she appreciates the Scottish brogue, but perhaps we are guessing.

We Welcome Frances Sharon Ingalls into Our Family

2006-10-06T22:21:00.000+07:00

A daughter has been born to us this day! This afternoon we arrived at the hospital for a routine checkup, only to discover that our child was already on the way, and was safely delivered at 7:15 pm, at Samitivej Hospital in Bangkok, full two weeks before we expected her, weighing 6 1/2 lbs.

We have decided to name her Frances in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, whose life was devoted to the poor and to Creation.

We shall write more presently. God be with you all.

A Cursory Update

2006-10-02T19:29:00.000+07:00

Dear Friends and Relations,

As you may be able to tell, this site is currently evolving. Over the past week we have been updating this site with a long retrospective history-- beginning three years ago. We are aware that there is a number of you who may be bored by your first visit to this site, and thus not return, and never have an idea of what we are currently doing. Thus, I am posting this to give you all a current, though brief, idea of what we are up to.

A year and a half ago, we moved to Laos to work with the Mennonite Central Commitee. Heidi accepted a position with MCC's Sangthong Primary Health Care Project, functioning as a Public Health Advisor (Heidi completed her Masters of Science in Public Health in Developing Countries, through the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).

Micah manages the Sustainable Agriculture Project Sangthong. We live in a village area and plan to stay until the spring of 2008.

A more detailed update is forthcoming.

Hoi An Market

2006-09-23T21:44:00.000+07:00

Despite its becoming an increasingly popular tourist attraction, Hoi An stills maintains a feeling of being rather more local than otherwise.

The market is a good example of this, where hundreds of people from the region come every morning to sell their wares and their vegetables, and whatnot.

The picture below shows old women selling betel nut, a substance chewed by people through south and southeast asia, and elsewhere, said to be a narcotic.

Housefronts of Hoi An

2006-09-23T21:30:00.000+07:00

Taking photographs of the housefronts of Hoi An is something of an analogue to taking photos of the faces along Oxford's drainpipes. They are, however, pcituresque, though I doubt these do them justice.

To the far left is a picture of the Vin Hung, the hotel where we stayed.

Hoi An, Viet Nam

2006-09-23T18:56:00.000+07:00

Though having been settled early in the first century, Hoi An became an important trading centre during the 15th century, serving as a point of trade, perhaps the most important point of trade, for southeast asia, linking China, Japan, India, the Middle East and the Europe.
Today, the influence of the various ethnic groups can be seen throughout the city, with Chinese and Japanese architecture and homes, etc. In particular, the Chinese have left several large meeting halls, all specific to the region from which each Chinese group had come- thus a meeting hall for the Cantonese, a hall for the Hunan, etc. The Japanese covered bridge is also a place of note, which dates back to the 1700s.

Hoi An was declared a World Heritage Site in recognition of the pivotal role it played in the development of world trade, and for the history of its various inhabitants.
Hoi An is also known for Cao Lau, a noodle dish which, traditionally, must be made from the water of a particular well in the heart of the Hoi An.

We stayed here for several days during which time resided in an old Chinese merchants warehouse built in the 1800s, which has since been made into a hotel.

Van Mieu, Hanoi

2006-09-21T23:25:00.000+07:00

Whilst in Hanoi, we visited Van Mieu, the historic Temple of Literature, built during the Ly and Tran dynasties, beginning in 1010 AD. This Confucian temple was built to honour those scholars who were awarded their doctorate whilst studying there during the 700 years that it operated.

The final examination for each student was oral, and was administered by the emporer, who would question the student for several hoursin matters if history and philosophy, and administration.

In 1484, the emperor Le Thanh Tong began to inscribe the names of the graduating doctors on steles, the turtles.

Hanoi, Viet Nam

2006-09-21T22:45:00.000+07:00

After leaving Halon Bay, we travelled down to Hanoi, to meet with MCC Viet Nam,and to see the city. MCC Viet Nam, like MCC Laos, has had a long history in the region. MCC Viet Nam was at work throughout the Viet Nam War, characteristically living and working with people the both sides of the conflict. Hanoi itself needs little explanation, I expect.

Halong Bay, Viet Nam

2006-09-21T21:49:00.000+07:00

Every year, the MCC Laos staff take a holiday together—all foreigners and nationals, all adults and children. For us, this was a wonderful time to be together with the national staff in a place where we could all be foreigners together. I would not wish to overstate the matter, but I think it is reasonable to say that the very state of being a foreigner is by far and away the most difficult thing of our being here or, indeed, being in a place. This year, MCC travelled together to Viet Nam, and for us this was a singularly rewarding time of being foreigners together for a time, however brief.
We travelled overland by bus to the coast of Viet Nam and, after a brief stop in Vinh, we drove up to Halong Bay, in northern Viet Nam. Halong Bay is a waterbody filled with islands and caves which, like the caves of northern Laos, served as the bases of the early communist revolutionaries.

Angkor, Cambodia

2006-09-21T07:40:00.000+07:00

Angkor is the legendary capitol of the Khmer empire. Built in 944 AD, Angkor was built into a vast complex of temples and dwellings which eventually abandoned in 1431 aftre it was acked by the Thais. For four hundred years it remained uninhabited, and was thought to be a myth until a French botanist, Mahout, rediscovered the ruins in 1860.
Today, the site has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site, with impressive temples (largely Hindu, largely Vishnuvite) in various states of decay or restoration. If anyone fancies seeing something of great historical significance, but also with a feeling of ‘not yet having been found’, Angkor is a wonderful place to visit. The tourists are, however, coming in increasingly larger droves year by year…
Siem Reap, the nearest city, is also an important place o study the Khmer Rouge, who controlled this region for many years. We were able to visit some sites and meet some people affected during this time—I am sure I have not seen something more horrible than what was done here during that period.

