Clutter Birds

 Dear Mom,

Janet and I are taking care of many details, and I’m overwhelmed, but I’m imagining the many, many details that are being taken care of when a space rocket is about to launch. Intimidating! And then I think “yeah, but what if a family of raccoons had been living in the rocket for the last 9 years and you had to clean all their stuff out so the rocket could get ready to launch?”

We’ve been doing mostly the moving-out and cleaning-out bit lately, though we finally got two of the suitcases to exactly 49.5 pounds each yesterday. We’re not hoarders, but we’re not exactly lean-and-trim, either, when it comes to the shear amount of our STUFF around the house. We’re like some weird birds that gather fancy sticks and string for our nest but the nest-building instinct got stuck ON and our nest has gotten beyond fluffy. So we’re decluttering and packing and cleaning and fixing stuff, and soon (so soon) that part will all be over and new adventures await.

Today (Janet’s birthday!) one of our housemates moves in to the bedroom off the living room, and we’re in the south Airbnb bedroom until Wednesday, and then we fly out on Thursday bright and early. The other two housemates will move in after we go, and the three of them will caretake for our property while we’re away until late April.

We haven’t exactly resolved the Vietnam lodgings question, BUT our hearts are at rest about it. The realtors have shown us several options and we have been able to answer to our satisfaction the question about renting a house vs. an apartment: For the purposes of being able to offer hospitality and generally improved privacy, we’ll be spending a bit more than $1000/mo for a house in Danang. There’s one house we’re especially thinking about, about 7 minutes by motorbike north of Vincom. Lê Văn Duyệt, Nại Hiên Đông,

This morning it’s chilly here in Bend, and we’re trying to soak up the cold vibes. Soon, so very soon, the weather will be nothing but hot/humid!

Ah, I can tell that I’ve come to the end of this letter because I’ve begun to tell you about the weather. I dread the heat of September in Vietnam, but it’s still not a worthy topic for these letters (or you’d hear about the weather every-single-time.).

Love,

Tim

Lodgings ... we're looking ... hoping

We're officially hunting for housing now.  We have the same realtors who found us housing 10 years ago (Victoria/Sean and their team) looking again for housing that might match our criteria.

Hi Victoria and Team,
We hope you can find us a place in Son Tra somewhere between Hồ Xuân Hương in the south and Phạm Văn Đồng in the north


We are especially looking for a larger-than-average living area to offer hospitality. We hope we can find one where the living room and kitchen are good for hosting games and cooking-together.  Parking for motorbikes is important, too.

We especially like the older/established neighborhoods near the old Son Tra markets.  We don't need it to look glamorous or luxurious.  We do hope for AC in the living room/kitchen, even though that's unusual in most houses.  

If we can spend less than 25 million per month, that would be our target range.

Thanks!
Tim/Janet

----

And in our price range this is a pretty normal house (take a look):

https://www.dotproperty.com.vn/en/ads/3-bedroom-house-for-rent-in-khue-my-da-nang_4982247a3523-c2bf-ba22-eb4e-91d11089




There is not much room in the downstairs of these townhouses for hospitality, cooking together, etc.  And this is how 80-90% of all the city houses are designed... so we're hoping that we can find a house with an unusual layout. 

We really depend on the local realtor team to find actively listed (real) rentals and hammer out our rental contract, because most of the listings you'd find for yourself online are in the "bait and switch" category.  That happened to me last year for a one-week rental, and it was almost a disaster.  We were bringing some friends to visit Danang and I had to quickly scramble to find a place for us all ... it's a great story to tell you sometime, because what the enemy meant for evil, another power meant for Good.  And boy oh boy was the outcome good!

Right now at 25 million if we don't see lots of great options we might go up another notch.  (26.3M is $1000 USD, for context.)  There's a reasonable 2 bedroom apartment option at 19M, but the downside is that it can be inconvenient to host friends when you're in an apartment--they have to check in at the desk and there's no place for their motorbikes.  For not much more, we can have a lot more space in a house ... if we can find a suitable one.

Hoping for the best!  Glad if you'd hope with us!

Tim/Janet



Boring Excitement

Dear A,

We're REALLY looking forward to living in Vietnam again.  We are anticipating some things which we don't experience in the same way around here:

  • warm evenings with friends and bubble tea on short plastic stools
  • coffee shop English clubs
  • shopping for household goods (now, where do they sell ____?)
  • motorbiking around town
  • slurpy noodles

And lots of the things I'm looking forward to are also things we do in Bend. We're looking forward to evenings of games and puzzles.  Hosting marriage workshops and helping people individually find freedom/peace/joy.  Cooking and eating with friends.  Using curiosity to encourage curiosity about matters of faith.

