prayer letter
I have been convicted about a few things the last few months and have been praying about what exactly needs to be done about it...
1 ~ my need for others to regularly pray for me in my life and ministry here
2 ~ my failure to enable that to happen by communicating prayer needs to those who I know would love to pray!
I have been very poor at communicating to you about how things are going here (please forgive me!) and I'm starting to reap the negative consequences of that! I'm finding I desperately need others to carry my needs and the needs of those in Thailand before the Father - and I need the accountability of writing to you about them.
I've been thinking about whether to try to do this on my blog or by letter or email. I have been a little more hesitant recently about sharing things on my blog as I am discovering that I have no idea who is actually reading it anymore. Some people I don't even know, I'm sure... So, I would like to do something a little more formal and write a prayer/update email every month or few weeks.
My question for you is - would you be willing to commit to praying for me, Clint (for this year!), my students and the growing church in Thailand? Praying for someone regularly
is a commitment and one that I struggle to keep as I support other missionaries, so please don't enter it lightly! But it makes a world of difference! God truly does hear and answer prayers and I am continually amazed at how quickly He responds to the prayers of others in my life when I lay my heart and struggles before them. It's an exciting journey - watching God work - so for you sake and mine, I would ask that you consider this commitment.
I have the first letter written in my head. : ) If you
would like to pray for me this year, please either send me an email or post a comment, including your email address (maybe of them I have already, but just in case!). Thank you for considering and for already being such a faithful friend and prayer for me in the past!
Proud
Clint made the JV Soccer team at ICS!! I'm so proud - he's worked really hard for this all summer and we've been praying for a long time that he'd make it. We're both really happy! : )
Old!
Jenny, one of my 2nd Grade piano students, asked me this afternoon, "When you were a young girl, what was your favorite computer game, like on the internet - your favorite website?"
Me: "My favorite website...? Um...the internet wasn't around when I your age!"
Ack! Makes me feel so old! : P
Wondrous Deeds
“You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.” Psalm 40:5
God has truly done wondrous things in the past few weeks in and around my life in response to your prayers. I hardly know where to start sharing – it seems like the answers to prayers are “more than can be told” and I’m afraid I’m going to have to do a lot of summarizing! In the summary, however, I don’t want to minimize the wonder of what God has done or my amazement at it, so please forgive me for barely scratching the surface!
I guess the best way to “tell of them” would be in the categories for which I asked for prayer:
~ The Middle School concert was 2 weeks ago – the first of my concert madness and right in the middle of the stressful preparations. My students played far better than I thought they would, based on the first dress rehearsal (after which I cried!). God answered my prayers for a really good second/last dress rehearsal in which they were able to see how much they’ve learned and how far they had come over the course of the semester. They played almost perfectly (for them) at that practice and we were all able to enjoy the beautiful music made within our little classroom. I was grateful for this because it helped them to go into the concert with a lot of confidence. On the day of the concert, I was completely wiped out and starting to get sick (I ended up feeling that way for several days), mostly due to stress. At a few points in the day, I wondered how I would even make it through the performance! God provided strength of body and heart that night in an amazing way.
~ High School concert – went well and beautiful music was made. My part in it was very small, but I mention it because that day I sensed people praying as I played piano and my fingers seemed to move more fluidly than normal. Also, I was not nervous and only made a few mistakes, so I praise God for answering on that day as well.
~ “His Story” musical: the 3rd and 4th Graders performed their musical last Thursday afternoon. It’s been a rather all-consuming project preparing for this musical the last few weeks as it took a tremendous amount of work to get it together. At many times, I almost wanted to shoot myself for making the entire thing incredibly complicated and confusing and this past week, I truly wondered if it would all come together – not because my students aren’t incredibly smart and talented or that many fellow teachers were not willing to help, but just because we were running out of time. Also, we had so many sound system and light problems arise (or rather continue to not be fixed) in the days prior to the performance, that the morning of the show, I finally told my principal that we just needed to pray for a miracle: that God would somehow enable everyone in the audience to see and hear the students, despite what the sound system was or was not capable of at that point. God worked that miracle and many others. Every person that I talked to afterwards said that they could understand every word that was spoken and could hear the kids singing! By the time of the performance, the students all knew exactly where to go and stand and move to (again, a miracle considering my confusing communication and poor leadership!) and they performed splendidly! (I was super proud! : ) And the best thing of all is that the gospel message was proclaimed to a very full auditorium and is now implanted in all 100 of those 3rd-4th Graders who sang up on stage. So many people that came said that this was one of the most clear presentations of the gospel in a children’s musical they had ever seen. I continue to pray (and ask you to also) that God would work powerfully through that in the lives of the students and their parents. Amazing musical performances are a great answer to prayer, but my heart longs for something much bigger to come from this – something eternal!
