God's Sufficient Grace: August 2006

Sunday, August 27, 2006

me and MTW interns: Halley and Irene

the Elem. "specials": me (music), Brett (art/computer) and Jen (p.e.)

me and Jen (neighbor/friend/sudo-roommate)

my apartment

the street (soi) where I live

my apartment balcony and view

My classrooms (taken at Open House)

Elementary building

ICS campus and my apartment building

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

praise the Lord!

Don't have much time to write right now, but I couldn't wait to share the good news with you all: my book shipment came in this afternoon!! Between school ending and an afternoon meeting, I had about 4-5 teachers come and ask me with a big smile - "did you see the packages for you in the office?" Both of my remaining book-boxes arrived and although they look a bit beaten up, it doesn't appear that anything fell out of them or damaged their contents! So thank you so much for praying - God has graciously and abundantly responded to my hopes and needs!! : )

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

First Day of School

Today was my "real" first day of school - first full day of school. I had 4 classes (first period 5th grade strings was actually canceled for today): one 1st, one 3rd, and two 4th grade classes. They all went pretty well; at least nothing went wrong. They were full of procedures and rules and I felt like all of them lacked energy. I don't know if it was because the students don't know me and are skeptical or just not very enthusiastic or if I was really boring or what, but I came away feeling like not a very good teacher. Hopefully it'll get better as time goes on, though, as I get to know them better.

I must admit, today I missed Pinewood terribly. I miss all of my students there so much. I miss them knowing me and me knowing them - and just having them in my classes. I felt achey all day, knowing that school was going on at home and I was not a part of it. And thinking about chapel happening tomorrow without me makes me even more sad. I love my students at Pinewood - and I know I will probably, hopefully, grow to love my students here as well but that hasn't happened yet and they just seem different and foreign to me (not "foreign" as far as culture goes - though they definitely are! - but as people).

I miss my family too. I keep thinking about my two all-time favorite students (Clint and Will). It's so hard knowing that they won't be in my classes anymore or that I won't see them after school (or for that matter, ride to school with them). I miss having my Dad just next door where I could constantly visit him throughout the day to run ideas by him or eat lunch with him or whatever. And I have a feeling this Friday will kill me when my Kindergarten class comes and the students won't be brought in by my mom. Seeing her with her class was always one of the brightest moments of my week.

Strange too, but as I think about how precious last year, especially, was to me, I really miss sharing with my students about missions and God's desire to reach the nations with the gospel. I felt like I talked about it all so much and we would all get so excited about the vision. Now that I'm actually here, though, that vision seems a bit more "sticky". I guess if I were to stop and think and dream about it again, even here it would be as glorious and awesome as it has been to me in the past. It's just so much more real here, and already the day by day living isn't quite as smooth or consistently glorious as the dream. I knew it wouldn't be - at least in my head I knew, and I would try to prep my heart for that reality. It's just interesting seeing it all played out in my life.

Don't mean to be depressing for all those reading. God has been good to me: He has not changed even though I (obviously) am on an emotional rollercoaster! Just want anyone from Pinewood who is reading to know that I miss you greatly! You are in my thoughts and prayers often.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Pawn

Today was the first day of school for the Secondary students at ICS, tomorrow begins Elementary classes. Up until mid-way last week, I was thinking "Yea! I don't start school until Wednesday!" But then as I was meeting with the Secondary Band and Chorus teachers, I realized that I do teach a Secondary class: 6th Grade strings. So today was mostly meetings and planning for me, except for that one class during my last period.

I must admit that I began to get more and more scared as the day progressed about that one class, though. Of all the things I'll be teaching here, my string classes are the ones that I feel most nervous about. Don't get me wrong: I am extremely excited to be teaching strings. I've been dreaming about being an orchestra director since I was in Middle School and heavily involved in my old orchestra program. But I'm afraid I don't have enough experience (any at all!) teaching groups of strings, or enough experience on the violin. Plus, I don't know how to organize a Secondary music program. (The band director here has been very helpful on that end, telling me what he does and what they've done in the past). The good news is, all the students are beginners, so I'm pretty sure I know at least a little more than they do!

