Penultimatum

Tomorrow marks the penultimate week of the school year here at GES, and it just so happens to coincide with the penultimate week of me teaching at GES (though not the penultimate week of me working here). Things find themselves drawing to a close, and as the ink dries on these final pages, the storyboards for the next chapter start to fill in.

I'll do my best to try & keep this short—I know that verbosity tends to be one of my weaknesses, as far as it comes to the written world. So, let's talk about March.


Work

The past two weeks have been pretty much business as usual: cataloguing the non-fiction collection on the English library, serving students books and teaching Grade 7 computers classes. I've discovered that by using two web browsers while cataloguing (out catalogue database is an SQL-driven web application that uses cookies to store session states & whatnot, and it's been designed in such a way that multiple instances of the same browser will only end up confusing the app, sometimes completely "crashing" the session & losing all your work.), I've been able to ramp up my cataloguing productivity by about 50%. In January, I was happy at completing 40 book records in a day & particularly proud of myself if I hit the 80 mark (our books' spine labels come on sheets of 40, which is the reason why multiples of 40 are my milestones). As is improved my skill, familiarity & efficiency in cataloguing & data collecting, my productivity moved up to an average of about 60/day. Now, mid-March, 80 is my daily target & 120 records is my "proud point." I've been able to ramp up my throughput mostly because of the many obscure books in our collection: the less common the book, the longer it takes for our catalogue to search the 20-odd z39.50 online library database resources that I've configured for record "outsourcing", which inevitably means that I sit idly waiting for results. Now that I've started using multiple browsers, I can leave an obscure title searching in one browser while searching for / cataloguing another title in the second browser. Talk about being a nerd, right? :)


Play

A group of us teachers decided to go and eat at one of the classiest Japanese buffet restaurants in Bangkok last week: Oishi Grande. It costs 750 baht for all you can eat Japanese (sushi, maki, etc. And also the hot foods), Chinese & Italian food. Considering the price, one meal there could have paid for almost three weeks' worth of meals at our local restaurants around the school... But the fare at Oishi Grande was worth every single baht.

I've never before been able to go to a restaurant where you can have as much New Zealand beef tenderloin steak or rib eye steak as I could handle—not to mention the bottomless pit of shrimp, salmon, snow fish, tuna maki, tempura and almost anything else that you could possibly imagine. It's the only restaurant that I've been to that offers an unending supply of brie & Gouda. Amazing. Simply amazing. :) We were thinking of perhaps going again today, but then the financial centre of our brains kicked in & we were reminded that 4 meals at Oishi Grande would end up being over 10% of our monthly incomes. Nevertheless, we'll be going again before we leave...

This past weekend, the high school teachers & I hosted an all-night party with our students which was a good deal of fun. The guys were almost completely absorbed by the 18-player LAN games of Counterstrike, while the girls were either scaring themselves witless by watching scary Thai movies, or they were off in secluded areas talking about things that only girls talk about, I imagine (to be honest, I don't know where they were—I was too busy playing computer games! Ha!)

One of our students from last year, Babe, was able to come & hang out with us which was pretty much awesome. She's one of three students that I've had the pleasure of teaching /spending life with in the past two years who are responsible for bringing the greatest joy into my life. Babe and her boyfriend, Tee (who belongs to the first graduating class from GES ever), belong to the uncommon demographic known as Thai Christians. The sad thing is that they do not have home churches—or even a group of Christian friends with which they can meet regularly & walk together in this thing called Christian life. I was hoping that this weekend would afford a time where I could talk to Babe & Tee & Katak and maybe even Tony about the possibility of meeting up at a neutral location somewhere off of campus to try & give them some semblance of Christian community / discipleship—or at least introduce the idea to them before I leave in April. These four students make up 2/3 of the Christian population either in or associated with GES from grades 10-12, and they comprise 80% of said population that is in Thailand (there's one Christian, Sai, who's now living & studying in Virginia). I'm afraid of the underlying possibility from this observation that this could be the potential reality of Christianity in Thailand.


Church, the Future & Stuff

Last week, I was told by my church-planting partners that the Thai pastor who's part of our group was going to go & meet with the Mennonite missions board in Thailand to see if they would be interested in sponsoring me as a missionary under their covering. I haven't yet heard back about what had happened in that meeting, but I think that eventually I'll hear something.

