Diocesan Update - August 2, 2010
Please keep Elsie Poisson-Vitet, wife of seminarian Kino Vitet, in your prayers. She has just been diagnosed with meningitis and is hospitalized at Saint Raphael in New Haven, CT.
Please keep Margaret Willis, mother of Mother Miriam, in your prayers as she undergoes a kidney biopsy today. There is serious concern she has a rare kidney disorder.
The Peru Mission Team is back home safely. Thanks be to God! Bishop Love is taking some vacation time this week and returns to the “office” on Sunday with a visitation to All Angels Memorial Chapel, Twilight Park in the Catskills need Haines Falls.
From Deacon Brisbin and his mission trip to the Burmese refugee camps in Thailand. You can read his blog and see pictures at http://whenbrokenglassfloats.com . Thought you would appreciate his entry for Sunday, August 1; especially the first bullet for our clergy readership.
“the evening of my best day
I think “The Evening of my Best Day” is the name of a Rickie Lee Jones album. It is also the phrase that keeps going through my head this evening. It is 9:00 PM and I sitting on the porch of a guest house about 100 KM from Mae Sot and about 40 KM from the Mae La refugee camp where tomorrow I will serve on the alter and preach the sermon.
Although it is hot, there is a beautiful light breeze, fresh from the shower I actually feel very comfortable. On the lower portion of the porch there is group of teens from Holland singing Christian songs in a variety of languages, sometimes even in English. This is not a Christian Guest House by the way, they just happen to be here. They have such astonishingly beautiful voices, strong and sweet and passionate. I could not imagine a better soundtrack to send me off to sleep then these angels.
Today I did so many things, met so many people, I want to tell you everything, all the amazing details but I will have to wait. There is such a short time here to experience, to live the experience, to be with these amazing people , I will have to keep my comments to the briefest of outlines now and when I get back home I will talk your ears offs. Here are some brief highlights
· Met with the rector of a tiny Anglican church and his wife and had an interesting talk with them 
· Den De told me at 9 AM this morning that I would be preaching at the 7AM service in Mae La Camp. When I asked how long the sermon should be (expecting him to say 5 or 10 minutes) he said 30 minutes. He said “You come from a long way off and they expect o hear something BIG from you, if you don’t speak 30 minutes then they will feel cheated.” I told him if I spoke for 30 minutes in my home church they would throw tomatoes 
. I told him that a one day notice for a thirty minute sermon was a very surprising request. He said, in his Thai accent “this is not America, this is Thailand, and you must be flexible. I said, “OK”, what else could I say? With God’s help I finished the sermon.
· This area is not like Bangkok. The only air conditioning available is when we are driving in a truck (and that is none too cool). There are fans which help. My room is basic but free of mosquitoes and clean. No hot water for a shower.
· The weather is hot and hotter and sticky and sticker
· The people are uniformly friendly and welcoming. Eager to meet me and listen even though the language barrier is a constant challenge.
· No need for setting alarms, the roosters take care of that. The only problem is the rooster has no snooze button and they are permanently set for 4AM, no adjustment available.
· I fell well cared for and welcome and in God’s hands. Most everything I thought I knew about refugees has turned out to be wrong or slightly wrong. I am learning something new every minute of the day.
· I feel at home and at peace which is amazing seeing that I am half a world away from my home. Only with God could this be possible.
The angels on the porch continue to sing and the light breeze continues to blow as I finish this post. I am exhausted but a very fulfilled exhausted. I need to sleep and be fresh for my sermon in the morning. Off to bed.”
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