Anyway, today the class period was actually more like a combined meeting with all of the 6th graders together. I really didn't know what/how to prepare for this (and I feel so much less prepared for the string classes planning-wise in general) but the Lord really answered my prayers for a good class anyway. He helped me know what to say to the students and what I did have planned was useful, I think, and exactly filled the amount of time we had. He also gave me a confidence before the students that I didn't feel like I had 5 minutes before they arrived! We divided up the students into band/choir/orchestra and I ended up with 13 6th graders in strings, which feels like a perfect number to me! And they all seem very sweet and eager to learn. (Although I did have a 2-3 rather active boys who I already had to split up! Actually, most of the class is boys, which seems odd to me for strings...) And they really seemed to enjoy hearing me play for them.

Which leads me to the very exciting news I wanted to share with you (drum roll, please): I purchased a new cello yesterday!! I went back to the first music store that Dad and I visited while he was here and bought the one that he and I both liked the most there. A Thai woman from the school (mother of an older student and also member of the Fine Arts Society here at ICS) met me there and helped me buy it. She has gained a reputation for herself at the school for being able to bargain well. The price I paid for the instrument was just about exactly what I had hoped to spend, so I am very grateful for the Lord's provision! The cello is a German model, about 50 years old. It sounds and feels a bit different than my other cello - not in a good or bad way, just different flavor. It has a very rich, deep sound; probably not as bright as my one at home. The bow is just ok - I might pay more to upgrade later - but I love the case: it is very light-weight, has wheels and is easy to carry (and it's a beautiful deep green!). I named her Pawn, which I think means "blessing" in Thai (if not, I'll have to change the name! : ). This cello, along with all of you who prayed and gave towards it, has already been a great blessing from God. Thank you.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Lord's Day

Yesterday on the phone with home, Mom and Dad said that several of you have been asking why I haven’t posted in a while. I was amazed that people actually wanted to read my wordy posts! Part of the problem (as you can see from the last few) is that I have been able to write things on my laptop in my apartment, but then it takes me awhile to get online to actually post them. After so many long posts in a row now, you’ll probably regret asking, but I thought I’d go ahead and share about today nonetheless!

Today was a good day. I had invited several of my new friends/fellow teachers to come to church (MTW team worship) with me and this morning 3 came: Jen, Brett (Elementary art/computer teacher) and La (Brett’s Thai girlfriend). It was great having them along, though I’m not sure what they thought: it is very different than the more charismatic, “contemporary”, younger-generation, less “deep” and/or gospel-centered (in a sense) churches that several of the other teachers go in Bangkok (all not good terms to describe the other churches around here, but maybe you get the idea?). Brett seemed encouraged by the depth of the worship and the preaching of grace; I really don’t know what Jen thought or how much La could understand. But I was encouraged to have them there regardless and was myself encouraged by the service.

Their presence started some discussion amongst Dave, Kim and I of the possibility of moving MTW’s English worship to ICS’s campus. I have no idea how great the potential of this is or how I should even go about inquiring about it at school, but it got me wondering if that might be one of the reasons God might have brought me here: to serve as a liaison between the faculty and students at ICS and the MTW church-plant. At the very least, perhaps the Lord will use me to continue to bring the teachers and students here into contact with the gospel-centered worship I’ve found. Please keep this all in your prayers.

After church, Jen, Brett, La and I went to Rama IX park where we enjoyed a walk through the beautiful gardens and ate lunch. I spent the rest of the afternoon taking a nap and reading my Bible, then went over to the Veldhorst’s for games and dinner. I really felt at home there as well. It was so good playing games with their children (James – 15, Katy – 13, Jonathan – 10, Becca – 7 and Nick – 6) – it was like playing with all my siblings at home! – and getting to know them all better. All in all, it was a wonderful day of worship, rest and fellowship.

Funny story: at lunch, La asked Brett why/how my eyes were brown! She had assumed that all farong’s (foreigners) eyes were blue like his are and was shocked to find out that Americans often have brown, green, hazel and even gray eyes! Funny the assumptions/stereotypes we have about people from other cultures. : )

Chattachuk Shopping Adventure (yesterday)

This morning was quite the adventure. I’m not sure I’m up for calling it a fun adventure, but my sense of humor kept me from getting out of sorts. : )

A group from our apartment complex (hence, made up of all new teachers) decided to go to Chattachuk Market this morning. Most of them went last weekend, which I was not up to doing, and I wasn’t so much up to getting up and leaving at 8:00 this morning either but Jen, my new friend/neighbor/surrogate roommate (she lives next door and we’ve been in and out of each other’s apartments a lot), was hounding me to go, so I gave in. I didn’t sleep well last night and have been really tired all week, so I wasn’t in the peppiest of moods as we left; plus, all week the “big city-ness” (traffic, pollution, lack of green) of Bangkok has kind of been getting to me, so I was really wanting to get away from the city rather than move towards it. But on we went.