Nothing terribly exciting.  No news.  Just a daily surge of excitement about going, but it's boring because we've been excited all along already.

Love,
Tim


PS. 
I might have mentioned this already, but if you have an old PHONE you want to send with me (provided you've reset it to the factory login screen and it's not carrier-locked), I'll take it to Vietnam friends who would be grateful.  Cracked screens and useless batteries are NO PROBLEM to fix there, and the people I'm aiming to give them to won't be offended by old phones.  Or if you want to send me $$ to @thechaseplace, I'll fix up someone else's broken-screen phone and find a grateful recipient.  These are young people coming down to study in Da Nang from Vietnam's more remote/impoverished areas.




One Month and Counting

Yes, it's all excitement and happy buzz around here: One month from today we'll be ON OUR WAY!



This week our younger kids are still home from college, then next weekend they'll both head back to George Fox in Newberg for their final year.  (We'll come home from Vietnam in time for their graduation next May.)  Next week we'll begin packing our household belongings into their upstairs bedrooms for storage.  Then the following week the first of our three renter/caretakers moves into the west Airbnb and we move mostly out of the house and into the other guest bedroom.  It's happening...

The Lightning Thief has opened and it's magnificent.  David (Anna's husband) directed it AND is a member of the cast this time. And he's amazing.  If you were here to see it you'd know what I'm talking about when I tell you that he doesn't "look like" he's acting, even when he's launching into song--it seems like the most natural thing for him to do each action, say each line, or fill the playhouse with his voice.  Anna is the stage manager, and of course is the most efficient, capable, and organized one you'd ever want to know.  She also comes onstage as a very chipper little squirrel handpuppet when Percy Jackson is lost in the woods ... somewhere in New Jersey.  


The lead role, Percy Jackson, is played by a theater major at Southern Oregon University.  He is 100% amazing with his acting and vocal projection and control.  He would not be mis-cast in a Broadway show--he's really that good.

I think that's it.  One month away.  Lots of my attention is on PACKING and also on figuring out ways to increase the Audience level for Lighting Thief for their round of performances next weekend.  

Love,
Tim




Flight Check

Dear A,

We did get our entry visas approved. Yay!  For most people visiting Vietnam, that part is non-threatening: you apply, pay money, get visa.  For us, we've heard SO many stories of people who thought they were going to be part of the life of a country for years to come, then one day the government decided to deny a re-entry, and everything unravels.  So it's with some bated breaths that we apply each time for our visas.  This time: Success!   

And today the news is that we've just bought the final leg of one-way tickets, from Redmond RDM, at 7:00am on the 18th.  If you were still living here I might be asking for an early morning ride to the airport (lucky you!).  




~Tim

PS. This coming week begins my birthday camping trip at McKay Crossing.  Everybody is invited!  We'll be camping there until Sept. 10.
PPS. We'll do some going-away-party events the weekend of Sept 6-7.

Vietnam e-Visa

 

Vietnam e-Visa

Dear A,

You can be excited for us … we've just applied for our Vietnam entry visas!

And we've begun asking friends in Vietnam (foreigners and Viet people) if we can do them any favors.  Some of my former students are teachers now, and we hope to add value to their classrooms by sometimes visiting and presenting an English lesson.  Similar value-add for our friends who are employed at the foreigner-friendly resorts, etc.

My birthday camping is next month at McKay Crossing.  Wish you could join us--we still have extra campsites on the river.

I think that's about it for now.  The rest of this email is boring stuff, e-visa details written to other friends who may be coming over to visit--wish you could join us there, too!!

~Tim


Things you need to know when you’re applying for a visa to enter Vietnam:

1) There are heaps of scam websites

The only real website to use is https://evisa.gov.vn and all the others are rubbish.  It’s easy to be taken in ... the real website isn’t always among the top hits in an online search.

2) Tourist Visas

As tourists we can enter the country for 3 months on a single $25 visa, or if we’re going to want to leave and come back in during that time we pay $50 for the same 3 month multi-entry visa.

We’re planning to enter in September and then have to leave the country in early December on a “visa run” and come back, and then we’ll go out again in early February for our second visa run. Probably we’ll try to get a China visa as part of the December visa run, and use it to visit friends in China in the February run. Where to go in December, though? —that’s a question we don’t yet know the answer to.

