Lucid Thailusions

Record Lows; Missing Millionaires…

2011-04-27T09:20:00.001-07:00

I have to confess: the title of this post has more to do with things I didn’t anticipate experiencing. Week two in Bangkok was full of all kinds of random surprises. Read onward to hear about a few of those very things.

Record Lows

Winter in Thailand has some similarities to winter in the more temperate regions of the world: it gets colder; the sun sets earlier in the evenings (though the amount of sunlight that differs between summer & winter is about an hour in Thailand instead of about 8 here in Alberta); foliage turns brown & begins to fall off the trees. Yes, as odd as it may seem to the uninitiated, tropical Southeast Asia has an “autumn” season where trees slough their lush greenery in exchange for a more sparse, naked fashion, all while the humans adorn opposite clothing trends. The coldest mornings in December tend to hover around the low- to mid-teens Celsius, which is slightly humorous to an Arctic Canadian when he sees the Thai people bundle up in thin, parka-like coats, complete with toques & sometimes even gloves. I’m certain that, during my time spent weathering the Thai winters, the locals were astounded at my brazen defiance of the “frigid” conditions when they’d see me walk around unfazed in a t-shirt and slacks.

Besides the obvious lack of a negative sign on the thermometer, there are other differences to Thailand’s winters—one of the biggest being that the chilly season usually lasts no longer that 10 weeks. During February, the mercury slowly begins to rise in a cumulative-like fashion. The trend continues until one forgets that there was ever a time for jackets and, instead, one scurries off to the closest air-conditioned room available, to stave off the imminent flood of perspiration as long as possible. By the end of March, this thermal battle has long been lost, yet the weather affords no respite from the heat until the rainy season begins in June.

That’s what’s supposed to happen. This year, it didn’t.

During my second week in Thailand, Bangkok experienced its lowest March temperatures in the city’s recorded history. That’s right: 18°C in March. 30% colder than the month’s “average low”. Students & teachers alike were bundling up & donning their January fashions again. Some of the staff celebrated the chilly air, while others shocked even themselves by expressing how cold the weather was... while wearing sweaters and toques to combat the cold. I myself hadn’t expected the weather to drop into the teens, but thankfully, I had worn a Canadian climate-appropriate wardrobe during my flight the week before. Who would have expected a need for these clothes during my trip? Only once had I worn that shirt during a previous March while living in Thailand.... and I learned the lesson of its excessive (usually) thermal capacity.

The weather for the remainder of my time in Bangkok was erratic. More chilly days peppered the calendar, interspersed with the usual hot & humid fare, however, another meteorological mystery manifested: monsoon rains! The rains that one only really witnesses during the rainy season, when standing outside without an umbrella is much like jumping full-clothed into the shower or walking through a celestial waterfall. Streets again were flooded, looking more like canals than roadways. Stepping stones were deployed on busy pedestrian thoroughfares to keep the wanderer’s feet dry (it’s never nice having to change your shoes after making a quick walk over to 7-11. And traffic creeped to a veritable standstill. On my last full day in Thailand, I had intended to meet up with a friend downtown, but it had started to rain & the taxi I had hired barely made it to the Big C Supercentre (1.1 km down the road) in 48 minutes. In Thailand, when it rains, it pours; and it’s only supposed to pour well after Songkran.

Missing Millionaires

I had accomplished this mandatory task last year, and whenever there’s a Swensen’s ice cream parlour available to me, I will do my best to ensure that the task gets completed again... and again. What task might this be? To indulge in the revelry of consuming what could possibly be the world’s best commercially-available, high quality & optimal cost-to-benefit ratio ice cream dessert: the Chocolate Millionaire.

Imagine in your mind’s stomach with me, if you would: three scoops of your choice of ice cream lobbed into a Romanoff glass whose interior has been coated with a swirl of chocolate fudge sauce. The scoops of your choice are then sumptuously drizzled with fudge, which holds the ice cream in a sweet embrace with banana chunks and several chocolate-dipped ice-cream morsels. The entire ensemble is delicately topped with the gentle kiss of whipped cream & a wafer wedge, whose light, frail textures are excitingly taunted by the shot glass of dark, hot fudge that they serve on the side. Essentially, it’s a pint of dairy-heaven & cocoa-bliss combined into a single, incomparable experience. All for the low, low price of $4

You can imagine my despair when I discovered that they discontinued the treat.