~ Last Friday night we had a good-bye party for some of my dear friends and MTW team members, Andrew and Becky Bronson. The night was a very emotional one for me, as I will miss them both tremendously (they came to Thailand at the same time I did and are now returning to the States to go to seminary); however, two really beautiful, amazing things came out of that gathering. The first is that a woman who has been attending various events and even worship services at the New Community office/church (and mother of one of the teenage girls I’ve worked with at Maahathai) received Christ during the party! I saw her and Kieow (one of the Thai MTW staff members and my friend) enter the room after having been gone for a while and next thing I knew, several of the team members and Thai Christians were huddled around her praying! Kieow was ecstatic, as were the rest of us! Dave told me this morning that she is the first adult from Maahathai that they know of that has professed faith (so far!). (Many of the children have and are now super zealous little evangelists and faithful church attenders!)
~ The second thing that happened was A and Fam came with me to the party. This was a miracle in and of itself because for the last 3 weeks since Fam started her new job, she has had to work very late nights and so she thought there was no way she’d be able to make it. But God worked it out and for the first time, both she and A were able to leave work early. Before Friday, they had not ever come to anything at the office nor met all of my Thai Christian friends (although they knew several of the farong team members) and they had never seen Christians pray. As I expected, they were pretty blown away by what they experienced at that party with so many believers present. They kept talking about how friendly everyone was and how there was no difference between Thai and farong (in the sense that everyone loved and talked to everyone). And they asked both Melanie and I if they could come back because they wanted to be around it more! They are just beginning to experience the love of Christ, but I see God drawing them, especially Fam, to Himself. She continues to really want to spend time with me and I was incredibly honored when she told someone else on Friday that I was her best friend in Bangkok! Pray that I will faithfully show her the love of Christ and that God would give me the right words to speak of Him to her and A. And please continue to pray for God’s work in their hearts!!
May
I was talking to my Dad last night, telling him about all of my upcoming concerts and the stressful, busy time I'm in the midst of, and he asked me to write down the dates of each of them so that he could be in prayer for me this month. (I counted them up last week and realized that I have one performance of some sort a week for the last 6 weeks of school!!) I thought I'd also put those dates on my blog, so that others could pray too. I feel a little self-centered in doing this, though, as I know that May is an incredibly busy time for everyone, so I don't at all mean to imply that I'm under any more stress than all of you. My list of prayer requests for friends and family members seems to increase daily as I listen to how much other people that I love have going on and the transitions many are facing at the end of this school year.
But for those who would like to pray, here's my concert schedule:
~ Friday, May 2nd - Middle School concert. I'll be directing my 6th and 7th Grade String classes (the choirs and bands at school will also perform, but I don't work with those groups). I was very discouraged after our dress rehearsal yesterday because they sounded so bad and I felt like such a failure of a teacher. Today was more encouraging though, so I am hopeful...
~ Friday, May 9th - High School concert. I'm accompanying one of the HS choirs! I'm excited, but am not the best pianist in the world by a long-shot, so I'm hoping I don't mess up the students!!
~ Thursday, May 15th - Elementary (3rd/4th Grade) "His Story" Musical. This is the big one for me as I'm organizing/directing the entire musical. Many people are helping me, but there are so many things that ultimately only I can do or decisions that I still have to make. And there are so many details involved! The ironic thing is that my least concern is whether or not the students will be ready: they're SUPER excited and know their music and lines well. I'm very afraid at this point that May 15th will come and I won't have all the costumes, set, props, sound system, lights, program, accompaniment/band or other things in place and we'll have to call the whole thing off!