3) You’ll need to have a rectangular headshot (4x6) and a photo of your passport

Passport pics are usually 2” square, headshots on a flat white background. But now Vietnam is (and also China, incidentally) requesting 4x6 rectangles that show your neck and the top of your shoulders, too. And no smiling—flat expressions, please. (I’ve chosen not to attach the resulting headshots into this blogpost, because they’re really unflattering. Not quite mugshots, but definitely not the cheerful friends we want to be perceived as…)

4) You’ll need to indicate a specific address of where you’ll be staying

I don’t understand why they even ask this, since it’s not going to be accurate for any tourist traveling to more than one city in Vietnam, and it freaked me out the first time I was confronted with the question. I’m terribly sincere, and I don’t want to specify—on an official form—the name of a hotel I know I’m just going to start at but not remain at … but that’s what you do.  So the address I use for our visas is the Thi Tai Hotel at 16 Nguyễn Cao Luyện, An Hải Bắc, Sơn Trà, Đà Nẵng.  It's super cute and they provide breakfast--we hope to stay there several days while securing our 7-month lodgings this September.


Family Photo

Dear A,

I think you'll recognize most of these people, but there are newbies among us.


My youngest son is Daniel (far left).  He's 21 and about to finish up a business degree at George Fox University.  He's SO athletic, and he has already acquired many of the home repairs skills that I'm able to teach.  He works hard at generating genuine friendships with his peers, both in Bend and away at college.

My daughter and her husband are next.  Anna and David co-operate a theater company that is producing The Lightning Thief as a musical this summer.  Anna (and David, in increasing capacity) is deeply involved with founding/forging a new Anglican church here in Bend, and David is starting to take the wheel for our home repairs business (exciting!).

Michael and his sweetheart, Rowan, are in the middle.  These two are going to be graduating from George Fox this year as well, and are fashioning their life trajectory together.  Michael leads the university Fencing/Swords Club and is likely to continue swordplay as his career in mechanical engineering gets going after graduation.

Janet is taking a school year of leave from High Desert ESD so we can move to Vietnam. We're at the beginning of her summer break, so she's just now unpacking from a busy end-of-year push as speech therapist, and we're looking forward to what the summer holds as we prep for the move.

And I'm on the far right (not so much politically, any more...).  As of the Identity True You Intensive two weeks ago, I'm identifying myself as a "Gentle Barleyloaf" and "Guiding Shepherd."  Guiding Shepherd makes sense without too much explanation, but the Barleyloaf thing we'd have to sit and talk over coffee or a campfire to unpack that one.  Or a zoom call.  Want to?

Affection,
Tim



The Beginning of the Lasts

Dear A,

It's still June, and we don't leave the states for three more months (Mid-Sept), but already I'm in the mode of counting lasts.  "This is the last time I'll buy dishwasher pods at Costco" or "I've already worn this coat for the last time--I can pack it away for 18 months"...

Not very exciting as an update.  Thanks for tuning in and linking with us as Janet and I head ourselves into the move to Vietnam.

~Tim

(PS. The TRUE YOU weekend was a success.  One strategy I really appreciated was that they focused on "unearthing" or "discovering" elements of a person's God-given identity.  There was also time, and lots of it, set aside for tuning in to God's gentle voice to hear who He says I am.  But more than that there was the sense that we are archeologists carefully brushing compacted sand away from precious things buried inside.  It was good, healing, forward-facing.  I'd like to offer a weekend like that sometime, as a facilitator!)

Housing Offer/Discussion/Decision

Dear A,

An exciting offer came out of the blue this week.  A friend of a friend contacted us via Facebook (Facebook is a principal means of communicating) and said (I paraphrase) "Hi Tim and Janet, we heard through the expat grapevine that you're coming September-April to Danang.  Is this true?  Because we have an amazing 4 bedroom house next to the university campus complex south of town, and we're going to be stateside from August to May.  We could rent to you and you could have our house for your time here."


The routes in blue go from Vincom shopping center in the north down the coast to the house that they're offering.  Vincom is a little north of central but it's the vicinity of our old house and near so many things we appreciate about the city, including being close and available to our friends

Those 23 minutes becomes longer on hot days when you need to drive slower (yeah, that's a thing. remind me to tell you about motorbiking at speed in extreme heat) or on rainy nights in the dark.  It's never less than 11 hours of dark per day this close to the equator, so there's a fair amount of nighttime driving.

Anyhow, we asked God for wisdom and we asked 40 or so friends (former students, Danang-locals) for their opinions.  Should we take the great house down south or wait and see if another place opens up for us closer in?

The friends weren't completely unanimous, but there was a clear message: "we'll come spend time at your house no matter where you live, but it would be more convenient if you were closer in ..."  and we felt God's peace to be able to tell the Facebook friends that we wanted to pass on their generous offer.

We have contacted a rentals agency, and they think we can get into an apartment or house that will allow us to be hospitable in the ways we want to be.  It's a bit of a tricky thing, finding that "just right" house in Danang.  Most houses and apartments may be lovely inside but just aren't made to accommodate groups of friends coming for game nights and cooking together and whatnot.

https://houserentaldanang.com/houses/son-tra/  --Not all the ones you see on these sites are actually available.  Some of them are always there as bait to get your inquiry.