We (the G12 class & I) had decided to hit up Swensen’s as an after-school activity on the last Monday of school. My entire motivation for going was to check this task off on my list of “must dos”—of course, that’s not to say that I didn’t want to hang out with the students: we could have gone anywhere to do that! However, even with the extinction of the Millionaire, we all had a good time hanging out & scooping frozen dairy heaven into our mouths.

Cow cream delicately digesting in our finely filled stomachs, the group dispersed, each student wandering off in random directions—some homeward, others, in packs, to hang out together at another location. Those of us who remained continued our conversation over fried food & fizzy beverages... and French fries smothered with cheese sauce down at the local McDonald’s, along the western edge of the Big C Supercentre shopping complex. During the latter half of our after-school adventure, Babe & Tee—two GES alumni from years previous—joined us as we talked about life, developments & those other conversational points that people bandy about when catching up with each other.

It was getting dark outside, which it usually does around 6 pm. The oncoming twilight signalled the remaining students that it was time to head home; and, much like the dwindling rays of sun, each of them bade their farewells and slowly faded out of sight for the evening.

Stay tuned next time for the story of cowboys, ninjas & bamboo camouflage. And you thought that ninjas only existed in Japan!

Shabushi, a Movie & the Black Swan

2011-04-02T16:06:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don’t know about the Black Swan in Bangkok, I’m sorry: you are missing out on a gem of a pub—it’s perhaps even my most favoured pub on the planet... just so long as they have Guinness on tap, which apparently has been a bit of a challenge when teachers have gone to visit this year.

Shabushi,

My first stop into the Black Swan during the trip was on a Friday after hanging out downtown with a few students for a movie & all you can eat at the sushi bar Shabushi. The students & I had gathered together to go watch Unknown at Paragon Cineplex (another item on my checklist) in the afternoon. We needed to kill a few hours’ worth of time before the film began and to wait for Bank—another student—to arrive, so we meandered around downtown Bangkok for a couple hours, looking for stuff to do & places to eat at.

While we were killing time, I asked them to take me over to Siam Centre, which the news had reported last year to be “gutted by fire” during the political riots in the area last year. We walked along ped-way underneath the BTS line to the large shopping complex & I was surprised to see that the building looked pretty much as normal as it always had, except for some scaffolding erected along its south-facing exterior like an enormous bamboo spider’s web. As we walked past the dusty construction area and entered the mall’s southern entrance, it turned out that the shopping complex was mostly untouched and that what the news reported to be “gutted by fire” was only really fire damage to maybe a few stores on each of the first 5 floors on the south side of the building. We walked through the mall up to its eighth floor & all of the shops that had been there before I left in 2009 were still in existence, doing fine & dandy. ...I guess this further goes to show that what the media reports generally needs to be taken with a great deal of salt.

Speaking of salt, we were getting hungry after all of this waiting. Oom, one of my students who had graduated last year, grabbed her ringing mobile phone from her bag & answered the mysterious caller with a barrage of incoherent (to me) Thai. After a short exchange, the phone conversation was over & she let us know that Bank would be downtown shortly. We were going to meet him for lunch at Shabushi in Siam World (or Siam Discovery... I always get the two mixed up!) on the opposite side of Siam Paragon (notice a common theme in the naming conventions for all these shopping locations?) from where we were. So, after grabbing a half-dozen escalator rides, walking along a kilometre of outdoor concrete footbridges, whisking ourselves through a few glass-and-metal doorways, inundating ourselves with the chilly, pleasant wonder that is air-conditioning and queuing up for the final few escalator ascents, we arrived at Shabushi, grabbed a number & waited for Bank to arrive.

No sooner had Bank arrived then we realised that waiting for lunch at this location would end up eating up all our time before the movie began. A crisis ensued—we were all hungry & wanted to eat before making the trip back to Paragon’s top-floor cinema. A flurry of Thai progressed around me & then Winner and Oom disappeared. Bank and Tony turned to me and explained the situation: the two who had left were off scouting other Shabushi locations to see if we could get fed sooner than waiting where we were. Ten minutes later, Bank got a call: with a few nods of his head to the invisible caller, he placed the phone back in his pocket stood up & explained that they had found another location which was serving sooner than where we were. We grabbed our stuff, jumped on the escalator & proceeded on another whirlwind journey filled with glass, air-conditioning, foot bridges and passageways before we arrived at another Shabushi location, where we sat down & gorged ourselves on tasty Japanese delicacies that motored along a conveyor belt in front of us.