After a short-ish taxi ride to the sky-train station, we all purchased tickets and got on the already very crowded sky-train. About 2 stops into our journey, the train lingered at one of the stations. Every few minutes a voice would tell us on the loud speaker that the train was delayed because of technical difficulties and that they appreciated our patience. (Meanwhile, we stood in the train car staring into each other’s faces, which were less than a foot away, holding the rods above us.) Finally, another non-translated message was given and we saw everyone leave the train. We followed, asked around and discovered that the BTS was out of commission for a while. So down we went into the heavily polluted, traffic invested streets of Bangkok which I had hoped to avoid this weekend where we spent the next 15 minutes or so trying to make a decision as to whether to take a taxi or bus to the market (or whether to just go home!). Rebekah, one of the more gregarious of the bunch, kept approaching different Thai strangers with her Thai phrase book to ask for advice. One Thai man told us that it would probably take about 2-3 hours to get to where we were going by taxi or bus, due to the present traffic jam, but that sky train problems were usually fixed within 30 minutes, so we went back up to the sky train to wait it out and not long afterward found ourselves back in a crowded train-car.

When we got to the market, everyone (there were 10-12 of us) split up into groups to go different ways and I ended up separating from all of the groups due to the fact that they were mostly either wandering or looking for souvenirs and I actually, oddly enough, knew exactly what I wanted to get for my apartment. It didn’t take me too terribly long to make a few purchases, then find what I really wanted at this particular market: dishes. I found a beautiful set of pale green with brown trim clay pottery/stoneware (? - like mom’s brown set) dishes for my apartment. I chose the size plate, bowl and mug I wanted and also purchased a little cream/sugar set that matched and while the vendors were wrapping them all up (I got 4 sets of the dishes), I found myself day-dreaming about one day telling my grandchildren where I got them. I guess now I’ll have to tell my grandchildren the story of how I got them home as well! While I was day-dreaming, one of the men wrapping everything up asked me if I was planning to carry all of it. He had a very skeptical, “are you crazy?” look on his face. I should have taken that as a hint.

The two bags of dishes were quite heavy, and it didn’t take me very long of walking through the aisles of the market to decide that, since my hands were over-full and almost all of my cash was spent, my shopping trip was over. I called some of the others to see if they were ready to leave – we had planned to take everything home in a taxi and bypass the train – but no one was, so I headed back on my own. I really didn’t feel like spending $5-10 on a taxi by myself and I had come to discover from a cello-shopping experience a few days before that most taxi drivers don’t really want to go all the way to Bangna (where I now live) because it’s so far away. [And let me tell you, it wasn’t exactly fun wandering up and down a crowded street in downtown-ish Bangkok (ok, I don’t really know what part of town I was in!), alone, being rejected by 7 or 8 taxi drivers in a row.] So, I decided to take the sky train again.

It took me 10-15 minutes of walking to find the exit out of the market and then get to the sky-train. 10-15 minutes of lugging very heavy bags on my own – oh, and I forgot to mention that I also bought a large straw mat for my “living area” floor which, rolled up, was about as tall as I am. So you can imagine me with all my stuff, sweating in the heat, dodging people on the crowded sidewalks (or motorcycles by the side of the road), probably knocking many people with my rolled up mat, gazing longingly up at the sky-train ahead, thinking “there’s no place like my apartment, there’s no place like my apartment.”

[Side note: I realized that I must have a thing about carrying heavy purchases/bags through foreign cities: my Ukrainian tea set in Kherson, the marble ma-jong game in Beijing, our carry-on bags in Narita. You’d think I’d learn my lesson by now that “stuff” really weighs a person down.]

