Shekina Garden

We'd heard about some kind of fundraiser taking place in town, for some people who wanted to go to Greece to work, somehow, with Syrian refugees there. It was supposed to happen, Nancy was told by Yada, on Saturday night, the day after our return from Chiang Mai. But as we were wondering around town, having had dinner at The Good Life and then walking up one of the walking streets past the carts and shops and vendors and food sellers, Nancy saw a little flyer that informed us that this fundraiser was instead tonight, Friday, and was set to begin in a few minutes at 7PM. Where was it? Shekina Garden? What and where is that? Well, the backside of the handout was, naturally, a map of downtown Pai showing exactly where it was along the other side of the Pai River across a rickety little bamboo walking bridge. We decided to walk the short distance and check it out. Shekina Garden, after all, had its own attraction and mysterious appeal.

Over the bridge and down a little dirt lane and there it was. People gathering slowly, “on hippy time” as it was put, to support Brian and Katie Ernst, a young couple who had found their way to Pai to recover from some serious illnesses contracted in Kenya while there serving their non profit Journey4YOUth, which provides ground level support for orphans, widows, and families in a small village, through micro loans, rain water catchment projects, school uniforms and fees, free lunches and other means of “standing beside” the people in what they envision for themselves. When not volunteering in Kenya – they take no money from their non profit for themselves – they live and travel in a converted school bus run on waste vegetable oil with Brian as a professional touring musician, by which means they support themselves and their projects. Very inspiring young people, themselves inspired by their Christian faith and bhakti devotion to Jesus and his teachings and example, as they understand it.

Kids, families, dread locked hair, community, a bunch of Aussie's moved to Pai from Varanasi, India, where they had had a “Jesus devotional ashram” for eight years, as Brendan, one of the male figures put it. Twenty and thirty something's, doing some great heart motivated, faith based, devotional service work in the world, and on this night they were sponsoring this fundraiser for Brian and Katie to support their next calling to head to Greece and offer words of comfort, and concrete items of support – blankets, food, water, clothing, whatever – to those one to three thousand refugees per day arriving on the island of Lesbos, with nothing, in need of everything, in what is now the most massive migration of displaced people since the Second World War.

So we hung with these folks, listened to open mike music and poetry by some extremely gifted people as it turned out, and then a mini concert by Brian, who uses looping technology to create a one man band effect of multi layered hip rap reggae-ish rhythm based music, “a white Michael Franti”, as Nancy called him. What a serendipitous treat for us.