Where to Begin…

Hello friends & family (take your pick!);

Well, it's been two weeks since I returned to GES from being back in Canada, and to be honest, I don't really know what to say about my experiences thus far in 2008. January has been an exceptional month—exceptional in that it has broken away from the ordinary way things have happened before & exceptional in that it's been pretty much amazing.

Let me tell you a story about something I've come to appreciate even more throughout this past month. Week one of school having resumed, I had no homework to grade—it was amazing! I mean, talk about free time... I never really knew how much time the masses of homework I assign consume, when it comes to marking them, until I had a week free of any red-penning. I mean wow. I got to spend time hanging out with the staff here, which was a delightful change... That isn't to say that there was no down-time. On the contrary, it turns out that many of the teachers I work with are more of the "last minute" & "past due" deadline people—something that was beaten out of me in my Theatre training in University—which meant that while I was living it easy & lacklustre throughout the week, many of my peers were struggling through the work that they were supposed to have finished before the week even began.

As a result, I usually turned in early; heading to my bedroom by 9pm. There, I'd spend time hanging out with God for a good hour before calling it a night. From this experience, I re-learned something that I must've forgotten in the busyness of my so-called life. It turns out that the more sleep I get, the easier things are the next day. Not only are things easier, but they also tend to take less time to complete—meaning less work that needs to be done (well, I guess it's not less work per se, but less time spent on the same amount of work). On top of that, there seems to be a direct relationship between how much time I spend seeking the face of God and how much more effective & efficient I am at my daily tasks. If I'd spent an hour devoted wholly to praying & reading my Bible, the other activities in my day seemed to breeze by, whereas those days where I slept in an extra half-hour, or decided to watch a movie in place of meeting with God, my efforts seemed to accomplish so much less. I think Martin Luther was on to something when he talked about praying an extra hour on those days when he was really busy.

My problem students seem to be turning over a new leaf these days. I had a chat with one of my students, Soda, grade 10's rambunctious, emotional and defiant drama-queen, on the first day back to school because of her poor attitude. After letting her know that the choices that she makes have consequences & that the biggest force in shaping her life is how she chooses to make decisions, not much really changed. However, because of her previous behaviour, she served an in-school suspension on Thursday last week, and then, the next day she was denied participation in our Games Day because of skipping school. Since then, her obnoxious outbursts have all but disappeared. Her disruptive behaviour has dwindled to almost nonexistent levels, which is amazing. Because of it, my other non-motivated students have started to do their homework—along with, perhaps, my newly instituted punishment of bathroom cleanup for students who fail to complete assignments. It's amazing: kids who've been averaging 18% because of uncompleted homework & / or from using tests as doodling paper instead of academic assessment have now begun to get 50%s and 60%s—even on tests! It's a significant turnaround, especially in a country (and a school) where having enough baht buys you a passing grade, essentially negating much of the external reinforcement schedule inherent in the grade-level education system. Let's just hope that this continues...

Other things of note, besides the amazing positive benefits of seeking God above & before all things, besides delinquent students' behaviour turning toward rectification, and besides having more sleep... We have yet to have had a full week of school this month! Last week Friday, GES held a "Games Day" in lieu of Thailand's Children's Day, which was held on Saturday. Instead of learning, the whole school ditched the books and had lots of fun, from tug-o-war matches to water fights to Mennonite dancing to potato sack races to even threading a frozen banana through people's clothing. It definitely was good times.

In response to Children's Day, Thailand also has a Teacher Appreciation Day, which fell on Wednesday this past week. Classes were (surprise, surprise) cancelled and a dozen of us teachers went to a park in downtown Bangkok to play a friendly game of Ultimate Frisbee. After 2 hours of play and two litres of shedding sweat, a good portion of us were sunburnt [I know, I know: what a horrible thing to happen in January, right? ;) ], which heralded the end of our excursion to the park. The bunch of us stopped off at a nearby mall to munch on some delightful sushi before heading back to the school to do our respective things—of which, mine was marking. And that brings us to today.

To be honest, I'm not really sure if these past two weeks are representative of some sort of switch being flipped in my brain, where school is all of the sudden easier, whether it's due to my desire for a heavier reliance on God or whether these two weeks are just a 'blip' in the normal progression of teaching at GES. The time back has been too short to be able to tell one way or another yet. What I do know, though, is that I'm excited about a couple of things that we've started up since the new year began. A couple of us teachers have begun to play corporately for the school, the students & the staff every morning before our workday begins & we've been in the process of starting up a Friday evening time of informal worship & prayer. Both activities are going along great, and as is typical with such activities, attendance is exceptionally small. That doesn't matter, though: I've continued on in even as little as one-person prayer meetings at schools before—it's not about the numbers, it's about the heart and the desire to seek Him. Our God doesn't limit blessing and surely doesn't limit the execution of His power based on numbers, which is an encouraging thing. And, than being said, I'm glad that there are at least a handful of people over here who share a desire to meet together with me to seek God's face as a community, eager to know Him better. Our prayer is that, through the transformation and the vitality teeming from our lives as we centre our whole beings on the One & Only, those around us will see the positive difference, and as a result will want to press into God as well. Relational evangelism, in my opinion, always seems to be more effective than preaching at people who are uninterested in different philosophical arguments.

So that's January. It's over in 11 days already; hard to believe. Those of you interested in getting in on the revolutionary activity known as prayer, I'd ask that you seek God in these things for us:

•Pray for teachers who don't know what the crap they're going to do after this year's done. Pray that they would seek God & that they would be willing to submit to His will, whatever that may be & wherever that may take them.

•Pray that these final 9 weeks of the academic year would be fruitful—not only in the dissemination of knowledge, but also in the advancement of the Kingdom of our God, who is Love.

•Pray that barriers to truth would be broken down, that strongholds of fear, strongholds of spiritual oppression and strongholds of idolatry would be torn down in Thailand, and that strategic inroads would be made by all Christians here—whether foreign or (ideally, and more effectively it seems) native Thai.

I'll let you know what else is new in a couple weeks!

Thanks for listening & thanks for your prayers.