~ Saturday, May 24th - High School Graduation. My 7th Graders are playing prelude/background music before the ceremony. This is the one class I won't be teaching next year (something that is very sad for me as I've grown to be pretty close with these students) so I'm praying for a really good last performance with them!
~ Tuesday, May 27th - 5th Grade Beginning Strings/Band concert.
~ Thursday, June 5th (last day of school!) - Kindergarten Graduation. K4 and K5 will sing.
So, busy days. Several friends/co-workers have commented that they've hardly seen me the last few weeks, except when I'm running past them on the way to something (usually a rehearsal!). It's been a bit of a roller-coaster emotionally too as I frequently get discouraged with my inability to teach or organize or plan well. Each of these performances seems to bring out specific areas of great weakness in me as a teacher, musician or person. I'm learning to rejoice in those weaknesses as I see them as an opportunity for God to be glorified as He shows Himself strong. He IS working and I find myself standing in awe of Him daily as He accomplishes things that either are beyond my control or beyond my abilities. It's been amazing to carry every concern (however small) to Him in prayer in the mornings and then be able to praise Him by the end of the day after I watched Him truly take care of that issue. He's also showing me (again) the strengths of others around me and helping me (in a healthy way, I think) depend on other people that are gifted in areas that I simply am not. It's beautiful to see a picture of the body of Christ in that.
So thank you for praying! Soon the craziness will be over and I know I'll have one more testimony to write on my heart of God's faithfulness in yet another season of my life.
(Pictures of India will come soon - I promise!)
Nagaland
One of the whole reasons we decided to go to India in the first place was because Kim had a friend who lived in the Northeastern state of Nagaland who really wanted her to come and visit. Kim got to know Asha in Bangkok last year as they were both serving together in an organization that ministers to prostitutes. Asha has since returned to her homeland to start a similar ministry to women in crisis.
Nagaland is actually a recent addition to the country of India: it came under the government of India in the late 1940s, and since that time the Naga people have been fighting for their independence. Because of that, we had to get a special, extremely specific visa to get into that part of the country and spend some time in an official's office upon our arrival at the train station. The Naga people and culture is really not very much like the rest of India. Traditionally, they are a hill tribe people and they looked more Burmese than they do Indian. It was interesting to see the blend of Indian and Asian cultures while visiting that part of the country.
Getting there was rather difficult. They whole planning process was difficult because not much information was available online or in our travel books and contact with Asha beforehand was even sporadic. Even while in Delhi, we didn't know exactly how to get to where we wanted to end up or how long it would take us. Made for some interesting adventures! : ) We ended up spending almost 2 days getting there, 2 days getting back, taking planes, trains and buses, and only about 3 1/2 days actually with Asha, - but being there made it all worthwhile.
I don't think I've ever experience such gracious hospitality and care than from Asha and the Christians in Nagaland. We stayed in Dimapur, the largest city in Nagaland, and Asha arranged for us to stay in a guesthouse/retreat-center used for missionaries. She had a huge room prepared for us with a Western bathroom, a kitchen nearby with several women who prepared breakfast for us each morning (WAY more than we could eat!) and did our laundry. The place had a beautiful garden and grassy area and was just delightful. Asha's uncle owned a guesthouse of his own, but Asha decided that it wasn't comfortable or quiet enough for us and that she wanted to have us stay in the best place in the city, so her Uncle decided to pay for us to stay there! They were so kind!
Amazingly enough, Nagaland is about 90% professing-Christian. The story of the how the gospel entered that region of the world is just incredible! Over 125 years ago some missionaries came to a nearby tribe to share the gospel with them. That tribe wasn't very interested in the gospel, so the missionaries instead went to the Nagas, who at the time were a head-hunting people. One by one, whole tribes turned to Christ and gave up their former way of life. Now there are tons of churches, schools and seminaries in that state, most of them Baptist. In fact, I read on wikipedia that Nagaland is "the most populated Baptist state in the world" with 75% of the population being Baptist - even more than Mississippi's 52% Baptist population! And in some ways it felt like being in the "Bible-belt" in the SE US! We went to Asha's church that Sunday and sat in pews in a beautiful, large sanctuary with high ceilings that reminded me of Emmanuel Baptist Church where I went as a young child. They played all of the familiar Baptist hymns I knew translated into Nagamese on an out-of-tune piano. And the church was filled with hill-tribe, Asian people! It was pretty wild.