Tonle Sap, Cambodia

2006-09-21T07:34:00.000+07:00

Tonle Sap, or Great Lake, is the largest freshwater body is southeast asia, covering 16,000 square kilometers during the monsoon season, during which time rainfall is so great as to reverse the flow of the Mekong River. For centuries, Cambodia has depended on this water body for sustenance. Today more than 3 million people live on or around this lake, which provides more than 60 percent of Cambodia’s protein intake.
This year, we travelled to Siem Reap for an MCC conference, during which time we had a chance to visit the lake and see some of the work that is going on with the IUCN and other organisations seeking to protect the lake and the vulnerable people groups who depend on this lake for their livelihoods. Tonle Sap is particularly interesting in that it is home to a few thousand people who live on boats, lashed together, creating a small city complete with markets and gardens. These people are particularly vulnerable in that they do not own any property except their houses which move from place to place depending on water levels.

In addition to seeing Tonle Sap, we were able to spend a couple days amongst the ruins of Angkor, about which I will write presently.

Xieng Khouang, Laos

2006-09-21T07:21:00.000+07:00

Xieng Khouang, in northeastern Laos, was the site of the heaviest bombing during America’s Secret War in the 1970s. The effects of this time are apparent, even from the air, where the topography is pocked with, moonlike, with craters measuring 6 meters across. Today, it is heavily populated with Hmong, the ethnic group from which America extracted many of its hired soldiers during the war.
At Hmong New Year (in November), there are held bullfights, as well as courting ritual for young people, etc. We didn’t include pictures of this but, in effect, it involves unmarried boys and girls standing in lines opposite one another, throwing a ball back and forth between each pair. Presumably, this gives them time to talk together, after which they can speak to their parents about getting married. This goes on for days and days during the New Year.
We also have included pictures of the ancient stone jars for which that area is known. While their origins are uncertain, they are believed to have been funerary jars or, if you talk to local people, very large jugs of alcohol (typical response…). In any case, they are believed to be 2,000-3,000 years old. The American bombers were considerate enough to only destroy some of them…
Many of the people we work with in Sangthong district originated in this province. During the bombings, most people were unable to farm for seven years, except at night. During that time, many people fled to other parts of Laos. When we first moved to Laos, we lived with a Lao host family, the father of which is a lay-priest at the Catholic Church. His whole village was destroyed during the bombings, including his little sister whom he was unable to get out of their house before the planes came. This sort of story is typical for people from this province. For those who stayed, unexploded ordnances are a constant threat to children and farmers working in their fields.

Luang Prabang

2006-09-21T05:55:00.000+07:00

At least as early as 698 AD, Luang Prabang (then Muang Sua) was a city of some importance. It was not until 1354 that it was named Luang Prabang, and was made the seat of the Lane Xang Kingdom and the residence of the king. The Lane Xang Kingdom at one point covered large parts of Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. Following the French occupation and, after that, the execution of the royal family by the Lao government in 1975, Luang Prabang has become a place of history. Recently, Luang Prabang has been named a UNESCO World Heritage site- one of the few currently occupied.
From where we live in Laos, it is an 8 hour drive through winding, though beautiful roads through the mountains of Laos.

Views of Sangthong

2006-09-20T15:05:00.000+07:00

These are various places and people around our district. I think that if you put your mouse over the picture, you can see the (semi-)explanatory titles.

Sustainable Agriculture Project Sangthong

2006-09-16T05:50:00.000+07:00

After we had come, Micah was responsible for arranging his own work in the district. We were given a home (a lovely traditional bamboo house, on stilts, at the edge of the forest along the hospital grounds). At first, we used this area for the development of a demonstration garden, while we worked up a project with the government’s Department of Agriculture and Forestry. We will be more detailed later, but for now, we began the Sustainable Agriculture Project Sangthong, which Micah manages jointly with Songkhan, an employee of the District Agriculture and Forestry Extension Office for Sangthong district. This project works in the 8 poorest villages in the district, focusing on skills training, microlending, and village-specific projects to do with sustainable agriculture. Sustainable is an oft-bandied word, here we mean agriculture with a focus on low-capital inputs (for instance, educating farmers in the techniques of integrated pest management rather than using pesticides, or composting rather than using purchased fertilizers), on environmental sustainability (IPM again), and on integrated, or polyculture farming rather than large monocultures. Farming, as such, is still a relatively new idea in Laos, and there is a great need for basic training in various techniques and theories of agriculture. Like anywhere, there are some farmers who are more progressive or knowledgeable about such skills, and we work together with these farmers in each project village. Farmers who are chosen by the village as having particular skill or experience are assisted to develop demonstration gardens in their village, and these gardens are then used as grounds for doing practical sessions during trainings, and as an area to demonstrate the techniques which are taught.

Sangthong Primary Health Care Project

2006-09-15T05:40:00.000+07:00

The Mennonite Central Committee began work in Laos in 1975. Together with the Quaker Service, MCC was the first western organisation permitted to work here, because of MCCs long history of peacemaking and non-violence. One of the early projects of MCC was work in the north with victims of ‘bombies,’ or anti-personel bombs which were dropped by the millions on the Lao countryside, to this day, previously unexploded bombies kill dozens of people each year. PBS ran a documentary on bombies and on the work of MCC in Laos (I think the title was ‘Bombies’).
Since that time, MCC has expanded their work to agriculture, health, education, handicrafts, etc.
Bread for the World (actually, the German arm Brot fur de Weld) funded MCC to begin the Sangthong Primary Health Care Project in Sangthong District. SPHCP works through the entire health system for the district though, at present, the focus is on the community health which occurs outside of the hospital. For many people in rural Laos, access to the hospital, particularly in times of emergency, is an impossibility. Unpaved roads (which, not infrequently are impassable during the rainy season), lack of vehicles, remote locations, and lack of funding conspire to force people to seek health care closer to home, or to go without it. Consequently, the project has focused on the training of Community Health Volunteers and Traditional Birth Attendents, in addition to village revolving drug funds and periodic visits by health staff from the hospital to the more remote villages.
It was this project which Heidi began work with in the summer of 2005. Although she was asked to work as a public health avisor, her work has been rather more managerial than simple advising. Working together with one Lao co-worker, Manisone, who is also an employee of MCC, they jointly manage the project and the 20 or so staff who work for the hospital. At the village level, there are approximately 80 village health volunteers, and an equal number of widwives (tradition birth attendents).
Over the course of this blog we intend to write more about various aspects of this work. At the top are pictures from International AIDS Day activities, and from volunteer and staff trainings.

