December Oh-Eight

Hello family & friends in North America,

Again, it blows my mind to think about how two weeks have already passed & how, in a little under three weeks, we'll celebrate the culmination of 2008 & usher in the last year of single digits in this third millennium since our Lord's physical manifestation.

As the time has flown by, many of the events in these 14 days seem rather fleeting also, but I'm sure that they have importance somewhere to some people, so I'll relay them to you now.

For those of you who've been tuned in to the international scene, you probably heard about how the PAD stormed, occupied & blockaded Suvarnabhumi International Airport over here in Bangkok. You probably also heard that it took a week of cancelled flights & stranded passengers before the constitutional court ruled in favour of the PAD, calling for the leadership of the governing party in Thailand to be stripped of their offices & denied political authority for five years, owing to corruption & vote-fixing in last year's election. You also probably heard that flights have since resumed & that everything's pretty much back to normal. In fact, you guys probably know more about it than we do: while living in Bangkok, it has been difficult to tell from our surroundings that any political turmoil whatsoever transpired. Honestly, the only way that I even knew that there was unrest was from people in Canada asking me how things were over here. My usual answer was "Fine? Why, is there supposed to be something that I should know about?"

Indeed, very little has seemed to change before the uprising & very little has changed after the uprising (save for less white faces), and it's life as usual over here in the good ol' BKK. In fact, flights seem to be back on schedule and everything, which is why some of you may see me in 7 or 8 days.

As the year draws to its close, so do classes meet their expiration date before Christmas. We have four days of school left before the break & 2 days of Christmas program celebrations this upcoming weekend. I've been asked to act in the official program—a small bit part, but one that requires an adult actor. It should be pretty good. I've yet to memorise my lines, but I'm not too worried.

What does worry me a little bit is this surprise that I discovered on Wednesday this week. I woke up one day & realised that I had a tick dining on my haematic fluids (that's "blood" in normal-speak)! How did it get there? That's another story which will follow shortly. Anyway, the reason why this tick worries me is because apparently 3 in 10 ticks from the region where I probably acquired it carry pathogenic bacteria, which if left untreated, potentially can damage my internal organs permanently & possibly even lead to death. I wouldn't be so concerned, except for the fact that the lymph nodes closest to where the tick was hiding have been persistently tender since the day I removed said beastie. I think I may go to the hospital today just in case (better safe than sorry, right?)...

Last weekend was a long weekend, due to the King's birthday. Because of this, one of the families at GES gave out a general invitation to the teachers to go on a trip up to Lopburi & make a few stops along the way: one, to see a waterfall in Khao Yai National Park (a UN World Heritage Site) and two, to see the famous sunflower fields that were blooming this time of year. I went along on this trip & am not certain at which stop I acquired my arachnous parasite, but it had to have been some time on that trip, since there isn't any brush to walk through in Nonthaburi...

Alright, that's pretty much all there is to tell at this installation. My birthday this year was one of the best on record: I didn't have to remind people that it was my birthday! My grade 11 students, the witty bunch they are, ran up to me during the morning announcements / flag ceremony & presented me with a shopping bag filled with Coke Zero bottles (*Ahh* they know me too well!); after school, one of my students who no longer attends GES stopped by to visit (and it was her birthday the week previous, so we co-celebrated) and _then_ about 8 of the teaching staff decided to head out to eat a celebratory birthday meal with me at Fuji—a Japanese restaurant—at The Mall. But it didn't stop there, either: while 6 of the girls decided to go watch "Twilight" later that evening, the rest of us went to eat ice cream & then grab a less girlie movie to watch back at school. It was stellar.

Things to pray about in this last week of school before the break:

• The Christmas program. That the students, teachers & support staff would all be un-stressed & that what _should_ be stressed would be the news/memorial celebration of Jesus' birth.


• My job situation & my students. This may potentially be my last week of teaching at GES. There are plans in the making to get me working full-time (as was the original plan) in the library, so that when the school-year is finished, the online catalogue would be completed & that the books themselves would have a consistent & effective method of organisation.


• My health. That I don't have some weird disease from the tick that I acquired last weekend.


• Wisdom for the future. Pray that God would continue to give me direction: that He would open & close doors as needed for me as I pursue His will in my life. How long does He want me in Thailand? In what capacity do I enter / stay (my work visa expires mid-July 2009, and I'd need an official purpose to stay longer)?


• Safety. Many teachers & students will be travelling this break. I'll be flying out in a little more than 6.5 days from the time I write this. Where will I go? Canada. Will I see you? Maybe: that depends on how flexible our schedules are. I'll be in Canada until the 3rd, when I fly back to Thailand & resume the rest of the school year.

Any questions, comments or concerns? You can e-mail me. If, though, you're okay with waiting, give me a shout when I'm on the same soil as you are. That said, I probably won't give another update on this blog until January. Merry Christmas & happy New Year!

The End of November

Well, faithful viewers, it's that time again. Time to be whisked away from the snowy, frosty climes of wintry Canada, and by the mere power of suggestion, find yourself amidst the hustle-bustle of smog, people, traffic and sun in Bangkok. Let the adventure begin... Now.

I'm sitting here on this, the penultimate day of November, in a Starbucks sipping on an over-priced iced-tea, typing away on my PDA with a sinful wedge to my right, that they call "cranberry bliss," which tempts my taste buds as it screams to be slowly savoured till it's gone—bit by bit—into the depths of my stomach. This notion of "bit by bit" reminds me that each passing day accumulates a wealth of hours until its exchange equals the weight of a fully-spent month. And that is precisely what I have before me: a November gone full-by in what should only really feel like a week. There are three months left in my contract here at GES, and many paths lie ahead. None of them, however, glare as the obvious route to proceed. Here's why.

Over the past several months being here, one of the Thai families that I have become quite close with has been mulling over the idea of starting up a church / outreach ministry in our local community. Many variations on this theme have been discussed, including buying a building & operating the venue as a café during business hours while providing Spiritual nourishment to a potentially overlapping clientèle in the evenings. These plans were always great & it excited me to hear about them—that there could be a less rigid, more accessible avenue for new Christians to experience Christ in community. I had asked for your prayer concerning part of this venture earlier in the month, regarding the acquisition of a building for said project. My last update brought tidings that the Lord looked favourably on this step & granted access to the building for this purpose (hooray God!). There are new developments in the progression of this church / outreach ministry.

Ten days ago, the mother of this Thai family asked to meet with me after school in a coffee shop at the Big C shopping centre [a mini-mall of sorts, for those of you who haven't been to Thailand ;)] to talk about this church plant. Arriving to meet her there, I was a little surprised to see that she had brought along her Thai pastor friend. "Hrmm... I wonder what this is all about?" I wondered to myself as I met them, sat and began the meeting.

We started talking about the new church building & some ideas about what they were thinking about doing with the ministry. Soon, the conversation moved toward the leadership model that the church would have & it became clear that this Thai pastor sitting with us was ready to take up a position of leadership in the new community alongside this family. They started talking about some of the middle- to long-term plans & visions that they had for this ministry, which seemed both intriguing & ambitious for this project. After talking about these things, they then both turned to me and asked, "We were wondering if you would be interested in helping us be a part of leading this church."

I told them that I was honoured that they would think of me, but that I would be pretty busy with my schoolwork at GES until April. They understood, and then said that perhaps I could do more with them after the school-year ended. At this, I reminded them that my contract with GES would expire in April, and that after that, my length of stay in Thailand would be extremely short, given my lack of continued employment. This didn't seem to faze them, citing that there knew of organisations that could help me stay and work with them on this project. I was beginning to get at what they were hinting toward, so I asked, "How long would you like me to stay and help you with this church?"

"As long as you want," they replied.

And there's the kicker. I had officially been asked by a group of Thai Christians to jump into an explicit missionary partnership. Full stop. I nearly crapped my pants. During one of my prayer times with God at the end of October, the idea of staying in Thailand was brought to mind, and this was punctuated with the idea of partnering with this Thai family to bring this church plan project to life in January. I thought about it during that prayer time in October, took a deep breath and said, "Lord, if You want me to stay in Thailand & work with this church, then I am willing to do so."

I never thought at that time that He would actually take me up on my willingness to serve here. I mean, so many times I've heard & read about how Isaiah responded, "Here am I. Send me,” to God when the Lord asked, "Whom shall I send?" (Is 6:8), and often I have told God that I would be willing to serve Him in this place or that, but never has He ever actually cashed in to my submission/willingness until now. I mean: holy crap. The full weight of what I had offered to the Lord suddenly fell full-force into my lap. Staying in Thailand indefinitely would mean that all—all—of my goals, all of my dreams—all of my plans that I had laid for my life already—could potentially be completely wiped off the slate. Forever. The idea of trading my life in Canada, with its comfortable environment; familiar language & customs; storehouse of supportive family & friends, for a life serving God in Thailand, where I know almost nobody; where I can communicate with only a handful of people; where I have no access to the pervasive wealth of free refills on diet cola that I have come to love; where I will forever be an outsider—and visibly so—didn't seem all that attractive. But yet, God has called.

