Happy Birthday Mary Mike!

One of the best things about living in Cambodia is that, technically, we live in the future.

As such, I would like to take the opportunity to send a time-travelling message back to NY & be the first to say....

Hip Hip Hooray! Happy Birthday Mom!

dwelling

[dwell]

it is quite a change from the charming brownstone in manhatten or the little loft above the coffee show in terrace, but daniel & i really love our new house in cambodia.
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we live above a cambodian family, who are very nice (as far as we can tell, as neither of us speak the same language) & have several children. & a lot of dogs. they run a little roadside shop (all the rage here), where they sell tasty snacks from thailand & cold soda pop in glass bottles.

[here is our street]
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but, the best thing about our house is the amazingly beautiful & breezy porch!

it has become a very welcome place of solace for us. in the evenings, after a day in the bustling chaos & busyness that is the city of phnom penh, we look forward to spending time reading & studying in the coolness of our porch.

for lovely inquiring minds, here are some pictures from the inside of our house....


[our stove/kitchen]

[our dining area & entrance to our guest bedroom.
a perfect place of rest for any adventurous cambodian visitors.....]

[our bedroom, complete with mosquito net]

pleased to meet you

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well, we are here!

we've been in cambodia for two weeks now. we're feeling thrilled (& a bit exhausted), but mostly just thrilled to be here.

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i captured this on our way to the office last week. it is perhaps a good summation of our first impressions of cambodia...

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the vibrancy & the dust

the sacred & the routine

the hope-filled streets stalked by silent shadows of tragedy

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go. joy. peace.

well, tonight daniel & i will hop on a plane in buffalo, ny & when our journey is finished, we will be in phonm penh, cambodia, our new home.

three years ago, when we walked down the aisle, together, after our wedding, it was to the gladful noise of our friends & family singing "you shall go out with joy & be led forth in peace", a song based on isaiah 55:12. this verse has felt like a promise to us, as we've journeyed together as pilgrims, finding joy & the blessings of community in the places we are & continually being led forth in peace, to the new places where the Lord leads.

& as we've prepared for this transition to cambodia, we've been praying for this joy & peace. & the Lord has confirmed his promise to us in little ways-in a church member praying this verse over us, in this song being sung at our mcc "sending service" & in the joyful celebrations we've had with friends & family in the past month, as our journey begins.

as we prepare to go, we've been reflecting on this quote, from helen keller,

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

dear friends, we seek your prayers for our safe travels, our transition period & for a faith that is not measured by security, but rather by joy, peace, & selfless love.

a quick recap from our month of farewells...(farewell terrace, with your foggy mountains)

(farewell vancouver friends)

(farewell little autumn jude, our newest love)

(farewell, family)


(farewell, dearest seattle friends)

(farewell, strange amish town)

orienting

as most of you all know, daniel & i have recently accepted positions with the mennonite central committee working in phnom penh, the capital of cambodia. we are going to be working at the royal university of agriculture as agricultural writing advisers, which means we are going to be helping masters students with editing their thesis papers, which they will write in english. we'll be headed to cambodia in early november & Lord willing, will be there for nearly three years. the whole thing is a bit nerve wracking, but we are mostly exhilarated & excited about this new adventure & opportunity to serve the Lord.


right now, we are currently at the mcc offices in pennslyvania attending two weeks of orientation. as it turns out, our orientation is at a Mennonite retreat center, but it feels more like a futuristic Mennonite utopian compound. there are beautiful gardens and streams everywhere, recycling bins at every corner, fair trade coffee in every pot, peace on earth signs all over the place, (in a variety of languages including sign language), and a big African drum and batik in every room. on top of all that, the doors don't even have locks, and the bathrooms don't even have doors (just curtains)!

plus yesterday we saw on old-order Mennonite, sporting black dress and head-covering, walk past a new-order Mennonite, sporting a yoga mat. They crossed in perfect harmony, a sort of lion laying with the lamb.

during this time we are learning a lot about mcc & reflecting on the ideas of service, mission, and faith, with other believers (young adults, married couples, & families) who are also about to embark on terms of service. we are especially challenged by mcc's vision statement, which reads,

we believe the loving God wills the well-bring of all people
& the healing of creation;
that the first fruits of the new creation the Kingdom of God,
are manifest in the peoplehood called the church.

...the utopian compound...

...our room & amanda's mom (note the bathroom curtain!)...

(we were very blessed as we left northern b.c., visited family & a new neice in washington state, & had a hastings family reunion in pennslyvania. look for some more postings with pictures soon!)

mining for dylan

a few weeks ago, my brother, benjamin, emailed daniel & i to ask for some advice. he was planning to attend a dylan concert in philadelphia & wanted some recommendations of solid contemporary dylan music. i thought that daniel's response was worthy of a posting, so here goes....


Now I'm no Dylan expert, but I'll take any opportunity to pretend I am. I'll start of with a little imagery. When Amanda and I were in Alaska we stayed in an area that only ever had people living in it because many years ago they were swept there with the gold rush. There was once a time when fortunes of gold could be found in the area. But since that time, the gold has dwindled and the remaining gold miners and prospectors survive by sifting through the old tailings of yesteryear. (This is true. People will actually scratch out a living sifting through pre-sifted dirt in the frozen barrens of northern Alaska).

Now with that imagery in mind, I'll share my thoughts on later-era Bob Dylan. Which is to say that nuggets of gold, real gold, can be found in his later work. But by no means do they compare to the wealth found in his earlier material. His early material was lying there glistening on the river's edge waiting to be scooped up. In my opinion, the gold rush ended right after 1975's "Blood on the Tracks". From the late seventies on out, Dylan has been consistently churning out material. The vast majority of which is akin to frozen sand and gravel. Once you've waded into these waters, especially the sludge of the eighties, you've got to do some serious sifting. But the hard work of sifting is what makes discovering later-era gems so enjoyable.

Now I've done a bit of sifting myself, and the two places that I've found the most rewarding paydirt, were in 1989's "Oh Mercy" and in 1993's "World Gone Wrong". "Oh Mercy" is interesting because on this album Dylan gets away from the big band blues which was overpowering a lot of his recent work, and went with a much simpler and more slickly produced album. It was produced by Daniel Lanoise, the man behind U2's "the Joshua Tree". I would recommend "most of the time" and "ring them bells" as tracks that really stuck out. In "World Gone Wrong", Dylan returns to the stripped down rootsy blues feel that dominates his earlier albums. Although this album does not contain any original songs and gets little recognition, it's probably my favorite of his later work.

Critics have stated that Dylan's last three albums, "Time out of Mind", "Love and Theft", and "Modern Times" comprise a sort of trilogy of material that compares to his older material. It's true that these three albums are much better than most of what has been put out since the 70's. But that's no reason to believe these guys. They're just old Dylan miners with a case of Dylan blindness who are so used to being waste deep in sludge that they mistake a thin mud for clear water. That being said, this is probably the stuff that Dylan would be likely to play in concert. A couple of tracks that I've enjoyed have been "Sugar Baby" off "Love and Theft" and "Nettie Moore" off "Modern Times".

I hope you have fun at the concert. Don't let the actual wrinkled skin and croaking voice distract you from the enchanting suggestions of beautiful golden beaches. I think this is the level that Dylan has to be appreciated at today.

thanks be

life has been good to us lately, thanks be to God.

in the past few weeks we got one new nephew, jacob michael, one new niece, autumn jude, &exciting news about a possible overseas opportunity.

...i got new glasses too...