I lugged everything up several flights of stairs to the sky train and I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to sit down (this was at one end of the sky-train line so it hadn’t filled up much yet) in an air-conditioned train car for the next ½ hour. When I got to the other end of the line (the market was on the complete other side of the city), I got off and went down several flights of stair to get a taxi. After I flagged down a taxi, told him my address and practically got in the car, I realized that I was out of cash and had to apologize, get out, walk down that street a bit to an ATM, get cash, flag down another taxi and drive to my apartment (where I realized that I had would have had enough cash to pay the taxi driver originally!). I lugged everything up to my 4th floor apartment where I crashed on my couch and ate left-over khow pat gui (sp?! – translation: chicken fried rice) out of my beautiful new dishes. : ) End of story.

So that’s a picture of life in Bangkok. Gone are the days when I can run multiple errands in one outing, tossing stuff into a car between stops. : )

invincible (last weekend)

Ok, many of you who know me well know that I can sometimes have a rather over-confident, careless attitude towards safety issues. Not sure if this is from Joanna or Dad or if I'm simply going through the mid-20s "nothing will ever happen to me" phase in life, but I think being in Thailand has only brought it out more. I've found myself thinking thoughts like "even though others around me are getting sick, I'm never going to get sick" or "it's not a problem for me to wander the streets of Bangkok by myself, no one will hurt me" or even "I'm invincible" (yes, I've thought even that!).

For example, the first day after Dad and I arrived in Thailand, we hopped on some motorcycle taxis to go to Central mall, which is a mile or so down the road. It was quite the ride, and Dad and I noted that the taxi drivers never once in that mile drove on the correct side of the road. Because of the way the road is laid out, the most direct way for them to go involves driving on the edge of the road facing the oncoming traffic. They were also on and off sidewalks, in and out of parking lots and several times snuck between cars on the side roads. The first time I took that route, I just laughed and said, "that was exciting!" By the second time, though (involving several close calls with cars on the street!) I decided that it was probably playing with death a little too much and that my family wouldn't appreciate me dying from a motorcycle accident a few weeks after I got here. So I decided to discontinue the motorcyles to Central (however, I'm not quite willing to give up the rides altogether! There are less dangerous routes to take. : )

Well, the Lord sobered me up a bit last weekend, both in terms of health and safety. I still have not gotten officially sick, but last weekend began feeling very tired and had a strange kind of headache all Sunday, which God used to remind me that I am human. : ) Also, I had a somewhat scary encounter with a taxi driver last Sunday night.

On Sunday night, Crystal and I went to a concert that she was invited to at a Thai church and afterwards I went back to the Henry's for dinner (their home is feeling more like home to me than my apartment!). At around 11:00, I got set to leave and Paul drove me to the edge of their neighborhood to catch a taxi back to school. It took a few minutes before we saw any taxis but one finally came. I got in and told the taxi driver directions which Paul repeated with a better Thai accent. He nodded his head like he understood. As soon as I got in the taxi, though, I felt very uncomfortable. The taxi driver was a middle-aged man and there was something about the way he looked at me and smiled that made me want to get out right then. I almost asked Paul if we could wait for another taxi (I should have) but I didn't want to make a big fuss about it and so on we went. Not far down the street, the driver turned to me and started trying to talk to me in Thai, I think asking for more specifics about where to go. It didn't take long before it was clear he didn't know how to get there (either that or he was not going the most direct way) and it felt like he was wandering around. I really started to get scared when we went down a random, out of the way street and later pulled over a bit and stopped. I motioned a certain way to tell him to keep going (the last thing I wanted him to do was stop the car!) and got on my cell phone. The whole rest of the drive (which was longer than it should have been because, again, he didn't know where he was going), I was on the phone with either Crystal or Paul. Paul got out his map and talked to the driver and then kept asking me if I recognized this or that, then Crystal was gracious enough to talk to me for 20-30 minutes to distract my mind from worrying. Plus, just being on the phone made me feel like I looked confident and in control. In reality, I felt like a very alone, single girl and very uncomfortable. In the end, the taxi driver ended up charging me 50 baht less than what the meter said because he took so long, so maybe he wasn't really trying to take advantage of me, but I've never felt so glad to get behind locked doors in my life. As soon as I got to my apartment, I plugged the Bangkok emergency number into my phone and thanked God for watching over me. Paul also said that next time if I leave their house so late at night, he'll probably just drive me the rest of the way - which I would feel bad about on the one hand because it would take so much of his time (and gas) to do, but on the other, would make me feel a lot better.