I am hesitant and uneasy with this development. I mean, it quite literally has put me in a position of either: "Give up everything you've known, everything you have & everything you've been planning for yourself and follow Me," or: "Go home and admit that You had been foolish in making rash statements. Pick up on where life left off & serve the Lord in my home community with my friends & family, growing the Church from the inside out." Of course, the hidden implication in option number two is this: "Recant the statement that I had given to God, where I professed to be willing to serve Him in whatever He wanted and keep all that I've known and all that I've become accustomed to because it's easier & safer and more comfortable."

I must. I am, from the depths of my soul, compelled to follow in submission to the Lord in this. I cannot, cannot, cannot walk away from this—even though the majority of my being is aching to fly home to Canada in April & stay there for a long, long time. I must pursue this calling insofar as He desires me to be here. How long that is, I haven't the foggiest idea. Could be months; could be decades. All I know is that I must follow.

Pray—please pray—for me and for wisdom from God in how to proceed with this development in my life. Honestly, I feel a tad bit blindsided by this all & I'm not too sure where to even begin tackling all that lies ahead.


All That Lies Ahead

What does the future hold? Good question. My parents & I had in mind to have me back in Canada for Christmas this year, but the political unrest over here in Thailand may have other plans in store: The anti-corruption protestors have seized control and occupied both of Bangkok's airports, refusing to disperse until the current prime minister steps down & an election be called for a new government. All air traffic to & from Bangkok has been cancelled until further notice, so there's a good possibility that I won't be seeing a Canadian Christmas this year.

About the School

For those interested in the activities at GES, here's the scoop:

• There are three weeks left of school before Christmas break, and there are three days (at least) of no school in those weeks, due to holidays & Christmas programs.


• This year's music teacher has asked for my help with the Christmas program. She got wind that I have training in acting & theatrical production, so she's wanting to put me to work both in acting & as an acting coach for the students in this year's production. It's a cool idea; it just needs a bit of organisation & synchronisation so that we're both on the same page & working toward the same outcome.


• An interesting shift of attitude has occurred in the oldest students on campus since the new term began. What once was a group of lively, enthusiastic & eager students has now become a gang of aloof, unmotivated pains in the neck who no longer give teachers the time of day / respect deserved. It's discouraging & atypical of these students. All of the high school staff (except for maybe their female teachers, both of which have not noticed a change) are concerned about this new shift in demeanour.


• We finally have a library server & digital catalogue software set up & installed. It's cool to see that things are progressing... But the daunting task of indexing & tagging every single book in the collection looms over my head, and I'm pretty confident that—with my teaching Computers—the arduous task of inputting the book records into the system will not be completed by the end of this school year. I've already talked to one of the school's owners, and she has expressed zero interest in keeping me on to see the job completed at this point. Perhaps the enormity of this task will become more apparent to her in the upcoming months, and that the importance of having a completed catalogue also materialises in her thoughts...

Items for Prayer

• Pray that God would give me wisdom & direction in seeing exactly what He wants from me in Thailand and with this church plant. I'll send out a letter soon detailing exactly what this project hopes to accomplish (and already has begun to accomplish).


• Pray that the resources, funds & supplied for this church plant would come together. We need 8,000 baht / month for rent & about 3,000 / month for ongoing utilities (a total of about $350/month in operating expenses for the building). Pray that we could acquire some chairs, a few tables and a water cooler to furnish the building.


• Pray for Thailand & its unstable political environment. Pray that wisdom would reign over each side's actions and that resolution would come swiftly.


• Pray for staff & students as we prepare for our Christmas program—what potentially is one of the greatest tools to present Christ & His good news to families & community members that GES has at its disposal.

More later. I just checked my word count & this letter's scraping dangerously close to the 2,000 word mark. Sorry for my verbosity for those of you who don't like to read! Hopefully the bulleted lists help you access the highlights of my updates.

Thanks to all of you who read & my gratitude for all you who pray,

November 2008

Well, it shouldn't come as a surprise that another two weeks have rolled on by, but I can't shake the notion of how quick time seems to travel over here, thirteen degrees north of the equator. Heck, my birthday is less than three weeks away already! It seems like yesterday that I was working for my cousin moving office furniture from one location to another, but I haven't assembled a desk or a cubicle in almost six months now. Goodness!


Exciting News

For those of you who have been following my updates closely, you'll remember that my last letter asked you to pray for the purchase of a building to house a new church plant in Nonthaburi that would minister to the church body in this area. I write this even now with a lump forming in my throat: God is good! The purchase was approved by the bank, the seller accepted the terms and there is a firm possession date! Oh, it's an amazing thing—the family who's been looking to do this has been searching for almost six months to find a suitable location, and time after time, they get turned down either by the banks or by the sellers (i.e., someone else bought it moments before they made an offer). Praise God with us for the provision of this building! Please, however, do not stop praying about this project: there still is much work ahead. I've been told that we can start looking in / decorating the building on the 15th of December, but that actual possession/moving in will be come by 1 January, 2009. The family has asked me to come & look at the place sometime in this upcoming week, and from all information that I've received, it's going to be an empty shell. Would you be interested in supporting this extension of the kingdom financially? If so, please, I encourage you to fire me off an e-mail!


A Personal Victory

As far as school & my work from 7-5 Monday to Friday goes... I have finally succeeded in re-establishing the non-fiction section of the library, following the Dewey Decimal categorisation in a (loose) numerically ordered fashion. I'm not sure the last time the library was this organised…

Currently, the library now is alphabetised for both the elementary & high school fiction collections; the non-fiction collection is classified semi-consistently and students are beginning to learn how proper organisation actually works! The major projects that loom on the horizon right now, though, include re-tagging the multitude of books that previous librarians, in their sloth, just designated "REF" (reference books), whether or not they actually were reference materials. As it stands, there is no semblance to the "REF" collection and encyclopedias are shoved together with sesame street readers and colouring books all on random shelves throughout the remainder of the western wall.

Ominous project number two is now rearing its head also: the creation and digitisation of a library catalogue. As of this past week, the library now has a new computer that will act as a website database server, where staff & students from all over campus will be able to search library records & see if we have the books that they are looking for (and where those books are located, as well). Of course, this means physically tagging every book on campus with a bar code & entering book information into the database (some will be automated, if the ISBN has a matching record in other library databases around the world, but for the remainder of our books, etc., we'll have to manually create new records). It's gonna be gruelling & I'm not sure if little ol' me will be able to complete that task all by myself before April comes...


Odds & Ends

Last weekend, GES had its overnight camp program, where we take students off campus to cushy hotel environments & pretend to teach them how to survive in the wilderness (or at least that is the stated purpose, I've been told). What we actually end up doing is just hanging out & having fun—pretty much like a summer camp atmosphere with very little obligations. This year's program went relatively well, save for a few instances of poor judgement on some students' parts. We had to send a handful of students home early & dole out over a half-dozen suspensions for breaking some pretty serious rules... *sigh* teenagers and their lack of forward thought. How do I know? Because I remember quite well how my brain used to work: I also thought I was a genius and that I considered all of the outcomes of all of my actions, but a decade later looking back, I now realise how foolish some of my choices actually were (don't get me wrong—they were fun things; just not always the brightest choices).

This upcoming weekend, the majority of the staff will be heading out on a church retreat along with the majority of our ex-pat English-speaking church, CCC. A handful of others including myself will not be attending. I don't know. For me, I have always found difficulty in feeling like I belong in any sort of community—mostly because my brain works on quite a different wavelength than most people's, and also because I would characterise myself as being a shy individual. I'm a big advocate of organic Christianity—growing out from a tight-knit core, incorporating more & more into the community as it builds outwards—and when I come face to face with the majority of Christian communities which work in the more 'normal person' way of social mixers & big, aloof parties, I feel myself to be a fish out of water. Christian community & finding a real church home in Thailand has been the most elusive thing for me in my year & a half living here...

Probably the biggest reason that I will not be going to the retreat is because of the preparations that I feel I need to make for my classes on the following week. Not having a degree in Computers & not having any training at all in Library / Information Management has put me in a sticky position of having to learn & master content as I go along—just like last year, but now again with new material. The rest of the staff this year have almost all been placed in positions that jive with their university/college education (what class do you teach with a Drama / Psychology degree?) and I think that that gives them a bit of an edge in this whole school/planning ordeal. Oh well / mai bpen lai / no worries. Don't sweat the little stuff, right?