The Lao People's Democratic Republic

2006-09-14T16:02:00.000+07:00

The People’s Democratic Republic of Laos (Lao PDR) is one of the last remaining communist countries. The current government began to take control during the time that the United States was involved in the Vietnam War and the secret war in Laos.
Before that time, Laos was a colony of the French, who had come to Laos to establish control of regional trade. The French acquired Laos whilst maintaining the current established government of the Luang Prabang kingdom, who had ruled the region (called the Lane Xang Kingdom, or ‘Kingdom of a Million Elephants’) since the thirteenth century.
During the various wars and rebellions within French Indochina during the early to mid 20th century, the Pathet Lao, or ‘Lao National’ army grew in strength and influence to overthrow the western-backed and decadent ruling elite in Laos.
Below is part of a document written by Noam Chomsky, who visited Laos during the 1970s, regarding the work of the CIA in Laos:

From :The New York Review of Books
Volume 15, Number 2 · July 23, 1970
"…The recent history of Laos contributes to the atmosphere of suspicion. The first Government of National Union of 1958 was overthrown by American subversion. As Ambassador Graham Parsons candidly remarked in Congressional Hearings of 1959, "I struggled for sixteen months to prevent a coalition." An American military mission was operating at the time, headed by a US Army general in civilian guise. In the 1958 elections, of twenty-one seats contested for the National Assembly, nine were won by the Neo Lao Hak Sat (NLHS) and four by the candidates of the Committee for Peace and Neutrality of Quinim Pholsena, a "left-leaning neutralist" allied with the NLHS. Five right-wing and three non-party delegates were elected. The NLHS had put up only thirteen candidates. Its leader, Souphanouvong, got the largest vote and was elected chairman of the National Assembly. The United States withheld funds, thus impelling the Lao elite to introduce a new government headed by "pro-Western neutralist" Phoui Sananikone. Shortly after, Phoui declared his intention to disband the NLHS as being subversive, thus scrapping the earlier successful agreements that had established the coalition. US aid soon resumed and Phoui pledged "to coexist with the Free World only."
In December, 1959, he was overthrown by the CIA favorite, Phoumi Nosavan, a Lao equivalent to the military dictator of Thailand (his cousin, as it happens), who was also receiving substantial US support. Although the coup government did not last, Phoumi retained his powerful position as Minister of National Defense, thus controlling most of the budget; and the extreme right won the ridiculous 1960 elections which were so crudely rigged by the CIA and its favorites that even conservative pro-US observers were appalled."
What occurred in Laos after the writing of this essay was even more devastating for the people of Laos. After the signing of the Geneva Accords, which proclaimed Laos a neutral state in the Vietnam War (and therefor the war could not be carried out within its borders), the CIA began a secret bombing campaign which lasted until 1975, during which more bombs were dropped on Laos than on all of Germany and Japan combined during World War II.
Nearly everyone we have contact with here lost a close family member or friend during this bombing campaign. Whole villages were obliterated during this time and for seven years, large areas of the country could not be farmed, as villagers hid in caves and in the forest, foraging food. In all, it is estimated that nearly 400,000 of Laos’ 4 million people died during this period.
In 1975, following the exposure of America’s Secret War to the American Congress and the American people, the Pathet Lao declared freedom for the people of Laos and established control in Vientiane. What followed was a period of harsh reprisal and oppressive control on the part of the Lao government.
It was not until 1991, at the fall of the Soviet Union, that Laos began to open up to some degree. Today, free elections are still not held, and media are tightly controlled.
While on the surface, the government claims to ensure religious freedom, the reality is very different. Christians are regularly persecuted through imprisonment, confiscation of property, and even military action in Hmong regions. We ourselves have contact with many believers who live in fear because of their beliefs. In Vientiane, things are much more relaxed in this regard, though the three churches which are permitted to function must have all plans, all speakers and all activities approved one year in advance by the central government. Last year, in our village, the few Christians were not allowed to observe Christmas (smacks of the White Witch of Narnia if you ask me).
But Laos is a wonderful country. Ethnically, there are many groups within Laos. Over the centuries, Laos has been something of a corridor along the Indochinese region. Early on, the area may have been largely inhabited by the Kh’hmu people, who themselves were migrants from Cambodia. After that time, the Thai groups came in from the north- from China, and spread down the region, occupying Laos and Thailand. Today, this group, called Lowland Lao, make up the majority of population and economic power within the country, occupying the good farmland along the Mekong River. Still another major wave of immigration took place, the Hmong moved in from China. While there are many groups in Laos, dozens perhaps, these three major peoples make up the largest share.
The Lao language is tonal, having anywhere from five to seven tones depending on who you talk to. For those of you who don’t know what a tone is, it means that I can say the same word- ‘mai’ for instance, and it can have several meanings depending on how I inflect my voice. If said with a high tone, it would mean ‘mile;’ if a low tone, ‘burn;’ if a middle tone, ‘new;’ if a tone which starts high and then falls, ‘tree, or wood;’ if a tone which starts low and then rises, then ‘silk.’
Most words are either one syllable or a compound word of two or more syllables. As with many languages used in more ‘traditional’ societies, there is a great diversity of words to describe various types of plants, or weather, or baskets, or traps, etc., but technical vocabulary is limited, being formed more like scientific German or Orwell’s ‘newspeak’ but conglomerating several words of simple meaning to arrive at a specific term.
Laos, it seems to us, is still very much a hunter-gatherer society. While a monetary system has been established for quite some time, the majority of the population barely subsists on rice cultivation, supplementing this continuously with leaves and roots and animals gathered from the forest. This diversity of foraged food in the diet impacts local cuisine. While the foods traditionally thought of as Lao foods include papaya salad (a dish made from unripe papaya, cut into thin strips, with chillies, lime juice, and fermented fish sauce), laap (usually a variation on ground meat, mint leaves, banana blossoms, lime juice and chillies), and sticky rice, the majority of the time our neighbours eat small birds from the forest, insects, wild leaves, and sauce made from chilli peppers.
Education, medicine, and technology is very rudimentary. This is compounded by a lack of knowledge of outside languages by the local population, making access to outside resources even more difficult. The vast majority of the population is rural and in low densities, generally engaged in shifting agriculture, and generally animist or Buddhist.