I hesitated to write this down all week because I don't want to scare any of you (especially mom and dad!). I am not sure if I was really in any danger; it's possible my mind was just making the situation more scary than it was. But, as I said, God used it to sober me up a bit and also make me so very grateful for your prayers for my safety. He is watching over all of my ways and is protecting me from every sort of harm. Praise God!

stupid prayers (from Thursday)

I have determined that many of the prayers I’ve been praying for the last several years are…well…stupid.

For example, “God, make me like Christ!” It struck me the other day just exactly what this means, and I thought, “Who wants to be like Christ?!” We somehow think this means that we’ll be beautiful, patient, gentle and compassionate people – and it does. But taking a closer look at what Christ was like, I’m not sure I really want to do all that He did. “Yes – make me one who doesn’t get what I want (ever) and constantly does what I don’t want to do so that others will benefit! Let me be the first to serve, the first to lay down my life, the first to suffer!” Oh boy, doesn’t that sound like fun?

Or how about this one: “I want to know Christ!” Somehow I envisioned this “learning of Christ” looking a little differently. A little more intellectual but with a big burst of wonderful “feeling” of His great love for me. His definition, I’m discovering, is quite different: knowing the “power of His resurrection” (yes!) “and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death” (no!). So now I get to experience the separation from everything that speaks perfection to me in order to come to where it is not perfect (and I might add, much harder in many ways) so I can daily lay down my life in service to others. Again, oh boy.

“Take the world but give me Jesus!” Well, you can see where that got me...

Since God seems to be on a roll, answering so many of my prayers, I think I’ll start asking for other things: maybe for a boyfriend or to be rich and comfortable or better yet, to go home. Somehow, I don’t think He’ll answer those requests though. Supposedly, He has a better, more eternal plan to carry out – I just wish this “better plan” didn’t involve such a painful process!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

prayer requests

In my last couple of posts, I think I have probably painted a very rosy picture on my first week here, and thankfully, most things have gone extremely well and the Lord has blessed this transition (so far : ). However, it has not been without its low points, and already I have had some frustrations with the culture and various things that have happened (or not happened). One (more important) of these I really wanted to ask you to pray about.

The first few weeks of May I shipped 2 large M-bags filled with smaller boxes of books, music and curriculum to Thailand. I had to ship them very early in order to get the cheapest (and only affordable!) rate. They said that it would take 2-3 months to get here; however, they could not guarantee that they would arrive at all, and people at ICS said it was not uncommon for books in M-bags to get damaged, lost or stolen. I took the risk, as I had a lot of materials I wanted to have with me in Thailand. I boxed them up very carefully and recorded everything I put in each box in case anything happened, then Laurel and I prayed that they would arrive safely.

Well, one M-bag arrived (apparently around a month ago), the other did not. Some people at the school said that, in the past, bags that were shipped at the same time did not necessarily arrive at the same time, but I'm concerned that since it's been a whole month since the other arrived, my one M-bag is gone. When I looked to see what was in those missing boxes, I discovered that while many books are replaceable (although they wouldn't be my books that special friends, etc. had given to me) there were some irreplaceable things in the mix, as well as several things (curriculum and such) that I had planned on using heavily from the beginning of the school year. I'm trying not to be too upset about it yet, but the whole thing is very discouraging and well, upsetting. Would you please pray that God would somehow get those boxes here? I feel like I need a miracle at this point. Fortunately, I trust in a God who's good at doing the miraculous. : )

Please also pray for my attitude in all this. I was praying through a long list of frustrations the other night, placing each one of them in the Lord's hands. I know God is soveriegn in all of these situations - that He actually ordained for these things to happen this way. I just don't know if He ordained these problems so He could display His greatness by doing amazing things on my behalf or if He has another purpose in mind. I believe that He is able to answer all of my prayers and meet all of my needs in the way that I am (hopefully humbly) asking Him to meet them. However, I also know that He may not want to answer my prayers in the way that seems best to me. He may want me to "get over" not having the things I'm used to having and learn to live without certain resources or teaching materials. He may want me to change or be more flexible or patient or less attached to "things". I don't know...but please pray that I will be able to gladly, thankfully accept whatever He does provide and be able to trust Him with the rest.

Thank you once more for praying. I really wish I had the time to write (and you had the time to read!) all the many little (and big) things that God is doing here.

God's Sufficient Grace