Concluding remarks

To condense this update for you in a pithy point-form version:

• We got the building for the church plant & possession begins 1 Jan, '09.
• My work in the library continues to be productive, despite its daunting nature
• Overnight camp went well, despite student behaviour hiccups

What you could pray for:

• This new church plant / project in Nonthaburi. That the details and the resources would come together so that the ministry can charge ahead at full steam in January. If you, someone you know, or an organisation that you're aware of would be willing to lend a financial hand in acquiring the supporting infrastructure (chairs, light bulbs, tables, paper, paint, coffee, etc.) for the physical location & / or for the ministry itself, please contact me.


• The students who made some unwise choices this past week—that they would be open to the benefits of correction & not become bitter/resentful from the punishments, and that this may provide an avenue toward a relationship with Christ/breaking down walls


• Continued staff unity, professionally & more importantly, spiritually. That we would grow together as one body & one unit, supporting each other as we try to live out Christ's spiritual mandate of making disciples throughout the world.

That's all I got for now. Check back again in a couple weeks for further updates!

Exciting Events

Now, I know, I know: something's up. Daniel is writing an update much sooner that the hoped-for two weeks & even much sooner that the usual 3 or 3.5 week interval. Well, that's because something _is_ up.

On Tuesday this past week, I was given some pretty awesome news. I was told that last week Saturday, one of my students decided to pursue a relationship with Jesus. This guy's story of salvation has been a long one coming. When he first started coming to GES a few years ago, he was—as many students are—all out Buddhist, but after many positive interactions with the Christian staff, he became interested in the Jesus Christ character.

One day before my time, students were given the chance to choose to follow Jesus & at that time, he declared that he wanted to become Christian, but when he went home & told his parents that he was going to become a Christian, his mother broke down crying & pretty much said that it would kill her if he decided to reject the Buddhist faith & that no son of hers would ever think of doing such a thing to the mother that he loved. Seeing how distraught that this made his mother, he decided not to follow through with it, and he said that he wouldn't become a Christian because of her.

Years passed, and this student has been somewhat partial to Christianity. At the beginning of school last year, however, he was still wearing the Buddhist protection amulet around his neck & under his shirt, but as the months & seasons have progressed, his desire for Jesus has also grown. By the end of last year, I didn't see any amulets any more, and at the beginning of this year, he started to come to some church services with us & he even chose to respect Christian prayer. The one thing, however, that was keeping him from committing his life fully to Christ was the fear of his mother's reaction.

This past Saturday, I was told that Katak chose to relinquish that fear & embrace a relationship with Jesus despite the cost. He was on a trip with his best friend's family (who are Christians) & when they were at a Saturday church service, the pastor called people forward, first for healing (this just happened to be the same pastor of the same church where the quadriplegic man & the paralysed woman were healed), then for socio-emotional problems and finally, he asked if there was anybody in the room who wanted to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Katak went forward, prayed & wept, but he wept with tears of joy I'm told.

It excited me to no end, knowing that he has decided to follow Jesus, but I also know how difficult that the choice must be for him. Pray that he would be encouraged & strengthened by the Holy Spirit as he grows & becomes established as a Christian in a very non-Christian country. Pray also for his family, that they too would be moved to receive Christ—pray that Katak's decision would provoke curiosity & interest in this Jesus who means so much to Katak that he would risk the spurning of his mother. Pray pray pray.

Another really exciting thing is that the new church project that I've been mentioning in my past updates—the one which seeks to provide a spiritual home/community for the 16-36 year-olds (primarily, but not exclusively) in Nonthaburi & the surrounding area—has a potential site lined up! It's a less than 5-minut taxi ride from GES & would serve as a great hub for Christians in the area that don't have a spiritual home. P. Pang, the mother of some of my students, is heading up this project with her husband & the support of other Christians in the area. She meets with the bank on Monday to discuss mortgage possibilities for the building & the land. Pray pray pray, please pray that this site would be what God has in mind & may that be made apparent. That's my round about shy-on-faith way of asking you to pray a.) for the building to come into possession for the purpose of this church & b.) that the financial requirements for this building would be met.

Remember, she meets with the bank on Monday—that's Sunday evening for you guys, so I would urge & plead with you to be in prayer with us at that time (and even up to that time, and even after that time) about this project. My soul leaps within me when I consider the potential impact that this ministry could have on the spiritual well-being of the Christian church in this part of Thailand.

That's all I've got for now. School begins its second term on Monday & we head out on a "camping” excursion at the end of next week. I'll let you know how that goes next time ;)

Peace.

October

I can't believe that October is already 2/3 finished! Man, time flies when you have a pile of stuff on your plate.

October, as I just alluded to, has been a busy, busy month. To put it in perspective, it's the end of GES's first academic term, which means final exams, report cards & massive evaluations. Being the librarian, IT guy, resource manager & high school computer teacher, let's just say that there was a bit of massive multitasking going on. However, on top of the regular humdrum of end of term, the best possible thing decided to happen: our school's computer network was infected with a virus.

Now, usually, this wouldn't be a very big deal in most organisations, because most organisations run antivirus software on their computers (like GES does), but here's the catch: GES, being an institution with widely-available access to Thai-version software (aka "pirated") was "protecting" its computers with a non-functional antivirus software suite. Pretty much, this means that the computer would tell you that it had a virus on it, but it had no method of actually fixing the problem.

The type of virus that infected our computer network was a very pernicious worm, that would make copies of itself in every unprotected folder that it could find & then broadcast itself to every computer on the network 3 times every second, which meant that as soon as you cleaned one computer, it would be barraged by about 800 new copies of the virus by the time you blinked your eyes. The problem was manageable on staff computers, as they were advised to remove themselves from the wireless network, scan their computers, do a clean-up & sit on their feet until the problem was solved. The real problem came around when we looked at our file server.

All of GES's important documents— including everything from students' attendance & academic records right up to Ministry of Education accreditation requirements—have been residing on one computer on the school's network, using one consumer-grade hard drive. Now, consumer-grade hard drives are designed for what's called "light duty," aka, random access of files every once & a while. When the virus hit the network, it caused a burst of activity on the server, making the hard drive work non-stop for 4 days before I decided to finally pull the network plug as a last resort to ensure the hard drive didn't literally go up in smoke & GES lose all of its files.
After finally containing the virus, cleaning the file server & checking its hard drives, we discovered that the main hard drive on the server was reporting a projected end-of-life on the 10th of October—right before report cards were due. This called for immediate action, and I was sent on a mission to find some sort of solution that would both fix the problem _and_ ensure that the data on our hard drive(s) wouldn't be placed in such jeopardy again.

***NERD ALERT!! Pass the next paragraph or two, if you don't like computer jargon ;)***

For the computer nerds in the crowd, here's what my solution eventually became (due to budgetary constraints): a new motherboard with 2GB DDR2-PC2300 ram, supporting our current CPU (P4 Northwood) and upgr3adeable to a Core2 Duo on the future; 3 new 120 GB 7200rpm WD SATA-2 HDDs installed in the on-board controllers & designed to be configured as a software managed RAID-5 under XP Pro (using a registry tweak & some hex editing of disk management dlls).

Now, as I tried to put all this stuff together, everything went smoothly—even the XP Pro RAID-5 management... Until I rebooted. Turns out that due to SP3, the wonderful work-around to use RAID-5 in XP Pro had been compromised by the Microsoft guys, and every time the system rebooted, the array needed to regenerate. Uugh. Then I noticed something peculiar... One of the drives I had purchased for the array was reporting bad sectors. It was brand new! In fact, every time I ran chkdsk to fix the sectors, more & more clusters came back as reportedly "bad." I whipped out my S.M.A.R.T. log reader, looked at the drive details & discovered that the hard drive which was sold to me a "new" actually had about 160 logged hours on it. Hrm.. Something was suspect. At any rate, the drive needed to be returned because if it was already reporting bad sectors, the problem would only get worse & RAID-5 or no, the data was running a high risk of compromise.
Round two to the computer place, Pantip. This time, I commandeered our helpful & friendly Jack-of-all-trades, Mr. Mike—a Filipino missionary working at the school who is semi-fluent in Thai—to come with & help with the return process. A few hours later, and we were back at the school with a fresh drive ready to be thrown into the array.

Because the software RAID was initialising every time Windows rebooted, it became painfully clear that a different OS was needed. Thankfully, I had enough insight to purchase a Thai copy of Win2k3—which was originally going to be used as an experimental install for our new library database server—and with that, I tossed out XP & gave the file server a proper server OS. Night & day difference, let me tell you. Night and day! I had never before in my life touched a server OS, and now that I've seen what they can do... I am in awe.