We're excited.  Increasingly excited.  It feels lovely to be wanted by our Danang friends.  Looking forward to keeping an extra chair at the table for new friends, too.

Love,
T

True You Identity Intensive

Hi A,

I feel ... pretty crummy.  Not physically, I mean, but crazy-grumpy.  One of those "I hate everything and everyone" times.

Janet is nice enough about it.  She says that it's all the soul things getting ready to get dealt with at a 3-day identity retreat/intensive I'm heading to in Portland tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to it  ... about as much as people look forward to having the handyman come to demo out a sink that's had a hidden drip going for about 8 years and the wood is all gross and basically decayed to blackened pulp, and then the guys fix the leak and dry it all out and rebuild with new white pine and put in fluffy insulation and patch it all up again.  You feel better afterwards, but the mucking out the gross part is the thing that's got me triggered.  Bah.

So.  Not feeling great right now. 

~Tim

Chili Oil Popcorn

Dear A,

We think often about going to Vietnam these days.  I wonder what sort of house or apartment we'll be renting, I wonder who our time will be invested in, I wonder how we'll use our house in Bend during the seven months we'll be abroad.  

On the weekend Janet and I watched a show and I cooked popcorn using an unusual-for-us chili oil.  For several years we've been using Lao Gan Ma chili oil to season our popcorn, and we prefer popcorn to be deliciously spicy.



But this time when I reached for the chili oil I brought out a Vietnamese chili sauce instead.



The bottle was nearly used up from making noodle dishes, so I swished 1/4 cup of avocado oil in the jar and sizzled our popcorn in it, just to see how it would taste.  And ... wow.  I don't know how much of the flavor is special because it's JUST THAT GOOD, or maybe it tastes like Vietnam to me and I'm responding to the nostalgia.  But wow. We have enough jars (3) to get us through to September, and I expect we'll be bringing more of this local (it's specific to our region of Vietnam) chili paste home with us.  Let us know if you want a jar of it--so good!  




~Tim



Seth's Blog pre-empts chili oil

Dear A,

So, I was ready to write to you about our chili oil, and I'd already taken the pictures and been mentally composing the letter ... and then today Seth Godin sent out an email that I thought particularly apropos.

In his post, he recommends against speaking to a crowd.  In my case, that's EXACTLY what I'm doing when I chose you to write to.  I'm still going to write about chili oil, but tomorrow.

Love,
Tim

PS. It's been an exciting couple of weeks since I posted on Facebook about returning to live in Vietnam.  Former students have been reaching out to me and getting reconnected.  It's what we hoped would happen, and it's happening sooner than it might have.  Super gratified that one of the girls that we made a good connection with 10 years ago (but whom we haven't seen or heard from in the interim) has reached out and is looking forward to reconnecting.

 



The 1:1 method

The reason that most memos, speeches and edicts fall flat is simple: we get stuck on the idea that we’re talking to a crowd.

When we’re speaking or writing, the crowd is just an illusion. What’s actually happening is that there is one person over there, another over there, repeated again and again until it’s easier to imagine it’s a mass audience.

The alternative method is simple: find one person, exactly one, and write to them, allowing the others to listen in.

Embrace the tone of voice, body posture, breathing style and punctuation you’d use on just one person. You and me, here and now.

If it’s not going to work for one person, why do think it will work on a crowd?

        

You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog. Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

Facebook Post (anniversary/games-prep)

Dear Friend,

I don't think we see each other on Facebook. Actually I know that's true because I seldom post anything and equally seldom read about the lives of my friends. (I do actively use FB Messenger, by the way, and I'd be glad to be your FB friend for that purpose.)

Anyhow, I did post something at www.facebook.com/timchase.impact yesterday and I thought you'd want to see it:



This photo represents two milestones.

First, it's our anniversary. Thirty years ago we gathered in a church in Tulsa with our Lord and 240 family and friends to create together a new entity: a marriage. Today the three of us (Tim, Janet, and our Marriage) are healthy and optimistic about the future.
 
So we're on an anniversary getaway at a sweet Bed and Breakfast. That's the building in the background.
 
In the foreground are games we bought today. They're anniversary presents to ourselves (we hope some of you will also want to play with us...) but they're ALSO important because they are some of the early preparations we're making in order to move to Vietnam this fall. On our anniversary trip we bought several games to take with us--very exciting.
 
Many of you were our friends already when we first moved to Vietnam 10 years ago. We lived in Danang, a coastal city in the center of the country, and that's where we'll return for next school year.
 
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)