The Present Resolution

Well, word back from Satit Kaset, the school to which I applied back at the end of May has been a long time coming. During the past 10ish days while I was enjoying a wonderful time of community, encouragement & service at Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp, I was sent an e-mail from the school's administration. It turns out that, during the lengthy process of my application procedure (delays, lost documents requests & all), Satit Kaset had filled the position that I had been applying for, and Ajarn Parichart (the second administrator with whom I was in contact) informed me that there no longer were any open positions at their school.

To boil that paragraph down into a more potent, compact form, it looks like the Lord has closed the door for my return to Thailand until further notice, and that He indeed has plans for me to continue onward in His service within the realm of this hemisphere.

Thanks for all of your prayers. It, actually, is encouraging to me & exciting to know that I can now start working on pursuing a definite direction until He whisks me away to another random assignment whenever He does will :)

Those of you in Thailand, I miss you much & I will continue to do so; the same holds true for my American compadres. My fellow Canadians: I look forward to advancing the Kingdom's borders alongside you as we march together in this land with the Lord at our lead.

Leap(?)

Hi everyone / random blog-reading people:

I'm posting this message because I believe that you who read this blog are praying types of people & that all of you—in one way or another—may have some interest in my Thailand activities.

A few weeks ago, one of my former associates from GES who now teaches at Satit Kaset—an International Program school based on the Kasetsart University campus in Bangkok—informed me of an open "assistant librarian" position with the school. He told me that I would probably be a good fit, that the school was a great place to work (from his fresh perspective, having just been hired in May) and that I should seriously consider applying for the job.

Being a person who likes to keep his options open, I figured that there would be no harm in me applying to Satit Kaset and seeing what (if anything) would come from it. A little more than a week ago, I e-mailed my resume to one of the school's Ajarns / administrators, telling her that I was interested in the open position, and I just received word back from her this morning. The school seems interested in my skills, and would like to further pursue the possibility of my employment at Satit Kaset: they asked me to fill out an application form & also send them copies of my academic transcripts. If they continue to like what they see, I may be up for an interview & possibly an offer of employment back in Bangkok this fall.

Here is where the subject of this e-mail gets its purpose, and here is where I need your help. Over the past 6 weeks, God has been making it clear to me & I, in turn, have been making it clear to God that I should be (and, indeed am) willing to work for Him wherever, whenever, however He would like me to be. This, of course, also includes the possibility of me giving up all of the plans & goals that I have had for my life—even the plans I used to hold so strongly—in North America (which every person holds, since nobody starts off assuming that they will be leaving their home-country & living their life somewhere else) and pursue ministry / work in Thailand. My request, therefore, is for your prayers. I ask and even urge you to pray for me at this time. Pray that God would give me wisdom and discernment; that He would continue to guide me where He would want me to be, and that I, in turn, would be willing & humble enough to listen and follow Him wherever it is that He may take me.

Right now, I can't say with 100% certainty that I will be returning to Thailand: that, still, is in the palm of God's hands. There still is an application process through which I need to pass before getting a job with Satit Kaset. If it is God's will that I return, though, I would ask that you guys pray with me to see this happen (or, if God so has in mind, another better opportunity). If, however, the Lord has other plans for my future, I would ask that you join with me in prayer also, so that God would make it clear to me in this situation by closing this door, breaking off this opportunity and showing me a new direction that my life should take.

It's an interesting time for me right now, one that honestly has me a bit scared since even I cannot see the ledge to where God is asking that I jump. Nonetheless, I know for certain that He is saying, "Jump!" Right now is that interesting moment where faith is tested; and where God must move to catch me in this leap of faith and place me on the very ledge He desires me to walk along.

Thank you all very much for your prayers in this situation & in this time. I'll be certain to let you all know where I end up landing.

Humbly in the service of our Glorious Father, who knows all things & works all things both to His good and to our own, I remain.

April

It's Palm Sunday. I just finished preaching at the church plant which I've been involved in. I'm emotionally drained and I feel like finding a diversion or an escape from reality. So that being said, this update will probably be short (a muffled "Hooray!" can be heard from the audience, no?).

I leave to return to Canada on the 26th of April. The last day of classes was on Friday last week, which has left this past week to be filled with library cataloguing minus the student interaction. Saying my goodbyes was hard. I will greatly miss my students. My two-year compatriot, Jonathan and I both had to choke back tears as we bid our Grade 11 students farewell. After having said goodbye to all my students from each grade level, I briskly walked to my bedroom & proceeded in a small emotional collapse. The only thought that was in my brain, after knowing that that day marked the end of my regular interaction with those kids, was: "We could have done more." Each thought turned to asking why I didn't get up earlier; why I didn't stay up later & push off my time-insensitive work activities until later in the evening, when there weren't students around. I asked myself why I didn't try to interact with people or perform some sort of outreach ministry on Saturdays or Sundays; why I had gone to the beach that one weekend; why I pray more; love more; serve more. Looking back, I can see my emotionally-overloaded brain responding as it should when the reality of separation from those one loves becomes blatantly apparent. The worst of it, though, wasn't the separation from my Christ-believing students—it was knowing that there were still so many that were left outside the kingdom. It still breaks my heart. All I can do, though, is trust that God will use others in the Kingdom to reach those destined for salvation and hope that indeed every one of them belongs to that group.

This year has been a difficult one for me in terms of relationships. I've watched as a handful of my friendships with people—staff and students alike—have evaporated over what amounts to nothing more than bad communication (up to the point of a refusal to communicate). I'll spare the dramatic details in each case, save for the fact that only one has started toward the road of reconciliation. One of the others has told me to not talk to them for at least a year; another has told me that I was never their friend to begin with. How these things happened, I still am uncertain; all I know is that one-way relationship repair is about as possible as illumination from a broken light bulb.

I'm ready to come home. I cherish the relationships that I have & I know that they will remain persistent in my life. I know that I have impacted people in my time here. I know that I have encouraged people both in coming toward an initial relationship with Christ and in growing closer to Jesus in an already established relationship.

I have one more week of full-time work in the library, and I believe that my goal of cataloguing the non-fiction collection indeed will come to fruition. Next week Wednesday, I'm flying to Taiwan for a 10-day excursion on that island before returning to Thailand, packing up my things & jetting to Canada.

There have been talks about the church I'm working with to have me sponsored through the Mennonite Brethren missions' board in Thailand, but as I said in my previous post, the pragmatic road-blocks to / the requisites for my return to this country have not vanished. Pray that God's will would be done in the next 4 months of my life and that, in that time, the Lord will make all things clear.

I'm working on having one of my students & friends—in fact, she's a daughter of one of the families in the planted church—come for a visit to Canada in July/August for the purposes of exposing her to Christian community over on this side of the world. Presently, I feel that the Thai Church has incorporated much of the ineffective aspects of Western Christianity's form to the point of—at times—ritualising procedure at the cost of promoting the development of deeper relationships in Christ. The most effective Christian environment that I've ever been a part of has been Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp, and it is to this ministry that I'm hoping to bring this girl for a month. Pray that God would oversee the logistics of this Christian cultural exchange & that it would be a prosperous venture.

Look at that: 200 words shorter! My next update will probably be while in Taiwan and posted during my short return in Thailand.