Given that I won't be returning to GES, the Thai people with whom I've been helping plant a church in the community fervently have been looking for a way to have me stay with them in Thailand and continue the work that they (we) have ahead of us. In all honesty, I can't yet say where I stand on all of this. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I want to serve God wherever He would have me be; I just don't know where He wants me! Pragmatically, I have some large financial obligations in Canada that require my attention, and it would be irresponsible of me to pretend if said obligations did not exist. On the other hand, I know that God is fully capable of fulfilling my financial obligations in whatever way He would like, which means that He could very well work out a way that my debts would be paid off while serving Him over here in Thailand. Further pragmatic concerns involve language & cultural barriers. I'm not fully convinced that a "Farang" outreach missionary would be altogether effective in this country. Thais are (or at least they seem to be) very resistant to alien ideas, but at the same time, they're very accommodating... Which lends itself to producing much lip service & little deep-impact. In order for Thailand to be reached for Christ, it primarily is going to have to come from indigenous outreach activities. Were I to partner with this church for any serious length of time, my role would need to be, therefore, one of equipping, discipling & supporting those who could make real headway on the "front lines."

Given this, here are my current thoughts: I think that the only prudent way for me to return to Thailand and work in partnership with this church would be if I myself had an immediate source of support—a partner of my own who spoke my native language. If I were to return, I would need at least one other person to be operating alongside me in the same (or very similar) capacity—that is, full-time supportive ministry. It would not be prudent for me to come back alone without a full-time, dedicated partner-in-crime with whom I could communicate in the same native language. I would also need some sort of financial arrangement that could satisfy the reality of my financial obligations—both in the current and in future considerations.

I don't know. I leave these things to God. In all honesty, this letter is really the first time I’ve been able to articulate these thoughts with any level of cogency (and look, we're already at 1,400 words!). What I do know is that God has given me an opportunity unlike many other to partner with a group of Thai nationals & begin to meet a dire need within the Christian community in Bangkok & surrounding areas: the need for fellowship & for Christian support. Conversely, I know that I have over $20,000 of student debt that needs reconciliation, and I know that my employability in Thailand is scant at best (the same goes for my employability pretty much anywhere, owing to my educational background). So I find myself stuck... The only thing(s) that I know for certain right now is that I have a plane ticket taking me home on 26 April, and the soonest I would even consider coming back to Thailand wouldn't be until September—and that only if I know this is where God wants me.


Pray for these things. Pray for Christians like Tee, Babe, Katak and Tony who are isolated in a sea of Buddhism. Pray that God's will would be made clear for me & for my future. Pray for the final weeks of school here at GES—for graduation, exams & final report cards. Pray.

Fast Forward / Rewind

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Today marks the beginning of the end of my time at GES. It is the first day of the last month of my time here, it seems. It also marks the first of my eight remaining weeks in Southeast Asia before returning to Canada… though for how long, only God knows at present.


Let’s rewind… … …

My last official update left us all in the lurch, not knowing if my future would contain another year at GES or not. If you’ve been an avid fan of my blog, you pretty much know how that’s all turned out. To save all of you from needless internet surfing, I’ll do my best to distill the events of the past two weeks.

The day after writing my last letter, I went and met with my fellow leaders in the church plant mission. I left the details of why w were meeting vague, hoping to keep guards down just in case what I was hearing from my employers was true—that being that those with whom I was working were being highly offensive, divisive & hurtful.

The meeting was pretty straight-forward. I asked them about the beginnings of this church plant, where the idea came from, how it all started & what motivations were behind it. When I had planned to meet with them, I thought that we’d talk for maybe a half hour. Man was I wrong. It turned out that the desire for planting a church had been in their hearts for a long time, and that the feasibility of such a plan actually began to materialise about a year ago. One thing led to another, and at the end of the deliberating process, *voila!* we got an active pursuit of a dream in the hearts of some people.

