April

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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