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.