Satisfied with their story and the consistencies it had with other events and reports, I proceeded to ask my brothers & sisters in Christ if they were aware of any word or deed that may have caused offense toward my employers. Initially, they couldn’t think of anything, but after a few minutes, a story was recounted to me wherein some activities or words, they thought, possibly could have been misconstrued as being offensive or disrespectful. They assured me that it never was their intention to be rude or upsetting, and when I asked if they would be willing to meet with the owners of the school to discuss the issue of my provisional return (the provision being I was not allowed to associate with anyone who was part of this church plant, if I wanted to continue working at GES), they expressed an eager desire to do so.

After my meeting with these people, it appeared to me that the issue at hand was the result of some major miscommunication(s) between these two parties. I then contacted my employers, who had flown to the States for a recruiting trip, and asked if they would be willing to discuss this matter & see if some sort of resolution could be reached. The next morning, I read their response which expressed appreciation in my concern for this issue, but that the conditions of my return would not change. Following the Biblical precedent, I urged them a second time to reconsider, mentioning that the issue at hand extended beyond my return, and in fact, its reach touched the very foundations of the Christian Church. I urged them to reconsider the communication black-out in service of promoting unity within the Body of Christ.

My second response from them echoed the first. I was lauded for expressing my concern about this situation and they admired my desire to see reconciliation, but I was told that they felt their position was the most spiritual one to have. They stated that they were working under the premise of Hebrews 12:14, and told me that their condition still stood: I would only be welcome in the GES 2009-10 family if I severed all associations with the Christians who were working to plant this church in Nonthaburi.

My hand was thus forced. I had no recourse but to turn down the terms of my contract. I could not, in good conscience, willingly dissociate myself from other Christians for the purpose of keeping my job. The choice was simple: Keep my job & promote division and discord within the Body, or lose my job and stand on the side of unity and harmony. I expressed my regret to my employers and told them that I would be more than willing to return to GES if they expressed a desire to work toward reconciliation within the greater Church.


The Fallout

As it stands, the reality of my termination at GES has shed new light into my current surroundings. The library catalogue software that the school purchased for over $3k USD in September, and that I’ve been furiously labouring on/with for the past 4 months, I’ve been told, will likely never graduate to a status of “fully operational.” In light of this, my goal of cataloguing the entire English library at GES has shifted toward an attainable goal before I leave: catalogue the entire non-fiction collection, so that at least the software could be used by students to locate research resources & titles in the library. Currently, as I’ve previously stated, there isn’t even an old-school version of a catalogue anywhere that anyone can find, so students end up struggling to find books on topics, assisted only by the librarian’s scant recollections of the several thousand books within the four book-lined walls. When the non-fiction section has a completed catalogue, students then will at least have some sort of method to search the library beyond staring blankly at the dozen or so shelves of random titles.

My impending end at GES also bears implications in the IT world on campus. The dreams I had of setting up network accounts & internal groupware services for staff & students will not be realised. The gigabit backbone connecting the main office to the school buildings will also probably never become reality, which in turn limits the effectiveness of the copious improvements I’d made to the school’s network environment. And, although I’ve established a couple of really slick WSUS servers—one for office workstations & one for the discreet-network computer lab, these services inevitably need a look-over every once in a while, not to mention the other various acronyms established this year: AD & GP, DNS & WINS, SharePoint search services, DHCP, RIS/WDS, PXE & TFTP—and the more common things like firewall settings, Antivirus health monitoring, hardware & software maintenance, etc. My hope is to leave the network(s) with as much extended features as I can while also making the environment as maintenance-free as possible (who knows what type of IT strengths the school will employ next year or 5 years from now?)


Conclusions

I’m sad that my time at GES is coming to an end, but I knew from the beginning that this was the inevitable outcome—if not this year, then next. In its current state, GES will never become an institution that generates careers. It has the potential, but it would need the leadership & vision to see such an outcome materialise.

What I will miss the most in 26 days, after we see the final day of this year’s term culminate, will be my students. I will miss the young, vibrant minds; the “I’m better than you” rebellious thorns-in-the-side; the unmotivated; the under-challenged; the overwhelmed and most of all, the curious way that these students always seem to want to hang out with their teachers after school. Sadly, I will probably miss out on the development of those new Christians & the gentle nudging of those newly interested toward the amazing thing that we call relationship with Jesus. But who knows? Maybe God will have me back here in September?

I can’t yet say.