They were all so kind, too! We got invited over to several people's houses for dinner and almost everyone we met thanked us for coming to visit them (we were the only foreigners there - not the sort of place that foreigners come through very often!). It was so very humbling. The first night we ate at the house of one of Asha's seminary professors. His great-grandfather was the first person to accept Christ in their tribe and his grandfather was the first one to go to school and become an evangelist. He told us that every 25 years they all have a huge celebration and retell the story of how the missionaries came to their people and shared the gospel with them!
While there we also got to visit Asha's new ministry center and meet the women she serves. We attended their prayer service: most are Christians who have been forced to a way of life that they don't want to be in. It was really heart-breaking to be there. They were all incredibly gracious though as well and were so glad to have us there, as they had prayed for a long time for
us and our safe journey to their country. We also visited the Oriental Theological Seminary where Asha received her M.Div. It was about 30 minutes or more outside the city and was almost like a camp or retreat-center in the way it was set up. All the students (there are about 60 there, 10 professors) spoke excellent English, as they learn/study the Bible in English, and we were able to fellowship with them over dinner (where they also thanked us for eating with them!). It was pretty incredible to hear their stories and to find out more about the seminary.
God richly blessed us in Nagaland and opened my eyes to His power and work in a new way. It was very exciting to see the power of the gospel firsthand!
Kolkata
Again, from my journal...
I don't think I've ever been to a place like this before. It's not like Bangkok or even Delhi are beautiful, clean cities devoid of slums or poor neighborhoods, but they don't even compare to what I've seen tonight.
Our plane arrived at 11:15 p.m. and we easily found a taxi to take us to our guesthouse about 20 minutes or so from the airport. The first thing I noticed were all of the apartment buildings, completely run-down, shabby on the outside with rags hanging in the windows. "Must be one of the poorer parts of town," I thought. Then it was the rows and rows of shacks lining the sidewalks- little makeshift "homes" that hardly seemed large enough for someone to lay down in. Hundreds in every direction. True slums. But the further we went into the city, the more people I saw - actually home
less - sprawled everywhere on the sidewalks. I've never seen so many people on the streets. Laying on mats and covered in rags, they looked comparable to the filthy, detestable soi (street) dogs I've grown to disdain in Bangkok. And yet, these are ones made in the image of God. I'm not sure I've ever seen a place or situation so sad.
Our guesthouse is quite a sight. It has bars on the entrance and windows, fortunately, but the whole interior looks about as run-down as the exterior of the buildings we passed. As we walked to our room, we walked by two men stretched out on the floor of the upstairs hallway. In our room they had 3 very hard beds without blankets (but with tiny bugs crawling on them, as we discovered later), 2 loud fans and a bathroom that looked almost like the public bathrooms I've used all week (ok, as shabby but maybe a little cleaner). Oh, and they left us an already opened bottle of water with maybe an inch of water left in it. With no clean water, I'm choosing to
not brush my teeth tonight. : ) Yet it all seems several steps up from the sights on the streets, so I feel strangely grateful. And not just for the richness of life I normally walk in but for the opportunity to partake tonight, in a small way, of the poverty that so many across the world live in.
Delhi, India
For Spring break this year, two teacher-friends of mine, Kristi and Kim, and I struck off to India for 10 days. It's been on my list of places to go while in this part of the world and I've been wanting to go there for a while. We had quite the adventure! There's so much that could be said about it that it's hard to know where to start, but for the sake of clarity, I thought I'd divide our trip up into 3 parts - Delhi, Nagaland, and "transit" to and from Nagaland (including Kolkata - Nagaland is in the very NE part of the country and somewhat difficult to get to so it took us a while!). Here's some excerpts from my journal about Delhi:
We arrived in Delhi late Friday night and spent 4 full days there. I must say that India is not like anywhere I've ever been before and totally unlike Thailand or the other SE Asian countries I've visited this past year. In a word, I'd say India is nuts.