***End Nerd Alert***

Of course, all this computer fixing stuff that I needed to do was considered high-priority, but I also needed to do it after business hours, seeing as I was still teaching & running the library from 7:30-5:30. Talk about late nights. And talk about doing all that as well as preparing my own grades for report cards (who woulda thought creating report card grades for 97 computers students would be time consuming?). Then, of course, there was the room provisioning/registration for overnight camp, the outstanding library fines reports that needed to be given to teachers so that delinquent fines could be collected before report cards were sent home, the negotiation of the new library software purchase, other software/hardware meetings regarding data security & numerous administrative hiccups along the way (apparently, high school students are required to have a computers grade, even if they're not enrolled in any computers class due to military service!).

Sigh. I'm glad that those weeks are finished. The first thing that I did on Friday after school was go out with a dozen of the other teachers to an Irish pub & celebrate the beginning of our break with a pint of Guinness, a huge bacon cheeseburger and a pint of Hoegaarden to finish off the evening. Delightful. Delightful & well deserved.

Other things that happened in October so far go like this:

• Two weeks ago, I was invited by the pastor of the same church up in Lopburi (small provincial town 2.5 hours north of Bangkok) to come back & preach again. I did. It went well, though there were less people in attendance that Sunday when compared to the one previous. Speculations were made that it might've been due to rice planting season.


• That same Sunday, I asked to try some barbecued rat... And the family with which I went to Lopburi bought me a whole rodent. I ate it with some of the teachers later that evening on campus. Rat tastes exactly like baby-back pork ribs. No lie. If you're a Facebooker, I've a video posted with us eating it.


• The term is over & many teachers have gone abroad, as per usual October breaks. My original plans were to go to Chiang Mai with a group of teachers, but due to the intensity of my past few weeks, I had absolutely zero desire to do stuff... And as a result, I'm staying in Bangkok for the break. The past 2 weeks of school typically had me in the office from 7:30 in the morning until 2:30 at night (no jokes, people. It was rough. My caffeine consumption went from 23 baht per week to 150 baht per day just to stay awake for those 14 days. This past Friday, we got back from the pub at midnight; I didn't crawl out of bed until 2:00 Saturday afternoon. That was an amazing sleep). I'm planning on laying low in the city until November, when the term resumes.

I don't know if there's much more to say at this point... If you're a praying person, you could pray that:

• the teachers return refreshed & encouraged from the much needed break
• the students, also, would be refreshed from the break
• our focus as an organisation would gravitate back toward a central goal of displaying Christ & that our daily/weekly activities would reflect that.
• over the break, teachers & staff would be spiritually revived & willing to go the extra mile to make the ministry potential maximised.

A special note/prayer request:

One of the families at GES—the very same that takes me to Lopburi—is looking to plant a church in their community, one that is directed on reaching the 16-26 year-old demographic. Being Bangkok, real estate is not cheap & they're having difficulties finding a space wherein the church could possibly meet: options—renting or buying—seem bleak, considering the financial situation. Many of the Christian students at GES don't have a church that they can attend, and this would be an amazing opportunity to meet the spiritual needs of the community. The idea is to run a café on the building's main floor as finance-generation for ongoing operational costs, have the second floor as a meeting space for the church & sub-let the third floor to students or others who need a place to live (for further finance generation / outreach [perhaps rent at an extremely low rate]). The problem is the start-up cost(s). If you all could pray for the Lord to work in this situation & provide a means for this project to be realised, that would be awesome. Furthermore, if you—any of you—know of any organisations or groups or people what would be interested in sponsoring/supporting or investing in such a venture, please let me know. I'm working with this family to see if we can actually make this thing a reality.

Thanks for reading this (again) novella. Your time & patience with my verbosity is greatly appreciated :).

A Knowingly Late Update…

Hi RSS feed services, webcrawlers / search engine robots & the occasional human reader!


Well, I'm going to apologise up front for this being a late update. It's been, I think, a month since the last time I enlightened you with details of my life in Thailand. Let's hope that this upcoming month won't be as scant with updates.

To say that September has been a busy month would be a bit of an understatement. Professionally and personally alike, much has transpired in the 9th month of 2008. Here's a play by play:

• In my computers class, we started work on the final term projects—Photoshop collages. They were assigned the first week of September & they're due the last week of the semester (next week). Students being students, 85% of them hadn't even begun thinking about the assignment until this past week.


• We (the foreign administration & I) successfully canvassed for the school to invest in a digital library cataloguing tool—a huge improvement over the nonexistent catalogue that they currently have "given" me.


• I've begun organising/updating the fiction section of the library with reading level codes. The previous system was cryptic for Thai students to follow & it made (makes) for confusion when someone other than I tries to re-shelf books. The current tagging on the books classifies levels from lowest to highest thusly: JE, E, JF, F… And maybe even N after that. ESL people routinely get confused by these codes, which is why I'm beginning to phase in reading level codes by using regular polygons: easiest being a triangle, the hardest being a 6-pointed star with a + in the centre. I think it's a good system, but only time will tell….


• I've received a library assistant! Hooray! This means that the relatively simple tasks of checking in books & re-shelving items won't take up so much of my day. Instead, I can focus on organisation, streamlining & my IT responsibilities. The downside, as to which I previously alluded, is that re-shelving has been hit & miss—not only with "which books belong to which collection" but also _where_ individual books are supposed to go. I'm patiently learning longsuffering as 2 or 3 times a week, I spend a few hours of my evening re-organising the entire collection. If this pattern persists into this week, I think I'm going to have a chat with her, just to clear things up.


• The school's computer network has been growing & as a result, is experiencing growing pains. The consumer-grade components that we're using are beginning to fail, but the school seems unwilling, at times, to invest in the proper equipment their infrastructure. This problem is compounding (see the next point) & I'm getting to the point of having to sacrifice security & stability for a consistent "almost fully working" network environment (which includes internet)


• Due to Thailand's customary software piracy, the school's computer network got hit by a virus this past week which crippled pretty much everything. I say that this happened because of piracy, because the "purchased" antivirus software that the school had installed on its computers kept the computers safe from viruses as well as a screen door keeps out -40 degree winds. Our main server (where all of our teaching resources, term grades & student records) was riddled with over 13,000 (no exaggeration, folks) copies of the same virus as it gleefully spread through & infected every folder that it had time to traipse through. My entire Friday (minus teaching time) was devoted to damage control & reparations. We're still in the process of purging the network from infection…


• Last weekend was our Professional Development weekend. It was an interesting & good time, which gave us opportunities to learn & grow (if even only a little bit).


• There has been restoration in a couple of my relationships over here. Over the past couple months, two of my relationships had suffered. The first was with one of my former students, a girl who considers me her big brother—a feeling which I reciprocate. She had become increasingly distant over the past few months, owing to her being rapt by her new boyfriend. As 16 year-olds go, it's common for people that age not to understand that balance & maintenance is needed in order to keep healthy relationships in your life. Thursday last week, she had become a little overwhelmed by the realisation that not only had she inadvertently pushed me away, but also her other closest friends. We had a good, long talk & I was able to counsel her through understand why others were feeling the way they were. Her relationships now are on the mend, owing to her good efforts & humble spirit. It's awesome. I love her & I love watching her grow.
  

What's Ahead

That's mostly what I've done in the past month. Things on the horizon look something like this:

• I've been asked to speak again at the church in Lopburi, a city 2.5 hours north of Bangkok, where I met the formerly quadriplegic guy. That goes live tomorrow (probably at/before the time you read this). —I just got back from there, actually. It was good times. The pastor of teh church heard that I was interested in eating rat, so he bought me one. It's in my fridge as we speak & I'll be eating it in about a half-hour!


• This upcoming Friday will be a "work day" for GES Staff wherein we prepare for report cards, which get sent out in 10 days, and for school accreditation tasks. I, no doubt, will be busy working in the library & on other resource initiatives.


• Report cards go home in 10 days, which means that our October Break is just around the bend. I may go up to Chiang Mai for a few days with some other teachers to visit a mutual friend (Mink, for those of you who know her) that's stationed up there with Compassion International. During that break, I'd expect that I'll have enough time to write back to all of the personal correspondence that has accumulated on my desk & in my e-mail / facebook accounts. I apologise for the delay, but if you can hold out for another 10ish days, you should get a treat in your mailboxes.

What You Can Do

• You can pray for the staff. We're in the end-of-term crunch, which means accumulated stress. You can also pray for teachers' safety as they mostly go on random crazy trips throughout SE Asia during October break. You can pray (and please do, fervently) for the spiritual environment at GES. It's difficult on even the good days to be mindful of the foreign staff's personal primary objective of ministering to the students & their families for the advancement of the gospel—even if the upper echelons of the school have other objectives for us in mind. I'm pretty sure that you could ask any Christian staff member here & they'd say that we're not really supported by the school spiritually. It's produce produce produce, without the invest invest invest. Pray, also, for our students—that they'd be willing to take the risk of becoming a cultural pariah in order to gain the love & spirit-filled existence of communing with Christ.


