This Isn’t Another Country. This Is Another Planet.
Today would have been my Dad's 67th birthday...this is what I read last week at our Memorial Service at GAP in remembrance of my Dad.
Five minutes.
That’s all it takes—for what?
For me to tell you a little story about my dad.
We need to go back a few years…to when I was 19 years old and very much liked Judah.
My dad said, “No way. He’s Australian and lives in Thailand. This isn’t happening.”
All the while, we were driving to an “Aussie steakhouse” for dinner that night.
I complained and whined about how it wasn’t fair that Dad didn’t like him. He didn’t even know him!
Just eight months later, Judah came to visit me in Ohio. At our first family meal together, I told my mom and dad a story about Judah.
It did not go down very well.
It went something like this…
We were in Kyauk Set school in Burma, and I really needed to use the toilet. Judah had told us how bad the toilets were and that there wasn’t a door, so I asked him to guard the entrance for me.
He stood at the door, facing the boys’ football field—which was really just a muddy field filled with teenage boys playing football.
I started to pull down my pants when Judah suddenly said, “Wait!”
He was about to turn around when he said, “No! There IS a door!”
The “door,” however, was just a piece of metal roofing that you had to unroll. It kind of sat in the way of the view, but it didn’t completely close.
Judah’s face was horrified as I told this story to my dad.
Several months later, I convinced Mom and Dad to join me for a trip to Thailand. After all, if I intended to move to Thailand and marry Judah, they needed to see what Thailand was all about.
I knew that if they could see Thailand, meet the people I had met, and hear their stories, they might see things differently.
When we arrived, my dad—who had never travelled outside of North America—looked around and said:
“This isn’t another country. This is another planet!”
Everything was different for Dad.
The food—especially the spicy food—would make him hiccup after the first bite. He couldn’t handle it and was thrilled when he found a McDonald’s in the city.
The toilets were another story.
He couldn’t use the squatty potty, and at one point found himself desperately calling out, “JUDAHHHHH!” after missing the hole and running out of water to clean himself up.
The roads. The driving. The villages.
We took my parents to Raylor’s village, and then decided that apparently that wasn’t deep enough into the jungle. So we walked an entire day, up and over mountains and through waterfalls, until Dad finally complained that Judah was trying to kill him just so he could have his daughter.
Everything was different.
Everything was difficult for Dad in the physical sense.
But spiritually, he was completely undone.
He wept during church services. He gave hugs and high-fives to the students. He loved the people deeply.
And when he went home, I saw the biggest change of all.
Thailand and Burma were no longer just “Kelly’s thing.” They became my dad and mom’s story too.
Dad told as many people as he could about what he had experienced. He became my biggest advocate when I started raising money to move to Thailand, and he cheered me on every step of the way.
When it came time to raise money for a motorbike, Dad collected scrap metal and sold it to buy me one.
That motorbike is now Mimi’s—which is especially fitting because Mimi also loves selling scrap metal for money!
Over the years, Thailand, Burma, and the Karen people became part of Dad’s identity.
These were the people he supported. The people he prayed for. The people he advocated for when talking to his customers at work.
Dad was immensely proud of our work and ministry. He was so proud of Raylor, Ellie, Mimi, Kallaya, Cha Cha, Nay Lin Oo, Gay Htoo and all of our staff and students through all the years.
He deeply loved everyone here.
In fact, Dad talked about us so much that at his calling hours and funeral in the USA, people I had never even met knew about our family here in Thailand. They told me about the stories Dad had shared with them from his trips here.
The last few messages I have from Dad were about all about GAP.
A week or two before he passed away, he was asking about Ali because Ali had been in the hospital.
And just two days before Dad passed, he sent me a picture of himself wearing a GAP football shirt.
He said, “I’m gonna wear this to pickleball today. See what kind of response I get.”
I said, “Aw, fun.”
And Dad said, “Maybe we can get some more sponsors.”
I said, “Get sponsors for Mimi’s football team.”
That was my dad.
Even in Ohio, he was thinking about the people here.
He cared about our friends. He cared about our family. He would ask me, “Have you seen Sia recently? What’s Salinee up to? How’s Stephanie?”
My parents have supported not only Help Save the Kids and GAP, but so many of our friends here.
And after more than 15 years of coming to Thailand, Dad was asking Nay Lin Oo to send garlic chili back home to Ohio.
He would eat it on his eggs for breakfast.
Thailand was no longer “another planet.”
It had become his second home.
Dad often told Mom that he would like to live here for three months out of every year.
Because to Dad, we weren’t just people he had met on the other side of the world.
We were family.
Dad loved Jesus with his whole heart. And today I know if he were here with us, he would be encouraging you to follow him with your whole heart too.
And Dad…
I love you so much.
Happy 1st Birthday in Heaven Dad.
