January 2023...Thailand...interrupted by Poland

And as winter settled in, five days into the new year, it was time to leave Seattle and head to warmer weather. And so after saying farewell to these lovely people above, it was back to Thailand via Seoul on Korean and after a couple of days in Chiang Mai onward to Maehongson. One unique thing I had never experienced before was that our flight path from Seoul to Chiang Mai took us literally over (or so close by) that I could see the lights of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Luang Prabang! I thought this was very cool!

Back to some of my favorite views in Maehongson.

Note, cool season blue sky still evident!

Ironically...after being in Seattle for the nine months last year, months that sometimes dragged on, when I would have been happy to travel anywhere for work...ironically, I was just getting over jetlag (I hadn't even been in Thailand a week yet!) when I received a call asking if I would be willing to go support a team from Ukraine that was having a logistics and planning week in Poland and they wanted some mental health support on the side. While the timing wasn't ideal, this is the life I have and the life I want - to be able to have the freedom to travel when needed to support the mental and emotional health of people working to make the world a better place. So my January airport passthroughs grew from SEA-ICN-CNX- HGN to include HGN-DMK-BKK-MUC-KRK-VIE-BKK-DMK-HGN! Whew! And I traded in my views above for...

View of Wawel Castle from my hotel window

It was a good week (hello, any new travel adventure tends to be a good thing:-)) and it is always a privilege anytime I am invited to provide even a small amount of psychological support and resilience to individuals in difficult places who are trying to make the world a safer, healthier place. And as with every conflict when you know names and faces, it makes it that much more real. It was no different with this team. Some had sons and husbands actively fighting. All live with the daily reality of trauma and uncertainty.

Yet they were meeting to actively plan and coordinate what must happen for Ukraine's health system to be restored after the war is over. Safety and job security must be guaranteed. Infrastructure must be rebuilt. These are necessary for doctors and other health professionals to even hope to return. And only then will the real work happen of attending to a country traumatized by aggression, to soldiers who will carry the literal and psychological scars and wounds of war and PTSD. Addiction of various forms will skyrocket. And the general health of a population that has not received regular check ups and care will need to be considered.

This team has been part of planning for the unimaginable reality of nuclear weapons being used against their cities. How do you plan for this threat, for mass casualties, for thousands of deaths and even more thousands dying slowing of radiation and whatever other destruction nuclear weapons unleash? I don't know - but they show up for work every day, determined to not let evil win.

Lies and misinformation are real. As are monsters. As is evil. All very real threats to their country and to the world, whatever country we live in. And, in the face of this evil, courage and resilience are also very real. Kindness is real. Bare knuckling grit and resolve to get the job done are real.

Today as write, I remember the courage of those fighting for their survival in Ukraine. Sláva Ukrayíni!

Though January is still the end of the 'cool' season in Thailand it was much warmer than either Seattle or freezing snowy Krakow! In spite of the cold, I ventured out as much as I could to see a little bit of the city. I told my taxi driver when I arrived that I was literally clueless knowing nothing. Poland wasn't on my must get to list of places in the world. Medieval Krakow is Poland's second largest city (though it doesn't feel like a large city) and still Poland's cultural hub and significant tourist attraction. I did know it was the birthplace of Pope John Paul II and you can still pass by the house he live and I attended a beautiful but freezing concert in the 400 year old church his parents were married in. And of course Auschwitz is only about 30 miles away. Though life continues as normal, it is sobering to feel the weight of history pushing up against the reality that is happening across the border in Ukraine.

Seattle Summer - Fall/Autumn - And a taste of Winter...

 A few reminders but mainly the colors of the seasons...

For many of the nine months in Seattle I kept my eye on these two as they sat on, hatched and cared for their one eaglet this year. They've roosted in this tree for many years. They are good parents even when their kid is learning how to fly - whew there were some parental moments and lessons as he swooped and fluttered and sometimes missed, falling and clawing his way back onto a branch. 

Most every day I would do a 2-2 1/2 mile loop down the hill and around Alki. In nine months of doing this loop, I only ran into someone I knew (the same person) twice! But the sky and the sea were always there - never the same...always changing. Always beautiful. 

Lilies taller than she is...

Homegrown...

And one day all the phaleonopsis got it together and coordinated. 

And the Dahlia's were large and in charge and always spectacular.

So I said I never ran into anyone I knew on my two mile loop - but, there was one friend that I made who was there many many days (maybe 50% of the time) waiting to say hi to me and to all the other walkers that would go past his house and down the steps to the beach. Meet Mochi - beloved neighbor cat who would walk with his many friends up and down the stairs and loved to chase any stick or string or leaf you might have. 

HFAM Reunion and Road trip

 Last year at this time I was in Bangkok, spending most of my time with my YWAM missionary friends Iven and Kashmira Hauptman and their kids. We've known each other for about 15 years having first met in 2007 in a small dark coffee shop on Sukhumvit after one of my counseling colleagues encouraged me to look them up next time I was in Bangkok. And so during each subsequent time in Thailand we would usually connect and hang out. Over the years, six kids were added to make up what I call the HFam! Last year while in Bangkok for three months, I spent most of my time with them and in their neighborhood as I wrote about here. When I first reached out to them wondering if I could hang out in their neighborhood we did not know how our lives would come to intersect and how important and lifegiving we would become to each other. Long story short...right as I arrived last May, they as a family began sensing a call to return back to the US after 15 years living in Thailand. This was unexpected and not on their radar and perhaps even questioned initially - in most ways Thailand had become home, especially to their kids. All six kids had been born and raised on the same street corner a few blocks from the Grand Palace. Apart from brief visits back to the US, Thailand is/was home and all they knew. So the timing of someone arriving in the neighborhood who happened to be a counselor with a heart for third culture kids, who had also done his share of leaving 'home' and who loved this country as much as their kids loved the same country did not strike anyone as coincidence but rather as a huge gift. And for me it was certainly a gift to spend time with lifegiving friends who speak into my life through their words and example AND to be given the opportunity to have a purpose in walking along side them - kids and parents - helping them process this big change that was potentially coming. 

Even as I arrived still pretty broken and attempting to pick up pieces of my life, they affirmed me daily with the same message they offer everyone they encounter: You are deeply loved and known by Jesus. 

When I returned to Thailand in January of this year it was intentionally to spend the first month with them as to help during their final month before returning to the US. Again, it was a gift to be, as we began to jokingly call it, their 'transition specialist' - but it was more of a gift to just walk beside them in their journey as they continued to walk beside me. When they left in February, we knew that we are in some sense or another stuck with each other for good (hopefully!)

In spite of now knowing each other for 15 years, we have never ever met in the US until two weeks ago when I flew to Kalispell, Montana to meet up with them on the last few days of a pretty epic road trip. To help introduce their kids to America, they had decided to go on a cross country road trip - it's their story to tell (hundreds of stories actually) but I met them on day 50 or so and spent the next six days on the final leg of their two month, 12,000 mile, 33 state road trip.

Flying into Kalispell

Collection of Junior Ranger badges 

Some things don't change - books, backpacks and shoes - similar to their front door in Bangkok

YWAM Lakeside base - Montana

Inside St. Ignatius Mission Parish - a brief stop...because St. Ignatius...

This was such a crazy pit stop! HFam members are hard core, they go hundreds of miles without a pit stop, but we needed one and chose these porta pots with a busy highway one side and a rushing river on the other - not the safest place but nature was calling...

The Depot - YWAM base, Cascade Idaho