• If you want to know more, now is a great time to ask me questions, as I should have a lot of free time in the second half of October with which I could get back to you ;).

Thanks for your patience & willingness to be involved—if even from a distance—in my semblance of ministry in Thailand.

Broken Backs & Drowning Men

Well, it's mid-September already, and the usual goings-on over here keep up at their pace. I won't bother you with repeating those details which take up the majority of my day, but what I will do, oh faithful readers, is I will tell you about some highlights in the past few weeks.


Lopburi

There is a Thai family who sends their three children to GES that I've become relatively close with over this current school year. My connection with them originated while I was teaching high school last year. The oldest daughter in this family was the highest performer in Grade 10 last year, and, because of many similar interests, we struck up a pretty good friendship. Since last year, our friendship has grown & it's absorbed the rest of her family, to a point where now they kind of consider me as a part of their family (the eldest daughter calls me her big brother; the youngest daughter refers to me as her second father and the parents see me as a close family friend). It's pretty awesome, I won't lie. From them, there is no shortage of smiles & hugs & brightened faces as I wander—often haphazardly—in & through their lives. Their love for me & their love for God has truly been a blessing to me, and it makes my impending departure 7ish months from seem all the more difficult.


I was asked by this family to go on a trip with them to a rural province called Lopburi last weekend, which is a 2.5-hour’s drive north outta Bangkok. They wanted me to come & visit a church with them up there that they've been visiting semi-regularly over the past year. Having no reason to turn them down, I decided to take them up on their offer & see what this church was like. A couple other teachers were also invited, and three of us went with this family on Saturday morning to Lopburi for a weekend.

While in the van, driving up on the highway, we were asked if we could maybe share something with the church on Sunday. At first, this was a total of 15 minutes to be shared by all three of us Farang (white people), but as the conversation progressed, it turned into the other two teachers sharing a 15-20 minute testimony each & I, sharing a 40-45 minute sermon. Despite this being a pretty short notice to prepare a message, I was thrilled. It's been close to 4 years since I've been asked by a church to speak, and although 45 minutes seems a bit daunting for a 24-hour notice, I reminded my6self that 50% of that time would be spent translating my English into Thai for the congregation. Sweet.

When we got to Lopburi on Saturday, we spent the rest of the afternoon & evening doing touristy stuff—visiting the old palace/museum & then going to feed the monkeys at the famous "monkey buffet" location at Lopburi City's centre.


Monkey Madness

It was kind of fun to feed random monkeys individual sunflower seeds as they came swarming in over rooftops, walking on power lines & then crossing streets at crosswalks to come to the city centre—a smallish park that contained the remnants of a decaying temple some hundreds of years old. The monkeys would wander up & pluck sunflower seeds from your fingers if you only showed them a single seed at a time, but they'd live up to their notoriety as being greedy animals when you displayed several seeds at once. Without hesitation, the biggest or strongest monkey around you would shove all the others aside, grab the stack of seeds in your hand and then shove them in his mouth, waiting expectantly for more. Others, not being so patient, would get the hint that you had the seeds somewhere in your hands & would begin to climb your legs & torso, meticulously searching for any cache of food that they could find.

It would have been tolerable if that was all that the monkeys were going to grab. But, monkeys are monkeys & there's a reason why Curious George was called curious. It just so happens that monkeys like bright, shiny things (we were warned to remove all jewellery before getting close to the monkeys for this reason), and while there, monkeys made off with my Thai mother's sunglasses, scampering off & playing with them—though not really knowing what they were for. And then, I saw a monkey out of the corner of my eye make a quick, low leap up toward my lower torso. Thinking that he was going to jump on me to try & find food, I braced myself for the animal's landing. But it didn't land. All I felt was a tug against my waist & I heard a little snap as the monkey started to run away with a small green & white thing in his hand. I checked my waist & noticed that my key-ring, which I always have fastened to my belt loop with a karabiner, was missing a very important item: my USB flash drive.

Stupid monkey. He knew that he had done something wrong too, because whenever I went up towards him—even offering food—he would quickly scurry away, just out of reach. I gave up chasing him when he decided to climb up atop the ruins, perching on a spire as he gnawed on my precious data.

Sunday Church

The church on Sunday was amazing. The people were friendly & the congregation had a life to it that I have not felt from a body of believers in years. All of the people who attend are dirt poor, coming in by a shared pick-up truck that collects the members as far out as 70 km into the rice fields. After the service, we all sat on the floor of the empty apartment/townhouse & ate lunch together. There, I heard a couple of amazing stories.

One of the church members was (is) a guy who is about my age, I think. Four years ago, he & his sister were in a severe car accident that left him with a serious spinal injury. Simply put, he broke his neck & was paralysed from the neck down. Now, his mother is a 75+ year old woman who's partially blind from cataracts. This frail lady now had to care for her 6-foot something, 200+ pound son, as he lay in bed unable to move, chew, go to the bathroom or do any of the things that we take for granted. Along with all of this, she had to continue to support them by working in the fields.

After three years of taking care of her son in his quadriplegic state, she met the church's pastor, who told her that his God, his Jesus was able to help her & her son. She was a bit skeptical, since the Buddhist temple in Lopburi—one that recognises the existence of a god—also said that their god could help her, and asked them to give her money to receive their god's blessings. She had been doing so for a while, but no amount of money given to that temple ever changed anything in her son's status. So, she asked him if he was serious. He told her that he indeed was serious, but that his God and his Jesus would only be able to help if she really believed that He would. She said that she did, and bringing her son to the church, the pastor & the congregation began to pray for her son.

I wasn't really told any of the details, like how long it took or what happened or how they prayed. All I was told was that after they prayed, the man who was unable to chew for himself could now move his arms & his legs. After they prayed for him, he was physically able to crawl around on his hands and knees—something that hadn't been a possibility for almost four years. He praised Jesus.

Every Sunday after that day, this son would crawl out from his house & start down the road to go meet the truck that would take him to church. There was nothing that would stop him from going & meeting with others to worship Christ. And each day that passed, his muscled began to get stronger & stronger, until one day, he was able to stand & walk again.

On one of these days, as this guy was walking again, he stumbled & fell into a deep pond that was beside the road. He was all by himself & he didn't have enough strength to swim or to pull himself toward the water's edge. All he knew was that he was sinking & that there was nothing that he could do to save himself. So he cried out, "Jesus, save me!" and he felt something like a man's hand grab him from the water & pull him on to the land. When he looked around, he didn't see a single person, and because of this, he knew that Jesus had come to his rescue.

It's a pretty awesome story. I would have had a hard time believing it, if I hadn't seen the vicious scars around his neck, clearly indicating that there indeed was severe trauma inflicted on this man's body. Today, he walks almost completely normally; a small shuffle is present in the gait of his right leg. He now is working as a recycler, gathering scrap metal & plastic, which he sells for money, bringing in about 100 baht a month (that's about $3).

I was and still am humbled when I think about this story. I think I (we) often forget the power that our God has available to us, as we push Him off to the margins of our lives.

Pray that we, at GES, would hold fast to the truths of Christ & that our faith in Him would take precedence in our actions & daily motivations. I ask that you pray for us to continue to strive for unity & to strive for seeking Him above all things.

More next time. I've another broken back story to tell then. Thanks for your prayers: they're much needed.

Necessity.

Hello, web browsers & the eyes/algorithms behind them! I'm glad that you would take time out of your busy schedule to read what I have been learning & experiencing in my many (mis)adventures in Thailand.

An Introduction

It has been a hemi-month since my last update about my tropical life on what's probably the other side of the world for those of you who're reading this. As life proceeds here at GES, it feels mostly like everybody & their soi dog is getting into a certain rhythm for daily & weekly activities. The few changes that exist have been subtle, but I think that perhaps they are important. Here's a taste of what's been going on over here...

Daily Hum Drum

In my computer teaching / technical resource management sector, things have been progressing well. I'm using Adobe's high school curriculum to base my lessons for all of my students (G7 - G12) in my classes. We're learning about the fundamentals of digital photography, and digital imaging, including the underlying theory of how computers work & interact with the information. Soon, I hope, we will get into the Adobe curriculum proper, and kids will begin to learn the wonderful wealth of resources that Photoshop (this year) has to offer.