There are few good sources of information on Laos. There is a fellow named Grant Evans who has written some books about it. Information can also be obtained from US sources, either governmental or Hmong, but rather biased in either case, for different reasons. I hope that as time goes on we will be able to give more information along the way. This posting seems to have grown rather too long already.

Endings, Beginnings and the Work of the Church Amongst the Poor

2006-09-14T09:17:00.000+07:00

In October of 2004, we decided to leave the UK for home. Heidi had completed her MSc in October, amongst the top five students, and was asked to seek publication for her thesis, which we (and they) considered quite an honour. Micah had felt that he had reached a point of wanting to move on from his work in Southall and, beside all this, our UK visa was to expire (this is something a bit quirky- when you leave the country no one checks your visa- presumably, you could overstay several months without detection…)
During our final weeks we had begun the process of looking for work following our return from the UK. The Mennonite Central Committee was an organisation that had always come to us well-recommended. During our days at Wheaton, we had known several people who had worked with MCC or had had significant contact, and had know it to be an organisation that was committed to spiritual and material development.

We have long been looking for an organisation which does not draw a false dichotomy between the spiritual and the physical existence or, by extension, the spiritual and physical needs of the human person. It strikes me that perhaps the tendency toward this dichotomy has similar roots to that which fails to see an intrinsic value in the natural realm as compared to the spiritual realm. In both cases, there is implicit the notion that only the spiritual is of any consequence. In the former, we see the well being of the physical body (particularly the physical body of the poor person) as only important in so far as it does not hinder his hearing the Gospel. In the second case, the created realm is only important in so far as it provides a habitat in which the human person can exist long enough to hear and believe the Gospel.

When Jesus first spoke in public, he quoted from the prophet Isaiah:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

It is most interesting that the majority of Christians in North America, I imagine, would say this was meant primarily, or even exclusively, in a figurative and spiritual sense. The poor he speaks of are the ‘poor in spirit.’ That in itself is interesting, for there are written for us four Gospels, in one of which (Matthew) it is written ‘poor in spirit’ where Luke, for instance, merely writes ‘poor’ (this in regard to the Sermon on the Mount). It is interesting that we from the developed world would immediately cling to that account which would relieve us of any fear that God has a preference for the poor. Such has always been the bent of humanity, who are by nature idolaters. Idolaters in that we insist on fashioning a god after our own imaginings. There are many examples to suggest- no, more than that, to insist-- that the mission of Christ (and therefore the requisite mission of his Church) was that of liberation from all powers that oppress-- spiritual and physical. If one reads from Genesis onward, one sees an unbroken theme—the creation of the world in perfection—the Fall of all creation through the sin of the human person-- the promise of redemption for all of the created world-- the redemption brought by Christ—the consummation when he returns at the end of all things to renew the heavens and the earth. If we can manage to do away with the idea that the story of Scripture is the story of the spiritual world alone, then we may just manage to purge ourselves and our church of this gnostic heresy.

I am sorry that I am not able to write more persuasively or more intelligently about all this. It may be, too, that in the writing of this the idea sounds rather too simplistic to be of much import. One might say, ‘well of course we believe such things.’ But so long as believers choose to live the lifestyles of the rich whilst millions suffer for want of basic necessities, so long as we in the West wilfully choose to live as though the abundance of our resources were nothing more than a reason to be thankful (rather than the serious moral responsibility that they are), then I think it likely that our theology has shrunk so small so as to not be worthy of the Name we profess.
There is no love which is not love demonstrated. Evidence of this abounds. Isaiah 58 is an oft quoted passage on true fasting. What is the fast of God? Is it bowing one’s head like a reed, or lying in sackcloth and ashes (that is, personal or symbolic humbling)—no, it is to set the oppressed free and to break every yoke of oppression, to provide the poor wanderer with shelter, and not to turn away from those in need.

Throughout Scripture these themes are continually developed:

In I John, it is written, ‘we know that we have passed from death into life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.’

And James writes, ‘what good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well-fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?’

How can we say that the will of God is other than this? Do we recall the parable of the seed being sown amongst the thorns? The thorns represent the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth. Why is it that we are so seldom concerned about wealth being deceitful? We sometimes are. But how do we understand the deceitfulness of wealth? We imagine that wealth is only so evil that it tells us that we are sufficient in ourselves and do not have to rely upon God. Nonsense. The deceitfulness of wealth is so very much more sinister. Jesus said, ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.’ We must ask ourselves seriously, does it seem to us that it is difficult at all for a rich person to enter Heaven? Seriously. Our churches are filled to the brim with the wealthy and the powerful, and we know we belong to the Kingdom because we tell ourselves that though we are wealthy to be sure, we still acknowledge that we are dependant on God. Great! Such serious Scriptural warnings are so easily overcome! If Christ says that the salvation of the rich is nigh unto impossible, but we see it being accomplished so very easily, perhaps we misjudge who it is who is really entering heaven. I am certain that the deceitfulness of wealth is something much darker and much more powerful than mere feelings of self-sufficiency. Wealth blinds us to a proper theology of God. Our wealth convinces us that our lives must honour God, and our material resources are the result of his blessing for our faithfulness. Wealth tells us that Jesus’ statement that his mission is to bring good news to the poor and to break the yoke of oppression was only a rhetorical device—and thus we are safe. The yoke remains and, more than this, it has the blessing of our church.

Jesus said, ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from you, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison, and you did not look after me.’

If we are able to be at all honest with ourselves, where will we stand at the end of all things? We in the Western church have, by and large, stood and looked into the face of the least of these brothers of Christ, and said, ‘go, I wish you well, be warm and well fed,’ and have done nothing. Worse than that, we have knowingly supported political and economic systems which deprive the least of these of fair wages and fair markets, we have supported aggressive wars against them and their children, we have promoted the cause of the wealthy and trampled on the rights of the poor.

The deceitfulness of wealth has naught to do with our feelings. Wealth deceives us into immasculating our Faith, into twisting Scripture so it cannot do more than merely prick the surface of our leathern consciences. Our wealth has deceived us into creating false gods who support our lives of affluence and whisper into our ears that more good things are to come, for God so very much wants to bless us. How is it that our ears are deaf to the fires of Hell which roar within these comforting whispers?

