Seven Things

Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. See my children established and fulfilled in their adult life
2. Get to goal weight
3. Walk the Rail Trail
4. See ones I have mentored whole and functioning
5. REALLY back a trailer
6. Tell good stories to a big crowd
7. Swim in a warm sea

Seven Things I Can Not Do
1. Willingly eat unusual foods
2. Get enthusiastic about opera
3. Be inwardly calm near a cliff
4. Maintain my vege garden ALL summer
5. Sit at my computer without playing a game ~ or 4
6. Resist caramel chocolate
7. Cheerfully clean shoes

Seven Things I Say Most Often:
1. Howzit going?
2. Is that ok?
3.Let’s have coffee?
4. What do you think?
5. Are you saying….?
6. Oh really?
7. Mmmmmmm....

Seven Books I Loved Reading:
1. Songs in the Night
2. The Long Walk
3. 1 & 11 Samuel, 1 & 11 Kings, 1 & 11 Chronicles
4. Watership Down
5. Pilgrims progress A more recent Edition
6. The Splendid Journey
7. The Incredible Journey


Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again:
1. The Pianist
2. Mr Bean
3. Veronica Guerin (If you have a copy of this please let me know :)
4. Ten Commandments
5. Keeping up Appearances
6. The Dam Busters
7. Most Documentaries

Seven People I would like to meet for lunch:
1. Jesus
2. David Lange
3. H M the Queen
4. Avis Rideout
5. Jabez
6. Rahab
7. My Mother, who died when I was a teenager

With thanks to 'Get Yer Goat'

Eight Significant Minutes

If you were given 8 minutes a year to speak to your Church what significant things would you say?

And what would you leave out?

How much Scripture would you read and what would it be?

What impression would you like to leave your audience with?

And whom would you try to impress?

When it is all over for the year how would you spend the rest of the day?

Anyone for a coffee?

But wait, there's more

I realise I have stopped writing about HIV/AIDS without giving any insight into what Christians in Thailand are doing for people suffering with this disease. I think the best way to handle it is to tell you that we spent a morning at the Agape Home founded and led by a wonderful American woman, Avis Rideout, who talked faith into my heart and money out of my pocket! Wow, how I would love to have this woman as speaker at our Ladies Weekend.

Avis and her husband, whom I understand is also a totally full on, in your face Christian, have children of their own and in addition they adopted a dying HIV+ baby whom they named Nikki. Nikki is now 12 years old and the web site to understand more of what these people are doing is www.NikkisPlace.org There you can link up with Nikki's story and the functioning of the Agape Home, it was a marvelous antidote for us after Lopburi.

Some of you have asked me about the use of drugs there for HIV/AIDS people and I am sorry to say I knew so little that I didn't think to ask and no one ever mentioned drugs as a possible help. Perhaps they are too expensive in Thailand for so many people.

I have also been asked why we ever went to the first AIDS hospital. We did not know the starkness of what we would see. We had lunched at a General Hospital during that week with a view to encouraging the Christians there, that visit was as it would be if a small group lunched in the dining area at Christchurch Hospital. In being taken to the AIDS Hospital we, as leaders, didn't realise it would be any different. (You can imagine how concerned we all were on the way to the Agape Home, AIDS Orphanage!

God is Sovereign and He allowed us to see what we did, I keep my trust in Him.

The worlds biggest loser

This week I have picked up 3 people from the International Arrivals lounge.

Important looking people stand in front of everyone with a sign showing someones name.

One day I am going to stand there looking important with a sign that says 'ANYBODY' and see what turns up.

NO AID FOR YOU

Written after a visit to a Buddhist AIDS Hospital
I wrote it as a means of expressing my jumbled thoughts, it probably has no literary value but it was a relief to express something. All the adults we saw were drug addicts or sex workers.

You were desirable and desired
You flaunted yourself
Showing your best side
Your life seemed exciting
Alive, drinking in a crowd

You painted yourself
Clothed your body
In an unclothed state
Your lips said, “Come”
Your mind screamed “No”
For a price
They could have all they wanted
Your pockets were deep

(“How did you enjoy the night life in Bangkok?”
Our young Pastor was asked
He was shocked! I was shocked!)