On the backside of the same job (warning: this gets technical! For those of you who don't care about this stuff, feel free to skip ahead!), I've mostly finished the network & workstation management policies, having set up the computer lab with a single master image & ensuring system integrity through defining some local account access restrictions along with implementing 3rd party management software that nullifies users' changes to workstation files. It's been a bit of a run, and there are still several kinks to work out, but for the most part, we now actually have a working (and somewhat efficient) network, along with reliable workstations—something I think that GES has never had before.

The library slowly is coming into an alphabetised beast. I've worked my way through organising the juvenile fiction section completely & am now at "S" for elementary fiction. Hopefully, by week's end, I'll have finally restored the shelves to an order that they should have always been kept in. ...that being said, please don't ask about the non-fiction half of the library. It makes me shudder even trying to think about it. Most books on those shelves are "catalogued" as reference texts & are strewn so haphazardly among the shelves that it made the fiction section look well-maintained. Uugh.

The administration & owners of the school are collaborating in a process to acquire library cataloguing software, which would allow students to actually find specific book (much less give the school a method of keeping track of what resources we actually have on campus). We meet sometime this week (I think) with the company's rep. to discuss the possibility of purchasing said software. It would be a great leap forward for GES, and given that the current promotion from the company has the package at 40% the MSRP, the school would be foolish not to jump on-board at this point in time... But GES being the school that it is, we won't really know what is going to happen until the minute that the decision has to be made.

Social Atmosphere

It's weird now that I literally teach/interact with every single student on campus for at least thirty minutes each week. With the almost 400 wandering offspring of varying shapes, sizes and ages, I am now being bombarded by smiles & vociferous greetings as I walk through the playing fields & hallways during the day. I feel now quite like a celebrity—everybody's waving & smiling, wanting me to say "hi" back to them, whereas I don't even really know more than 50 students' names yet! Hopefully, that will get better in the days & weeks to come. I think I should be ashamed of myself if, by the end of the year, I don't know all 400 names.

Not only with the student body, do I feel a bit more attached, but even with the Thai teachers, there's a bit of a closer bond this year than last. Having a mandatory obligation to GES' "homework help" sessions for 60-90 minutes after every school day, I have much more exposure & collaboration with the Thai teachers than ever before. It's kinda cool, since this is one of the few opportunities that we ever get to work together, and all of us are working toward the same goal in that small space of time: to help those students who are struggling academically.

I still miss my older students a lot. They're the ones that I see the least, mostly because my homework help obligation consumes the first fruits of after-school time, wherein most of the students hang out before jetting off to castles in the sky. The few that remain after homework help is done don't stay for very long, but I try to make the most of every opportunity that I have.

Spiritual Developments

Speaking of making the most of every opportunity, I've decided, in my choice to "pursue excellence" in the most excellent way, that it would be more effective of me to spend time with my high school students during their devotional times (while being led by Mr. Jonathan, their English teacher) than it would be for me to plug away at organising books & managing resources. It's a scant 30 minutes each day, but it's 30 more minutes than I originally had to spend with them. It allows me to retain some semblance of relationship with these kids in what otherwise would be an empty, uninvolved greeting as we pass by each other during our vastly different daily routines. Pray that this would allow doors to open.

A couple of the guys this year have decided to get together in a weekly Bible study, which is a refreshing change from the year past. While it's still not a spiritual gathering of the whole community on campus, it's a step in the right direction. Pray that these times—and the times that the girls get together—would be spiritually edifying & growing times for each person involved. If you could pray that there would eventually be interest in a weekly spiritual gathering for the entire team, that would be awesome. Currently, there is a bi-weekly evening "church" type of get together on campus, but it feels woody, artificial & devoid of real community/fellowship/spiritual dynamism.

What I'm Learning & What I'm Thinking

These past few weeks have been a good kick in the butt for me, as I re-learn (again and again) one of the most fundamental lessons in spiritual life: in order to be alive spiritually, you MUST spend time in the presence of God and God alone. Jesus says it in John 15, and John repeats the admonition in his first & second epistles: To have spiritual life, one must remain connected to Jesus. How better to remain in relationship with Christ than to spend a solid chunk of time alone being with Him, reading His Word & seeking His face? For me, I've discovered, repeatedly, that my joy, my productivity, my relationships & in fact, anything that I put my hand/mind to do is effected directly by how much time I spend with Christ. The more time that I give exclusively to Him, the better my days' and my weeks' progress. When I get "too busy" & when I decide that my time's better spent foregoing time spent with Him, the following day doesn't go as well. It gets busier, more stressful & less joyful (ergo a negative cycle that can only be broken free from by choosing to place Christ in His rightful place: first).

As I struggle with keeping Christ central, my desire to draw my students to Him also increases. Pray that opportunities to do this would afford themselves & that I would capitalise on these opportunities in a way that would bring glory to Christ.

I have a desire to start up a Bible study with the Christian students at GES, but I know that their schedules are as busy as mine. Currently, I don't even know how much of an interest there is in this activity, but pray that God's will would be done—if He wants this to happen, then may I have enough faith to follow in the way He would have me go.

It has come to my attention that one of the Christian Thai families who sends their children to GES is wanting to start up an outreach ministry to local Thai people via a coffee house or café (not exactly sure which yet, but one or the other—at least they're hoping to sell caffeinated bevvies) style of ministry that would branch off into weekly worship services / church body gatherings above the café for any & all interested. It's an ambitious project, and just the very idea of it excites me, as many of the churches in the area have a reputation of being rigid, lifeless & cold to newcomers. If you are interested in helping with this potential ministry—aside from remembering it in prayer—let me know. I'm sure that there are many ways in which this family could use extra help—even from the other side of the world.

Okay, I'm nearing a 1600 word-count in this message, so I should probably let you guys go. Thanks again for your support & for taking time out of your schedules to read what's going on over here. You guys rock!

Defining Excellence

Well, we're now starting the second week of August, which means that this is the third real week for me in my new position as "Resource Manager" at GES. To say that it's been a transition switching from Math to management would be an understatement at best. There's no need to get into the nitty gritty here, so if you're really interested in that, fire me off an e-mail & I'll fill you in.

A general overview of my daily activities looks somewhat like this:

• Start the day at 7:15 by checking my e-mail, going through my messages & preparing the day's paperwork.


• 7:45, I head to the library to work on re-shelving books from the previous day (if any are left) & continue the ominous task of alphabetising the collection.


• 9:10 Kindergarten students arrive & usually sit around while being read to from their teacher. They're all condensed energy blobs, so any distraction will send them off on tangents—meaning that I usually sit there trying to help the teacher(s) avoid Armageddon. This lasts for an hour.


• The rest of my day is sprinkled with a couple half-hour sessions of library time with an elementary class, wherein they return books & I issue them new ones. I've discovered that it takes about 3 minutes to process each checked-in book from receiving it to placing it on the shelf.


• Also scattered through the day are one or two hour-long computers classes that I teach to Grades 7 - 12 students. It's a refreshing change of pace, but it eats away at my much needed library organisation time.


• At 3:40, when the rest of the staff is technically done their daily obligations, I'm ushered off to "homework help," where I assist elementary students in completing the homework assignments that their teachers have given them that day. It's actually quite fun. The little kids are great & they're always glad to see me / have me help them / play around after their homework is done. The downside, though, is that this usually lasts between 60-90 minutes after school, which means the precious little time that I could have to interact with my high school students has all but disappeared. It's hard for me; I really miss those kids. A lot.


• After my scheduled activities in the day, I spend my evenings getting the computer lab & the library up to snuff. These past few weeks have had me put in 15-16 hour days trying, with what often feels like futile efforts, to have some semblance of working / usable resources.

A Story

And this is where I begin my tale. Last year, I found myself pulling 14-15 hour days pretty much every day until January, when I realised that I had lost sight of my original goal(s) in light of trying to deliver on the expectations inherent in my job. I had laid aside sleep, laid aside human relationships & most tragically, I had laid aside my relationship with God. Bad news. It took me until my Christmas break last year to realise that what I was doing was wrong, wrong, wrong. This year, it has only taken me 2 weeks. I'm learning! Yay!

It has quickly become apparent to me that the position I am operating in here at GES has a multitude of responsibilities & a plethora of tasks needing attention. I told our administrator that it was essentially impossible for me to get all of these tasks completed by the end of the year unless there was an injection of additional manpower. To my surprise, she said that she didn't really expect me to accomplish all of the tasks associated with my position. She let me know that although the school desired (and perhaps even expected) me to accomplish the whole gambit of tasks placed upon my shoulders, for the most part, this deadlines for project completions were very much "for appearances only." She didn't use these words in our meeting, and at that time I didn't really understand what she was saying—instead, I felt that my requests for help & support were being ignored, and that the insurmountable pile of projects that lay before me would have to be tackled tout seul. Now, having had 5 days to digest the conversation, I've come to realise that she was saying that some of the school's expectations (and my own internal ones) were unreasonable. "So, would it be reasonable for me to only put in 10 hour days?" I asked. She replied, "It's reasonable for you to only put in eight hour days."