Enough of tirading for now. In part, I would like it if our friends could respond to these things. I know that not all of you who read this blog will agree with what I am saying. There are a great number of us who believe that the great material wealth of America (and elsewhere) is naught but a great big birthday present for us, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it. I wish only for us to be able to discuss it. I find too often that this topics is silenced (again, I would say, the deceitfulness of wealth), and no constructive dialogue is allowed. Surely, if so much of Scripture is devoted to speaking about God’s relationship to the poor, and our responsibilities to the poor, it must at least be necessary for us to think critically about where we stand. It is not so much that we (the Ingalls) have done so very well in this category. I do not think the discussion must boil down to all of us either taking a vow of poverty and giving all we have to the poor on the one hand, or be doomed to hell on the other. All of this comes to this point: do we love others as we love of ourselves? We all know that there are millions who suffer and die for lack of basic necessities- millions of Christians as well as non-Christians- and what are we doing?

I fear we fatten ourselves for the day of slaughter.

I am sorry to have gone on for so long. My purpose was to relate the circumstances through which we sought out a position with the Mennonite Central Committee. We wanted to work with an organisation which reaches out to the whole person- the physical as well as the spiritual, and does not draw false dichotomies between the spiritual and the material mission of the church.
MCC has had a long history of mission to the whole person. When Heidi came near the end of her studies in London, we applied to MCC for a position they had in Laos, where she would work as a Public Health Advisor for a primary health care project. I will cut this bit of history short, for it is a long one. Suffice it to say that we did get the position and, after waiting six months in America for permission of the Lao government, we left for Laos on 14 May 2005, to begin a term with MCC.

Conwy (Conway), Wales

2006-09-13T09:44:00.000+07:00

From Keswick we turned down to Conwy, the fortified city on the northern coast of Wales. Conwy was built by Edward I, who conquered much of Wales during the 13th century. Conwy was one of his most important castles, the town around which is surrounded by stone walls 100 feet high and 10 feet thick, which have to this day been maintained, guarded by 22 towers. We stayed for a few days in Conwy (also written Conway) before heading back to west London.

Keswick, Derwentwater and the Lakes District

2006-09-13T09:27:00.000+07:00

After leaving Oban, we travelled once more by train down the coast to Keswick, a small town on the northern tip of Derwentwater, one of the most beautiful lakes of the Lakes District. This was a lovely little town, with wonderful hikes up the nearby Latrigg mountain, Friar’s Crag, and whatnot.

Oban and Island of Mull, Scotland

2006-09-13T09:10:00.000+07:00

In the autumn of 2004, we took a train from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and then up the northwest coast of Scotland to Oban, a small seaside town which serves as a port to the Hebrides Islands, especially the island of Mull. We stayed for a few days in Oban, travelling by ferry (the Caledonian MacBrayne) to Craignure, on Mull, and thence we walked around to the castles of Duart and Torosay. Duart Castle is the home of the MacLean Scots clan, who managed to maintain an aggressive independence from the English on their island stronghold. Further up the island we visited Tobermory, known for its many-coloured houses (a popular British television series called Ballamory is filmed here, where the inhabitants of each house dress in the colour of their house, etc.) and its distillery which makes Tobermory single malt. Off the west side of the island lies the island of Iona, one of the first centres of Celtic Christianity, where an abbey was built by St Columba in 563 AD.

Melrose Abbey and Abbotsford, on the Scottish Borders

2006-09-13T08:49:00.000+07:00

Not far from Edinburgh lies Abbotsford, the estate of Sir Walter Scott, currently one of our favourite writers. The estate is named for the ford along the nearby river Tweed where the clerics could be seen crossing on their way to and from Melrose Abbey, but a few miles hence. Today, the Scott family still occupies the castle but allows folk to visit the impressive library and rooms of the lower floor, and the gardens surrounding. Scott collected various bits of armour and armaments of famous Scots, including the gun of Rob Roy, etc.
Melrose Abbey was built by King David I in 1136, and was first occupied by Cistercian monks. In the 15th century, English soldiers destroyed the original abbey, which soon rebuilt (Melroe and its environs are in the Scottish Borderlands which, as the name suggests, forms the Scottish border with England. In the long history of the two countries, destruction has not uncommonly been wrought by English soldiers) . In the kirkyard of Melrose is buried the heart of Robert the Bruce.

Edinburgh, Scotland

2006-09-12T08:45:00.000+07:00

Toward the end of our time in the UK, we found some time to travel north to Edinburgh. We decided to fly north, though I think we would have preferred the train but could not spare the time. The hills upon which Edinburgh is built provide welcome change from the relative flatness of the south.

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

2006-09-11T11:10:00.000+07:00

For Christmas, Micah’s parents gave us a year membership to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, a wonderful, 300-acre garden but a short city bus ride from Southall, where we spent many of our weekends reading or studying, or walking through the gardens. One of the most difficult thing for us, perhaps the most difficult, is the long, miserable winters of the UK. The song ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is one which has not had too much currency in the States, but perhaps that is because one might never understand the phrase ‘bleak midwinter’ without living in the UK. This was compounded by the community we lived in- the uncollected refuse, unbroken cement, and unyielding grey skies.
Kew Gardens gave us a much-needed respite from all this, and also provided a particularly good spot for reading aloud the Harry Potter books which we read together that year.

Oxford

2006-09-10T10:46:00.000+07:00

One of many benefits of living in Southall was our proximity to Oxford. Oxford does seem to live up to how one might imagine it. It is quite an old place, with working pubs that date back to the 14th century. It is a place known for C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, and for its quaint little streets and markets, and the many faces which line the drains. Whilst in Southall, it was a nice retreat for us and a pleasant place to take family and friends who came to visit. I will not here write much about it, but I wanted to put up some pictures.

Christmastide in Bath

2006-09-10T10:03:00.000+07:00

Christmas Day was spent with Rob and Katherine Thomas’-- a solicitor and his wife (a lab scientist) who supported themselves to come and work with A Rocha. After Boxing Day, we took a train to Bath, an ancient town where the Romans first constructed baths in the geothermal springs. After that time, particularly during the Georgian period, the city was built up as an oasis for the wealthy and influential to relax their over-strained nerves (suppressing the masses is, apparently, tiresome). The city, though is lovely, and was a enjoyable way to spend our time after Christmas. I would say that we enjoyed most especially going to hear the Bath Abbey Girls’ Choir at the Cathedral (if anyone is ever in proximity to us, please ask for a copy of their cd- lovely, lovely).

