bubbe, look what i made!

i cured and smoked pastrami! sandwiches slathered with mustard on the sleeper train up to chiang mai just before consumption. worth the 6 months of dreaming and planning. i was up until 6am thursday night (fri morn) smoking pastrami and making a video for our upcoming home-building project.
bleary-eyed the next day, lexie was chastising me at the office expressing her concern for my sanity and time management, which, i fully admitted and accepted. but sara proffered, "i'm not sure if it's a problem of time management or a problem of love of meat." yeah, i fully accepted that, too.

it doesn't help that i live in thailand. our thai foundation staff, kaew, asked us what we were laughing so hard at and when told that i was up until 6 smoking meat, she gave me a proud look and a hearty thumbs up. thais and i mututally understand that food is the greatest priority.

ok, i do have to say, not the best pastrami (too salty, a little dry), but i have an idea of how to improve it, and definitely not bad for a first try. the precedence has been broken open for smoking other meats in the future, too.

i made the smoker out of a layered steamer pot with coal and fresh-cut tamarind branches on the bottom for smoke, and two layers above, my cured and dry-rubbed brisket sat on a janky wire mesh that i made from a dismantled wire scooper. with the help of some thai friends and 5 hrs later, i had my pastrami.

extreme makeover: sisaket 2009

about a month ago, we first had the idea to gather people together to fix jin and pawn's parents' house upcountry (in sisaket). though we're planning to build a permanent, stable house in october 2010, we're getting a group of volunteers together this year as emergency relief so that in this coming year, they'll be safe and housed.

can i tell you, this has been one of the most exciting things that has been happening. it is amazing to see the amount of support and unity this is bringing to our slum church as well as from organizations and the wider church in bangkok.
our poor slum church members are eagerly donating their time, their construction know-how, their tools, their cooking abilities, their dry wall, a door here and there, it's been amazing to see how a church we've been hoping to see unified is coming together to help out the family of some of its members.
other orgs and churches are supporting via volunteers, capital, and publicity.

but i think my favorite thing has been seeing how people are growing as leaders. as strange as it may seem, this actually is adding to the excitement and momentum of our service and work in our own slum community in bangkok rather than pulling peoples' attention away. and it's been surprising to see how god is giving us the same heart in this. on thursday, our team met to discuss how this house building project could be a blessing to the sisaket community and to help grow our leaders and that later that night, pawn, unbeknownst to that conversation, said to us, "you know, i'm not even thinking about the house really. i want this to be a mission project to our village and how we can bless the people there. how can we do that?" and to think, pawn had just told me in july that she was feeling listless and wanted to take on less leadership and responsibilities.

go. love. build.
oct 7-14.

my alma mater

in case anyone had any doubts that johns hopkins wasn't the geekiest college, this just proves it.

light or dark?

when i went to a popeye's chicken in new orleans, my order went something like this:
me: can i have the 2-piece chicken combo?
cashier: my or spy?
me: what?
cashier: myyyyy or spyyyce?
me: oh! mild or spicy! spicy.
cashier: ly or da?
me: what?
cashier: lyyy or dahk?
me: oh! light or dark! dark.

i have to admit, that actually has nothing to do with this post, but i can't help but think about chicken when talking about light and dark. onto the meat...

never before in my life have i felt such an acute sense of battle between light and dark. in our church and our community, issue after issue is opening up revealing light and darkness.

light: 6 new believers in one month as they recognize jesus' love and redemption for them.
dark: over a year of financial mismanagement of church and offering funds by church leaders revealed.
light: church members feel stirred to serve the community and initiate regular prayer walking and conversation around the community.
dark: three people are shot in front of the community center at 3am, most likely over drug deals. neighbor after neighbor are arrested for drug use and dealing - most come as a surprise to me.
light: neighbors stop by house church and the church engages with them and pray for them. two people we prayed for last year tell us this month that god himself healed them. who is this god?
dark: a couple, high on drugs, beats their 3-month old baby to death, then throw the body in the swamp. neighbors and kids find the baby's body. this is possibly the most grievous act neighbors have witnessed and the need for change is palpable.
light: i meet a woman who has just arrived in bangkok and does training in community-based child protection. how timely.
dark: my thai mom, ba jaew, privately tells me more details of just how deep and wide this drug problem is. did i know that the old seamstress is a dealer? did i know my 12-year old neighbor's mom and brother were thrown in jail?
light: rather than feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of drug use/dealing in our community (like i usually do), i think god is actually leading us to address this now and am excited for how he'll work it out. i come home and talk to my teammate, lexie, who coincidentally had the same thought at the same time.

likes: chicken, dark. community, light.

photo by joshbousel

embarkation

what do you get when you add:
salt, pink salt, coriander seed, peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon stick, cloves, nutmeg, brown sugar, mustard, cardamom and bay leaves?

2 weeks of hoping that it makes your pastrami and corned beef taste good.
after trimming fat off my brisket for an hour, my pastrami and corned beef are buoyantly brining and awaiting their (respective) smoking and boiling in two weeks. now for assembling my smoker...