My Lesson

I've been reminded in the past few weeks that I am a person who strives for excellence in whatever I do. However, in the pursuit of excellence, I have forgotten over the past decade that it is impossible to be excellent at everything & in every situation. To be so essentially would require being God. There are only twenty four hours in a day, and there is only so much energy that one can expend. I can—no, I must—choose what thing I want to approach with excellence.

While a student in University, I spent all of my time trying to excel in my studies. This consumed my days & it consumed my life, leaving no real time or energy for anything other than pursuing Christ with my free time. It worked out. Mind you, my human relationships weren't all that I had desired them to be, but I felt justified in what I was doing, for I was pursuing excellence in my education—something that I had poured thousands of dollars into. Before going to University, I was a much more balanced person. In high school, I rarely—if ever—studied, and I chose, rather, to spend my time first pursuing Christ and then focussing on human relationships, with school being a distant third. I got by—mostly because high school was super easy for me, and I (literally) got >80% in my sleep. My university intensity made me forget how I used to be, and I forgot that there were other things beside what one did that one could pursue with excellence.

This is my realisation. With my limited human potential & my limited resources available in my body as it travels through space-time, I must choose what deserves excellence & what can be done sufficiently. At the beginning of this year, my goals for returning to GES were to pursue spiritual the edification & nurturing of myself, the staff & the students here on campus. This was my main priority, and as I take survey of my current perspective, I must admit that I've shoved it aside while I pursue excellence in my "day job." Turns out that I've lost sight of my goals, and given that I cannot do both (which is why I began pursuing excellence at my tasks, since I thought I could be excellent at everything I did), I must now choose.

Why am I here at GES? It's most surely not because I want to see a smoothly-running plant, well oiled & efficient. It'd be great if that happened, but that isn't why I signed up for another year. I came to feed into the lives of those around me; I came to develop, foster & encourage spiritual vitality & spiritual exuberance. I came to promote an environment of Spirit-filled Christ-centeredness—an environment that wasn't just self-supporting, but an environment that would be self-expanding. That's my goal and that is my desire. At the point of this message to all of you who read it, I've resolved to switch gears & to resume my original intent. I desire to pursue excellence in Christ & in Him over all other things, for in Him and through Him, all these things will be added sufficiently to me/us.

Please pray for me as I undergo this transition. There are other things that you also could pray for, but it all is summed up in praying for me & for the rest of the school to choose Christ as the ultimate motivation, the ultimate & primary focus for all of our energies. With fervency for this desire, the rest will fall into place. It must: He promised that it would.

Thanks for your prayers & support.

Daniel.

And now I will show you the most excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

I Cor. 12:30-13:13 NIV

Switching Positions

Well, it has been a week longer than I thought that this update would take, but I guess that late is better than never, yes?

Much has happened in the past month, and the majority of it has to do with my transition into the role of "resource manager" over here at GES. Before returning, I thought that this role would be a nice, easy job that would provide me with a much more flexible lifestyle, complete with extra opportunities to engage in more directed ministry. Well, let's just say that that ideal situation is one that looms off in the horizon—it's a reachable goal, but there is a journey ahead of me that must be trod ere I rest at that haven.

It's funny to me, thinking as I do right now, that I actually miss teaching Math. Not so much that I am passionate about the subject—which I'm not—nor that I even enjoy the field—it was my worst subject in high school, and ergo, my least favourite—but the reason I find myself missing teaching Math is because I miss my students. It's funny how you can struggle & struggle, how you can bleed, cry & sweat through some of the most taxing (mentally) experiences of your life only to find that, having gone through the gambit, you take pleasure & ownership in leading others through the precarious maze. Yeah, I miss teaching math. I miss helping my students learn & grow. I miss interacting with the wide variety of personalities & I miss trying to reach each of them in a way that suits them best. I sure as heck don't miss marking Math assignments though. Man, math marking is the devil.

For all of you newbie teachers out there, hear it from the horse's mouth: everything gets easier the second time around. Yes, you may have been told this in your classes, or in a textbook or from people who know people who've taught for years, but coming from a guy who never had a stitch of teaching instruction and then teaching the most difficult content in all of high school—having him say that it gets easier after the first year might carry a little more weight [at least I think it does :)]. In fact, it was surprisingly easier: I didn't have to teach myself the content before teaching my students; I didn't have to shoot blindly in the dark with examples or methods of teaching. I had an arsenal of experience 10 months long with which I could begin tailoring my instruction for each student. It was great (minus the marking)... And then I got transferred.


Aaron, the new Math teacher came in to BKK for the first time ever with his wife, Lorrie, on the 5th of July. I was told that he was an Education graduate who majored in Mathematics. "Great," I thought, "This should be a smooth transition." I had previously been in e-mail contact with him & had given him access to online copies of our textbooks, and after a few days of getting over jet-lag, he sat in on some of my classes to observe how I had been running the classes so far. After one afternoon class, I asked Aaron what he thought & if he had any comments or ideas about how the class should progress. He replied to me saying that he pretty much had no idea, as he'd never taught a class before. "Surely", I thought, "an Ed. student would have had a practicum already!" and I asked him about this, only to discover that he wasn't a math education major—only ("only!" Ha! As if it was any less of a degree!) a guy with a math degree.

Now, this blew my mind & caused a radical paradigm shift in my noggin' as to what this year was going to look like. I now knew that I could (and probably would, if not at least "should") become a primary resource for Aaron to draw from as he took over the courses that I had designed through much strife & grief last year. I wouldn't want a soul to have to tread the same path that I had trod—especially if I could help him avoid the pitfalls that I'd tumbled into along the way. That being said, I hoped that he gathered some ideas from his observations & asked, from this conversation, if he'd be comfortable teaching a class or two that Friday. I'd observe & give comments about things he could work on in the precious few moments he had before flying "solo:" a dress-rehearsal for this year's Math Show, as it were.

Things went well for him that Friday, and I cleaned up the few remaining assignments that needed to be graded, and then I was officially cut off from the high school Math program (again, a bittersweet experience). The following Monday—this past one, in fact—I assumed the position of Resource Manager, the primary occupation of which was and is to operate the school's library. Unfortunately, there was no real orientation or on-the-job training or in-service or manual or... anything for me to have, really, before being cast to the rabid dogs. The only morsel that was flung my way came by the previous librarian's five minute show & tell of where the books were, how she kept the loan cards & records and what she did to manage overdues (there was a tiny bin wherein their overdue books' loan cards were filed, according to class but not to student). And then, the first class came in.


To say the least, it was a gong show, and it still will be until I find some sort of system that I can use to keep records & to manage the information exchange. Not only was the current record-keeping system for loans inefficient, but the actual book records were beyond nightmarish. None of the past librarians kept a consistent method of keeping records for books, as they are enumerated and filed by any of the following methods: under the author's first name, under the author's last name, under the book's publishing company, under the book's series, under the main title of the book, under the sub-title of the book, and even—I think—some filed under the first phrase on the first page of the book. Yikes.

Don't get me started on shelving & the organisation of the book collection. Let's just say that "general disarray" is the status quo of the library, and this literary warzone is going to need a great deal of TLC before the paperback shrapnel metamorphs into a viable pool of words.
Did I mention that there is no master catalogue, which means that nobody even knows what books we have & what books have been lost? Yep. That's right.


* * * * *

Anyway, the long drudgery of digging myself out of the slime pit aside, let's talk about other things that have happened in the past few weeks. Like going to Angkor Wat, for example.

As I write this letter, I'm sitting on a bus bound for Bangkok from the north-western region of Cambodia, wherein lies the renowned Angkor Wat. The place is spectacular. Utterly spectacular. Awe-striking and wondrously immense. Aside from the wat proper are several other temples and cities of stone peppered throughout the jungle, awaiting your wandering eyes & legs to grace the thousand-year old hallways. I can't say much more, because it wouldn't do service to the site—to the intricacies of the sandstone carvings worked out so immaculately that each of the several thousand 18" figures carved in the walls all had noses with nostrils & bellybuttons and eyes with pupils. And these are carved into stone blocks that make up walls, much less the more ornate sculptures & structures that make up the complex of Angkor.