Les Tourades

2006-09-09T12:42:00.000+07:00

When we learned that Heidi had been accepted to LSHTM, we imagined that we would spend the next year travelling around Europe and the UK, whilst studying in our free time. We were not aware that one has to pay for such things, and so were sorely disappointed. Thankfully, we were able to make it to the Continent once. A Rocha projects often host volunteers (at the volunteer’s expense, but the rates are merely a pittance) from abroad who want to live and work at the various project sites. Amongst the European projects, A Rocha France is perhaps the most coveted place for a working holiday (somehow Minet Country Park does not have the same draw as the Bouche-du-Rhone, though this I will never understand). Nestled in the Vallee Des Baux, the valley at the mouth of the Rhone river as it flows southward to the Mediterranean, is a large house called Les Tourades, which was donated to A Rocha by a wealthy patron. Les Tourades, once the site of French resistance meetings during the Second War, lies just a few kilometers from the city of Arles. Arles, originally the Phoenecian city of Theline, was founded in the 7th Century BC, and later became a major centre for the Romans during the Gallic campaigns. By the reign of Constantine, Arles was considered to be the ‘second capitol’ of the Roman empire. The city was later conquered by the barbarian invasions from the north, but still retains much of the beauty that you would expect from a Roman city- aquaducts, an arena (still used for bull fights, using the famous bulls of the Camargue marsh, at the Bouch-du-Rhone). Another interesting bit of this valley is the Abbey de Montmajour, a beautiful old remnant of the abbey which was home to the French Pope, during that bit of confusion in the Roman Catholic Church when there existed two Popes.

We spent some time there, for a sort of working holiday, staying in their posh room—Le Chambre Royale, and picking apricots and watching for terripins and migratory birds.
Anyone who would like to work at an A Rocha project, please go to their website on my sidebar, which can give you more information on the various projects and working opportunities. And please, for goodness' sake volunteer for the less glamorous projects, too...

The Villa's Garden

2006-09-09T09:29:00.000+07:00

There was one aspect of our living situation on which we did not look with satisfaction. In our work in the community, we promoted a healthy, productive relationship with nature. Whatwas most stressful to us in this regard was the utter lack of interest many people displayed with their own little bits of greenspace- their gardens. Beside our Villa was a small bit of garden which our neighbours used for a garbage dump (in their defense, our neighbours were 13 young men from India who shared a small house together-- and young men seldom show much interest in aesthetics or nature). When we talked to them about their garden, they were only too happy to allow it to be put to some greater use. Thus, we cleared the ground and planted a small garden beside our villa. Here are pictures before and after, and the first harvest.

The Garden Villa

2006-09-08T09:21:00.000+07:00

Two weeks before Christmas we moved into a converted tool shed, at the bottom of the garden at 57 Alexandra Avenue, in Southall. The unfathomable overcrowding of Southall has forced new immigrants into all manner of housing situations- many families live several people to a small bedroom, sleep on the floor of the business where they work, etc. For us, this meant sharing a very small house with five families from India, Pakistan, and Mauritius. We found a room in the shed, measuring 10 feet by 15 feet, which was just large enough for a small gas range, a bed, a sofa, and a small bathroom. But it was lovely. I will never understand what purpose there might have been in our original move to Commercial Road. It resulted in a significant loss of income, a terribly stressful time for us, and for a great loss of time in many ways. One thing that it did do was to inure us to squalid living conditions. The move to the shed was a blessing and a relief. It was secure in that it was located within the walls of a larger house, we had neighbours with whom we could share, and it was but a short walk to Micah’s work. For Heidi, however, it created a much longer commute which did add stress to an already stressful degree programme.

In the weeks following our move, we were able to fix the place up and were settled happily into what we christened the Garden Villa (in Britain, posh folk often name their houses, rather than having street addresses). We have included here some pictures from our Christmas eve together, and one shot from one side of the Villa to the other, and of some of the families with whom we lived.

Community Projects, Master's Courses, and the Move to Southall

2006-09-07T08:20:00.000+07:00

As we said, in October Micah began work with A Rocha Living Waterways, whilst Heidi continued her degree at LSHTM.
Heidi’s studies moved along at breakneck speed, having courses at LSHTM and the London School of Economics. Micah’s work with A Rocha took off running. Much of this work involved local business and religious leaders, involved in what we formed as the Southall Sustainability Forum, which was a regular meeting of mullahs, vicars, priests, Council members, and business leaders to promote sustainability within the Southall community. Micah also managed ARLW’s some 130 volunteers, in addition fund raising for the project, and publishing community environmental news magazines (SHARE- Southall and Hayes Action to Renew the Environment).
For the both of us, this first part was a trying time. Living in east London, we began to find that the rent and council tax, together with travel expenses, were far beyond our economic ability. Micah did not get a paycheque from A Rocha until December, and even this minimal pay (£15,000 per annum) was further drained by the UK system of penalising foreigners by charging an emergency rate of income tax- 300% higher than for nationals with a national insurance number—this was later reimbursed, but in the meanwhile it left us with a monthly deficit of a few hundred dollars). Together with this, we were finding that Micah’s community work was often taking place on weekends and evenings which, coupled with a two hour train commute each way, meant that we seldom saw one another.

Finally, in December we decided we needed to move to Southall. There was an added dimension to this. We both felt that we needed to be a part of the community we lived in. We felt very scattered at that time. Heidi would travel to central London each day, Micah to west London, and never did we feel that we had a community of people with whom we could share, apart from whatever contact we had with Christ Church Spitalfields.

So in December, on the evening following a very lovely presentation of Handel’s Messiah by candlelight at Queen Elizabeth Hall, we moved once more, this time to Southall, to a tool shed that we would eventually call the Garden Villa.