For some
At your ultimate expense
Fleeting pleasure

Until…….

Now……

I see your naked body
Dead
Preserved
At its worst
The moment of death

Awful death
Suffering, suffering
Agony with no energy to call
Misery, no further hope, alone.
A belief system
Which offers no hope
And Christians must be silent here
Or stay away

Given a choice I prefer the latter

Your photo makes you look alive
Almost healthy
Did a needle do it?
Or lust?
Which ever
In misery you die.

What of the small ones
Corpses all
Wispy hair
Teeth protruding
Whole body so frail
Even smaller than your age
Suffering complete
Childhood bypassed
Captured by death

This cant be a needle
Nor lust
Not yours anyway!

The one who conceived you
Carried
Cared
Caressed you

Did she die first?
In deep regret
If only, if only, if only
Oh that I could change it all
But we must die
Without hope
Alone
And there is no aid
Though AIDS we all have

A day too awful to remember

Our team went to the Women’s Prison with a team from Singapore and both teams did their best items for the 300 or so prisoners. This was followed by a talk to the prisoners from the local Pastor, a youngish woman, and a time of great blessing, which has left her with so much follow up work that she will be busy for a year.

Our mini bus left and went through paddock after paddock of sunflowers. Both teams were quickly off the bus and in amongst the beauty of the sunflowers, dancing, laughing, photographing, playing like kids. Only God knew what was to follow, He gave them a good dose of joy and laughter first.

The Kiwis and the Singaporeans were all mixed together as they scrambled off the bus and surveyed the HIV-AIDS HOSPITAL. It was a very pleasant setting with gardens, paths, individual chalets, and big, well kept, hospital wards. The approximately 20 enthusiastic young people needed to be reminded, as they wandered down the sunny paths to the first building, that they should be a bit quieter as this was a hospital.

Did we speak again that day?
I suppose we did but I don’t remember.

Are some things too awful to blog about? Should I keep this experience to myself? Everyone has already heard of AIDS now I have seen it.
You could stop reading here if you wish.


The first building was an open hall, we all went in and froze. We are westerners; we cover over scenes like this! Here, in about a dozen, probably more, sealed glass cases were the naked, embalmed bodies of AIDS patients preserved just as they were at the moment of death; men, women, small children.

On each glass case was a photo of the person as they had been in life, written permission for their body to be displayed in this way, their age and how they had caught the HIV virus.

There is no respectable way to catch AIDS, I understand babies are safe from their infected mothers while in the womb but can catch it in the mingling of blood as they take that short journey to life down the birth canal, that’s grim beyond belief! They can then live for several years.

I stand looking at a tiny 7-year-old girl, whispy hair, skeletal thin. A teenage Singaporean girl sobs at a glassless window frame looking away from the scene. No one goes to her. Everyone is too shocked by what they are witnessing, all their leaders are very young themselves and they can’t handle this. When I realise it is more than they can manage I go to her and hold her, there is nothing I can say. She gains control.

Leaving this place, where surely nothing can be worse we go down a corridor. Here are 8 incinerators. The bodies are burned the day they die, or if the relatives wish to be there, then the following day.

There seems to be no escape.

There is more but that is enough for today.

It was so hard to debrief. Keren, aged 17, chose to write her reaction and with her permission I print it here:

Your Souls

Who are you
depraved corpses
that adorn the entrance hall
The smell of death
i didn't recognize
but in your bones i saw it's face
I looked upon
your savaged form
your names fractured my heart
No tears to shed
a frown to wear
and a stirring anger i came to bear

Who are you
trapped in the ward
awaiting the arms of death
Stripped of dignity
they call it reality
as i witness your cold suffering
Life holds pain
there's no peace in death
truth is forbidden by the merit makers
Diseased flesh
will fall away
but your souls will die for eternity
Will hope come
before that time i'll pray and cry, but never know