One thing I will say about the place, however, is that in light of the amazingness of the place, I couldn't help but feel grieved. In many of the centuries-old corridors and in practically all of the temples' many sanctums were statues of Buddha. Some were sitting there, not having been moved for hundreds of years & still in good condition; others were decaying, having lost arms, legs or heads; still others were mere fragments of the statues that they once were; yet among the most grieving were the ones that were made of porcelain with the fresh coating of paint on them that stood beside half a torso of a former idol—each with an altar of incense in front of them & each wearing sacrificial garlands of flowers and each shaded by golden parasols to protect them. What place is this and what twisted reasoning exists in this that mere blocks of stone—even decayed rubble—get more attention, more love and more money than the hundreds of children & scores of war amputees that chase visitors around the park desperately trying to sell you their trinkets? It blew my mind & made me sick.

Yes, one thing of note about Angkor Wat is that every Cambodian and their dog in the park will follow you relentlessly to try & sell you anything that they can, be it postcards, cold water, skirts & bracelets or musical instruments that are too big & too fragile for you to take on the airplane. Much of the country's income comes through tourism, and Angkor Wat is the nation's primary international draw. Cambodia is easily the poorest country that I have ever visited; it makes Thailand look like a lavish land of hedonistic opulence (which, I guess actually is true of some parts in Bangkok).

Before this gets excessively long, I'll switch directions again. Ask me about the adventures of getting to & from Siem Reap, the city that hosts Angkor Wat—and if you ever decide to go, never believe the bus drivers: they're filthy liars. But do stay at the Potted Palm Garden Lodge: cheap rooms, excellent, honest, friendly & helpful staff—they redeemed Cambodia for me, and that's saying something when you bear in mind the bus drivers.


Things that you could pray about, if you're that type of person:

+Soda, one of my students of yesteryear, has left to go & live in Kentucky for a year as part of a language exchange program. Her sponsor family is putting her in Grade 12 when she gets there because—I can only assume—they want her to experience the life of an American Senior (that's a G 12 student for us non-Yankees). She barely passed 10th grade over here, receiving outside help from tutors who spoke her native language, so academically, this is going to be a difficult year for her (if she even tries). She'll get by quite well in the communication department, but her thirst for popularity might get her into trouble. Pray that she makes wise choices in the next year & pray that, as she moves from a Buddhist country to a nation that is considerably more Christian, she would see & experience the Truth and love that comes only from Christ.

+Pray for Aaron, the new math teacher, as he jumps in head-first into the world of GES without really any idea as to what he's doing. Pray for me, as I undertake the organisation, restructuring & operation of all resources at GES as well as taking over teaching the High School Computers classes [apparently, there was a hole that needed to be filled ;)].

+Pray for the students at GES. A few of them have opened up to me in the past couple of weeks, letting me in on some very personal information about things that have happened and, in some cases, still happen, in their lives. Pray that they would come to taste & see that the Lord is good; that He is the almighty Healer and that He is the true source of love.

Thanks for reading my letters & updates, and thank you for your prayers.

Daniel.

Experiensation

※Imagery

First things first. For those of you who have never graced the borders of Bangkok, let me illustrate for you a common, pervading feeling known as Bangkok air. Imagine with me, if you will, that you are in your house preparing to make cinnamon buns. Before you, rolled flat on a table or counter-space is a nice, irregularly shaped rectangle of yellowish-white, gooey sweet dough, its fringes powdered by the downy freckles of flour that you scattered underneath it, serving as a non-toxic pre-Teflon coating, serving as a safeguard against sticking. To the right of this delightful sheet of raw dough is a small glass bowl, pleasantly sitting with a spoon drowning in the browny paste contained therein. The paste, looking like some exotic sand from a volcanic beach, sparkles and glistens with rich yellow streamlets pooling in the paste's random depressions. From the aroma wafting out of the bowl, your nose sings an aria of delight, and the stomach rumbles in accord, eagerly anticipating the final product. The spoon's hands are full as you pull it from the pasty bowl and light it on the pillowy dough nearby. As if desiring to share the wealth, you help the spoon spread the brown sugary mash of cinnamon and margarine over the virgin dough, sullying its pristine, spotless fields with a thick, sticky coating of heavy goo.

In Bangkok, you're that dough and the air's that spoon. Within minutes of venturing beyond the realm of air conditioning, you find yourself covered in a film of humidity & sweat. It’s unavoidable, inescapable & pervasive. I now know what a cinnamon bun feels like when it gets dressed... No wonder all the Thai people are light brown! ;)


※Updatedness

Okay, instead of talking about baked goods, I'll get to the real reason for writing this stuff: what's been happening in Thailand. It has been two weeks (I think?) since my last update, and since then, we've completed orientation AND our first week of classes.

My goodness, you wouldn't believe how much of a difference knowing the material makes when you're trying to teach an upper-level subject! Ha! I was dreading the though of teaching math again for the first month here while the permanent math teacher arrives in mid-July.

Last year, not knowing a stitch of how to teach nor remembering any of the content that I was supposed to be relaying to my students was a horrifying experience. Every day, I was finding myself sweating bullets through each class and every evening I was forced to press my nose deep into that proverbial grind-wheel just so that I could have a slight grasp of what I was to convey to my students during the next day. It was like being a kid forced to eat a bucket of lima beans or else watch the bad guy shoot your parents. Disgusting but necessary.

Not so, this year. The difference is almost like night and day. Switch out the lima beans for jelly beans & you've got something more like what's going down this year. Instead of dreading classes, I'm now looking forward to seeing my students. Instead of fearing what's on the next page in the textbook, I smile to myself, already knowing what it portends. Rather than just trying to communicate the content in any way possible, I now get to spend my time more creatively—like making up ways of how to relate mathematical concepts to real life (who woulda thunk that relations & functions could be compared to notes & chords?). The difference is remarkable. The students are not marauders escaped from the pits of hell, there is sunlight during the daytime & sleep is more than a fanciful luxury! Ahh, it's a pleasant contrast.

Orientation this year was amazing. Much of the time was spent setting the framework of how the school is run, what will be expected from the teachers throughout the year & what we as teachers should expect from the days throughout the months ahead. Whereas last year's orientation focussed more on random theories of how to teach & presented not-so-practical paintings of instructional style (which may have been applicable to certain class settings, but not in my case), this year's orientation focussed more on drawing outlines in which we could paint our own pictures—as long as we coloured within the lines, things would be groovy. This approach, in retrospect, seems to offer a better plan of attack than a general example of what "could be."

Those days whisked by, ushering in the fateful acid test of "Day One." Remarkably, everything seemed to progress quite smoothly for both retuning & new teaching staff. Our schedules came to us very late (The Friday evening before classes began) which posed a bit of a stress, but on the whole, the good ship GES set sail in 2008 without so much as a hiccup. Last year, we had a huge debacle surrounding military school for the high school male students (In Thailand, there is a mandatory term of military service for all able-bodied males, and if that service is offered during "military school" as a student, the male can forego potential conscription / drafting in any potential future conflict) last year, which caused high school classes to be taught on most days until 5pm. With advanced notice this year, we managed to rework the schedule to accommodate this, which means better times for both students and teachers throughout the year (hooray).

There isn't really much else to report on the business side of life over here. I'll be filling in for the Math teacher until mid-July when he is scheduled to arrive, and after that, my duties as "resource manager" will begin, and I'll have the fun job of being able to help every teacher with any of their copious needs—students too.

※How You can Partake

Things to pray for/about, if you're that type of person:

•One of my students from last year, Soda—the drama queen/sensationalist-turned-sweetheart is sitting in through the first few months of school here. She'll be going to Kentucky to study in an American high school over the next academic year. At home, she is an only child, and her father runs a business up in Chiang Mai—several hundred kilometres north of Bangkok—which also ends up meaning that he practically lives up there too. Because of this, there's a marked lack of—and a desperate cry for—a masculine presence/attention in her life. Long story short: she ended up having two boyfriends for the bulk of last year—her more serious one, who went to study in Virginia, and a "fill in" here at GES until he returned. As such things always go, the truth became known to all parties, and now three people are hurting after two consecutive break-ups. Pray that this would be an opportunity for Soda to discover that the emptiness she's trying to fill—the love that she is looking for—can be resolved or accomplished or fulfilled by the wondrous gift of a relationship with Christ. I'm concerned about the possibility of her going to America with the state of mind that a boy can make her complete: its a dangerous position to be in when facing North America's more aggressive teenaged boys... Please, please pray that she would come to know the true Joy Giver and Lover of her soul.

•Pray for the up starting ministries that will resume & begin this year at the school. We will be picking up "Life Group," GES's version of a youth group for those interested in & committed to Christ. I'm hoping to be able to start an after-school/weekend Bible study group with some high school students if there's interest. Pray that the Lord would have his way in this.

•Pray for both the new teachers & returning ones as we try to get a rhythm for the work week—that we would get ample rest and continue to persist in seeking God's face.

Thanks for your time; I've gotta go & get ready for my classes. I'll fire off some phonemes & spit out some syllables again in July. Until then, keep on keeping on!