Hunting Tigers, Eating Dog
Our time with the EB family began with E hanging off the side of a bucking pony. He struggled to free his foot that was stuck in a loose and sagging saddle before being thrown under the distressed animal.
Days later, W was sampling cooked dog by candlelight at a jungle camp along the Thailand-Burma border.
In between, our family engaged with and struggled through experiences that fleshed out freedom, danger, and risk in new ways. These experiences were grueling, dirty, difficult, hot, uncomfortable — and unforgettable.
We spent a little over a week with the EB family and the aid ministry they lead along the border. D of the EB family often describes the work — and their way of life — as “all in.” That is, there is no choice or compromise between injustice and justice, courage and fear, excellence or pain, life or death. If God calls us to someone’s need on the other side of that mountain, we climb the mountain. Now.
The trip, of course, wasn’t about us. It was about people caught in a long war who live without homes and profound needs. Still, we remain a bit bewildered by the experience. Not confused, just in an extended state of reflection about what the EB family and the week means for us in the days and weeks and years ahead.
D.EB says his father always insisted he was “hunting for tigers” on hunting trips. It sounds a lot cooler, even when you come home with only a rabbit.
In some ways, we went hunting for tigers with the EB family. In the process, E survived the bucking pony. W thought the cooked dog was “chewy.”
And, though we didn’t come back from the trip with any tigers … we think we returned with something profoundly more powerful and glorious.
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