A Rocha Living Waterways

2006-09-06T07:51:00.000+07:00

A Rocha Living Waterways was the first project of A Rocha UK, the focus of which was in the communities of Southall and Hayes, in western London. It had originally been the vision of Dave and Anne Bookless, a local vicar and passionate birder (‘twitcher’ in the parlance of that group, that is, a bird ringer or enthusiast who is excessive, perhaps maniacal, in their enthusiasm) who felt called to work with A Rocha. In this sense, A Rocha UK had a similar beginning to A Rocha international, which had been the vision of Peter and Miranda Harris, who had been work as local vicars in Portugal when they first conceived of environmentalism as a mission of the church (they also wrote a book, called ‘Under the Bright Wings’ which tells of their beginning and the first years of A Rocha). At any rate, A Rocha UK then began, starting with the Southall project, which was named A Rocha Living Waterways. In this blog I have included a link to the A Rocha webpage, where you can view the various A Rocha projects, and see pictures and whatnot. The principle work of A Rocha Living Waterways centred on Minet Country Park- a 90 acre bit of greenspace which had previously been used as an illegal dump, etc., but which had, through the lobbying and social pressure of A Rocha and her constituents, become a community conservation land (I say community conservation land in that the area is designed for conservation of local flora and fauna, but also is intended as a park wherein local people can experience nature in a meaningful way). The conservation of Minet is of great significance, not particularly because Minet has any habitat or species of great conservation value, but in that it is a small island habitat, of nature, in the midst of a very densely populated bit of London, a community not unlike the Projects in New York- overcrowded, high rates of unemployment, etc. The second major emphasis of A Rocha Living Waterways—in fact, an emphasis which sets is apart from most A Rocha projects—is the community work. As ARLW is right in the midst of this complex and bewildering urban community, work with this community became the focus of the project, taking the form of environmental education in and out of schools, action with local elected officials, business people, volunteers, etc. It was into these community activities that Micah began work with A Rocha in October of 2003, as Community Projects Officer.

Southall, West London

2006-09-05T07:26:00.000+07:00

Southall is a lovely community. Some decades ago, Indian immigrants from the Punjab moved into this community, which formerly had been a centre of brickmaking in London, and began to establish what has now become a transplant of Amritsar, boasting a populous Sikh community and the largest Gurdwara outside India, second only to the Golden Temple. Sometime after the establishment of this community, a large population of Muslims from Pakistan began to settle, sparking conflicts and rivalries amongst the two communities which dominate much of the social life of this town. Added to this has been a recent wave of refugees from eastern Europe and Somalia, adding both to the complexity of the community, but also to the stresses of social unity. All this has resulted in a community of dozens of ethnicities and languages from all over the globe, creating a bewildering, and lovely, though often hateful and distrusting community. Living in Southall was, for us, a new and stressful and enjoyable time. It was the first time for us to live in a community where violence was so evident (we personally witnessed three stabbings- one fatal- whilst living there, in addition to various gang fighting, drug dealing, etc.) and yet also a wonderful chance for us to the share in the lives of our Pakistani, Indian and Somali neighbours. This sharing also took a form which we may not ever have again, that is, a sharing that was truly equal. In all of our work overseas, we have come from a wealthy, educated background to work and live with local people, but no matter how one tries, one’s life is still fundamentally different because, whatever level of poverty one elects to endure, it is wholy different in the fact that it is elected, which for them it is not. And this has a profound impact. Southall was for us an economic necessity, where we shared a house with five families from India and Pakistan because we could afford nothing else. And somehow that was special for us. But we are getting ahead of ourselves… We have yet to talk about A Rocha Living Waterways.

A Rocha

2006-09-04T07:00:00.000+07:00

Micah continued to struggle to find employment, and it was not until late December when his first paycheck arrived. By that time, what resources we had saved whilst in America had dwindled to naught in the second most expensive city in the world. Around Christmastime, we had been forced by economic necessity to move once more, this time to Southall, in west London. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

A Rocha was an organisation which had come to us highly praised by two professors at Wheaton College. Peter Harris, the founding visionary and international head, had come to speak at Wheaton somewhat before Micah’s graduation.

A Rocha, to borrow liberally from their mission statement, is an international, Christian organisation dedicated to showing love to all of God’s creation through small, local projects of ecological conservation, environmental education, and advocacy. Begun by an Anglican minister in Portugal in the 1980s, this organisation has blossomed across many countries and not a few continents, brining to the Church catholic an opportunity to live out the doctrine that ‘the Earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it.’ For us, it provided the first right-headed conceptualisation of a Creation deserving of our study and stewardship. Though studying Environmental Science (to be precise, Environmental Science in Global Context) at Wheaton College for four years, I had somehow missed that one vital step. Not to say that the absence of this gap was in any way a fault of the sage faculty of that venerable institution, but was due entirely to my wrong-headed anthropocentric theology. The earth was created as the blissful abode of the human creature, the species thereof existent for the sake of that one, pinnacle species. Steeped in this unexamined a priori, I sought fruitlessly to reconcile an innate desire for the preservation of the earth and its species, and an unsubstantiated conviction of the intrinsic value of each species, with any sort of robust ideological edifice capable of enduring the onslaught of modern anthropocentric machinations, which came from within the church no less than from without it.

And this is that hinge upon which it all turned: the purpose of the created world, human and non-human, is for the glory and reverence of the Son of God. As it is written,
‘He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him.’

Until this one striking reality dawned upon my dim and uncomprehending mind, I could find no more motivation for Christian stewardship than a watery, humanistic pragmatism which would preserve species for their value to Man.

Until our acquaintence with A Rocha, I somehow feared that any reconciliation between my Christian faith and my innate desire for the preservation of the Creation, would involve a precipitous descent from orthodoxy. But in this reconciliation I was instead brought from heresy into orthodoxy. For to pretend that the purpose of the Creation is for the glorification of Man is to embrace that ancient and dark heresy by which civilisations are destroyed, for it is to set up Man in the place of God. It seems to me that there are any number of Christians who feel some tepid wish to care for the world around them, but are unable to articulate to themselves or others why this is of any great importance, and consequently doubt the enterprise altogether.

In October of 2003 Micah was finally employed as the Community Projects Officer of A Rocha Living Waterways, the flagship project of A Rocha UK, which was based in Southall, west London.

I am appending an audio file here which is a talk given by Peter Harris at Regent College in British Columbia. The file size is large but well worth the time.