Everything is different: the people, the religion(s), the clothes, the architecture, the vehicles and traffic, the food - everything. Many things are wonderful and I'm excited to experience it all - been wanting to for a while - but because it
is so different, I've found myself rather overwhelmed and not able to process it all very well. Almost more than in Thailand, I've undergone a lot of culture shock the last few days.
So, because it's so overwhelming, I'll just form a random list of highlights, "lowlights" and observations from our days in Delhi:
~ the people: they're beautiful, albeit seem rough, aggressive and rude after living in Thailand. I LOVE seeing the women, though, dressed in their colorful, flowing sarees with long beautiful hair and lots of jewelry on. They are just very beautiful.
~ the food: definitely a treat. I haven't tried a whole lot I don't like - it's all wonderfully spicy and very different from anything I've tasted. We did have some street food one night with Sarah and Susie, one snack of which was a little odd: a shell/bowl-like crispy thing with a dollop of spicy potato mixture inside and then the remainder of the shell filled with cold water. You put the whole shell in your mouth at once and crunched. Weird texture, but interesting.
~ traffic/roads: they're nuts. I don't think I'll ever be able to call Bangkok's traffic crazy again! Constant honking of horns, rough pavement, way too many cars, "autos" (cute little cars, kind of like a Thai tuk-tuk - almost reminded me of something from Richard Scarry's children books!), motorcycles, rickshaws, bicycles all crowded in whatever spaces were available on the streets, all with way-too-aggressive drivers. Oh, and throw in several cows, goats, a few camels and an occasional elephant wandering around. Makes for an interesting ride. (If you were able to move. A few times it was all too congested that we just had to sit there!)
~ one immense blessing was our very gracious hostesses in Delhi: Sarah and Susie. Sarah is a teacher and friend of Kristi and her roommate was working for a Christian business in Delhi. Their apartment was delightful - a haven of rest in the midst of the craziness! - and they were so generous and hospitable in their care for us. But these girls themselves were the greatest delight - immediate friends. We all really enjoyed hearing their perspectives on Indian culture, asking questions and listening to their stories, as well as "debriefing" after our full days. Great times of fellowship. They showed us around the city some and helped with our trip-planning. We definitely couldn't have done this trip without them.
~ Sunday morning worship at Delhi Bible Fellowship. The girls took us to their church for worship and it was a tremendous blessing in every way! I came to the service that morning with the prayers that God would speak the gospel to me through it (sometimes I really need others to remind me of the truths of the gospel - I don't always believe it in the same way when I read it or just tell myself). God abundantly answered that prayer. Christ was in every part of that service - from the Scripture and confession readings and preaching to the music, prayers and Lord's supper. And how awesome it was to see a room full (maybe 75-100?) of people, the majority of which were Indians, worshipping Jesus Christ and to hear several Indian men praying during the service and administering the sacraments. After just a day of observing (and hearing about) a level of brokenness, poverty and sin in this world that I had not known previously, it was beautiful to behold the One who has the power and love to redeem and restore it all (and is even now at work doing that very thing!).
~ the Taj Mahal.
Definitely a highlight! As beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring as any description I've read said it was - perhaps even more so. Also beautiful was the Agra Fort and Red Fort in Delhi and the Jama Masjid mosque we visited. What grand, amazing works of architecture! And I love just being surrounded by walls, towers, minarets and structures that are so much larger than I am - the feeling of being very small while surrounded by such architectural grandeur.
Fam
Tonight I had a get-together with the women on the MTW team and I invited Fam to join us. During the course of the evening, I asked her how she knew about Adam and Eve and where she had heard the little bit she knew about Jesus. When she told me that she had seen part of a movie about Jesus and read something about Adam and Eve in books, she said that she'd like to read more about it. I told her she ought to read the Bible. At first she wondered if the writing would be too difficult to understand, but I got out one of mine and showed her which parts would be the best to read for what she wanted to learn about (those "beginning" stories and about Jesus' life). While the others were talking, she sat there and started to read some of the places I had pointed out. I told her she could borrow that Bible and she said she was would really like to read it - and that if she didn't understand something, she would just ask me.
It's like a dream come true for me! I have been thinking recently how wonderful it would be to study the Bible with her and it looks like that's going to happen, in an informal way. Please keep praying for my friend - that God will open her eyes to the truth and beauty of the gospel!