Peter Harris on Creation and Gospel

Gone to London to Visit the Queen...

2006-09-03T11:28:00.000+07:00

London, it turns out, is a pleasant enough city. It has the feeling of a city that was once somewhat grander than at present. Unlike America, there is a greater emphasis on government support for the arts, which allows poor students the chance to enjoy proper ‘culture’ with relatively few resources. Heidi’s school was near the British Museum (which is free), where we spent many of our weekends studying at the Reading Room (Karl Marx also spent his weekends studying in this room). From the outset, I think we had some inkling that we might soon be bereft of our resources, so we booked ahead shows throughout the year, so at least we would have something prepaid to look forward to. Though we had lived near Chicago, this was the first time we felt that we had such easy access to a wide array of music and theatre and the like. During that year we must have seen two dozen shows of sorts- Puccini, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Handel, Gilbert and Sullivan, Oscar Wilde, etc etc, in addition to the Royal Portrait Gallery, British Museums and the Tates, etc. One of the more enjoyable opportunities for the proles is the BBC-supported Proms- a series of first-come-first-served operas for £4, performed at the Royal Albert Hall. It has always struck us that it is much better to be poor in the rurals than in the city- London provided some exception to this, as there were so many things to do without money. One does, however, get hungry…

The White Tower and Our Life at Watney

2006-09-03T07:18:00.000+07:00

Beefeaters at the Tower

Heidi soon began her studies near Tottenham Court Road in central London, whilst Micah began the arduous task of finding employment. Our proximity to the Tower of London and its environs made his search, though unfruitful, at least more enjoyable at the outset. When the weather was fair the Tower was but a twenty-minute walk along the abandoned warfs of the Tobacco Dock.
While awaiting proper employment, he was temporarily given work at Watney street Market, selling towels for Yosef, an Iraqi-born Kurd who claimed to have had three British wives. Though such a situation provided no income, he was remunerated daily with a cup of milky tea from Percy Ingle (the bakery) and a Kebab for lunch.

Heidi meanwhile had begun a rather demanding course of study in Public Health in Developing Countries, which occupied all of her time, though also having its own pleasures and compensations. Her course was comprised of people from all over the developing and developed worlds, each seeking to further their education for a variety of reasons.

Another of the blessings of that area was our time at Christ Church Spitalfields, a venerable old establishment beside Spitalfields Market and Petticoat Lane. At the time of our attendance, the church was inter-regnum and sub-terranean—the former in that we were without priest, and the latter in that we met below stairs or, rather, in the Crypt, while the church proper was under renovation.

Our time in the Anglican church provided a needed and welcome respite from the particular denomonational heresies of our upbringing—the witlessand dangerous synchertism of nationalist fervour and capitalist politics with the life of the Church; and a deliberate disregard for the poor (this may be stated rather more strongly than I feel, perhaps).

Christ Church Spitalfields was, for us, a community of people who were engaged with the community of which they were apart. Many of the parishioners worked with prostitutes, drug addicts and new immigrants in that community, whilst others worked investigating human rights abuses for the UN, attending our meetings only sporadically. I would not want to gloss this past more rosey than is plausible, but we found our time there encouraging at a time when we were easily mired in anxieties and doubts.

Away to the Small Island

2006-09-02T07:19:00.000+07:00

The Tower Bridge, not to be confused with London Bridge...

In the summer of 2003 we ‘uped sticks’ and moved to London, where Heidi had been accepted in the University of London to pursue a Master’s degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
This was the beginning of a nomadic existence for us which, until the present, has disallowed us the possibility of residing in any one place for more than several months together. Helped by a retired Captain of the Royal Navy and Whitehall, we found temporary shelter in Croydon whilst seeking out a reasonably priced accommodation in London (little knowing there was none to be had). We eventually lighted upon an office on Commercial Road, Tower Hamlets, in East London. This office had been converted into a flat (apartment) of sorts, with a shower in the bedroom and no central heating.
In the end, even this proved beyond our means which, considering the situation, was mildly depressing.
The area around our flat, Watney Market, was a curious community, comprised largely of recent immigrants from Sylhet, in northern Bangladesh. As with many inner city areas overpopulated with new immigrants, there were both wonderful and special things, but also those things which are bred from masses of despondent people who had imagined a better life than they had discovered in this sprawling city. The older people struggled to understand their new society, and the younger people grew up in alienation, both from their host culture and their parents. There was a book written about this area of town, called ‘Brick Lane’ (a street which ran perpendicular to Commercial Road, and was the site of white supremacist bombings some years ago).
Commercial Road was, as the name suggests, largely a business area which became silent and deserted after hours. Necessity had carved domiciles into various offices and shops to house the many immigrants which had come in the hopes of employment or, in our case, education.
For Micah, this area also provided an unexpected opportunity to maintain contact with Bengalis, the people amongst whom he had worked the year before when in Bangladesh. Our flat was situated above a newsagent, named Mahmoud, whose shop was robbed at knife point twice during our few months with him. We shared common landladies, the Misses Murgroff and Taft, aged pensioners who recalled to mind more feminine versions of Statler and Waldorf.

To Begin with the Beginning, and such like

2006-09-01T06:36:00.000+07:00

Dear Friends and Relations,

Before we bring you up to the present, we wanted to look back somewhat over the past couple years.

Heidi graduated from Wheaton College in 2001 and worked in western Chicago whilst waiting for Micah to return from Bangladesh and, after that, to finish his studies at Wheaton. I shan’t dwell on this period much, partly because it is somewhat foggy in detail for me, and partly because I suspect it mayn’t be of much interest to you the reader. If we are fortunate enough to have anyone visit this blog, I suppose it may be those who are well acquainted with that period already.

To summarise, we found an apartment on College Avenue, and settled for a year and a bit next to Larry-the-90-year-old-ex-convict, a good-hearted fellow with a penchant for vodka and plastic flowers. Laden with the many gifts of our recent marriage (both personal and material), this was, in retrospect, a charmed period for us. The apartment was a small one-bedroom place beside the train tracks, where we spent many mornings making waffles with our five waffle makers (all wedding presents) which allowed us the rare opportunity of having a waffle breakfast together, without necessitating one person’s standing beside the maker all the while.