A Movie

One of my favourite things about watching movies in Thailand—aside from being able to reserve your seats when you buy your ticket so you don’t have to waste an hour waiting in line at the door—is listening to the King’s Anthem that plays before any type public performance in the country. The version of the anthem that plays in the theatres almost always has the same audio track regardless of the location you’re watching movies & the audio hasn’t changed in 4 years. What has changed, and what seems to change almost annually, is the series of pictures or video clips that accompany the anthem on the screen: they portray a story of the Thai king & what he has done for the country, or they depict scenes of Thai national pride. These images, along with the musical score, never fail to give me goose-bumps—especially at the end of the anthem, during the choir’s crescendo as they sing “Chai-oh” with lusty vigour. The sense of national pride & communal patriotism that this song exudes is something in which we Canadians fail horribly. The vigorous respect and awe that this performance of the anthem reflects toward the Thai king is something I wish we, as Christians, could emulate when we choose to venerate our own King. I am moved; I am swollen with wonder whenever this song is performed at the theatres. It is something definitely worth taking in if ever you get a chance to visit Thailand.

& the Black Swan

After we had finished watching Unknown, the students each went their separate ways, braving the city’s rush-hour traffic to head home in time for supper. I opted to stay downtown and meet up with some current & some previous GES teachers at the Black Swan, which was only a few sky train stations away. We had planned on making our rendezvous at this English public house for 7pm, but as things so often go when planning with GES staff, it turned out that plans had changed while I was downtown... and that the gentlemen with whom I was to meet had now planned on leaving their respective locations at 7:30.

It was a Friday evening and a cricket match was playing on the televisions strewn about wood-paneled walls of the English pub. Having just been able to scam a rogue wi-fi connection on my phone for about three minutes before it faded away, I managed to discover the change in plans via Facebook and proceeded to guard my large table from the cricket fan base who was eying my prime real-estate among the shadows like a pack of lurking hyenas, ready to strike at the first sign of weakness. Twenty minutes passed. Forty-five minutes ticked away until I finally broke down & ordered some onion rings to assure the pub girls that I wasn’t just loitering at a large table without throwing down any cash. I was getting antsy. It was well past 6 now, and no-one had showed up yet. Should I give up on waiting & just order the pub’s infamous Hawaiian burger to appease my growling stomach, or should I hold out a little longer, just in case...

I broke down & decided, in a compromise, to order a draft pint of Guinness which would help me bide the time before the gents would arrive. Flagging down the pub girl before she made her way down the wooden, spiral stair-case beside me to the main floor, I asked her for the glass of suds. With a forlorn, apologetic look, she explained to me that they had run out of Guinness until the next shipment arrived on Monday.

Fail.

No worse of news could have reached my ears at that moment. I had travelled half-way around the world with a mental check-list of things to do while back in Thailand, and having a pint of Guinness with friends over delicious hamburgers at the Black Swan ranked pretty high on the “must do” section of the list. How could it be that they were out of the one thing that would make my experience complete? My mind went into disaster-recovery mode: how could I salvage the experience? “Well,” I thought to myself, “Craig’s going to be coming. He’s a fan of Kilkenny, and it’s not a bad alternative. Perhaps I’ll have to make do with Guinness’ lighter-coloured brother.” Before the girl had a chance to leave, I asked her for a pint of Kilkenny instead. To my chagrin, she sheepishly responded that it too was unavailable until Monday.

Epic fail.

She suggested Tetley’s, to which I acquiesced. I’ve never had Tetley’s before, but it turned out to be the furthest possible thing from Guinness or even Kilkenny: it was a bitter, light-bodied lager that definitely was no substitute for a much-desired stout. The night was turning out to be an exceptional disappointment: no frothy suds, no friends, no internet to confirm what was even happening in the outside world. I had decided, at this point, to grab a burger & scarf it down before heading back to GES for the night. At least I’d be able to munch on the tasty burger.

Before I could wrangle one of the pub girls over to the table—which was feeling more & more like the vast expanse of intergalactic space—a familiar head started bobbing up the staircase, complete with enormous, bushy eyebrows. Tyler had arrived. He crossed the threshold, put his motorcycle helmet down on the seat beside him and said, “Hey.” Pub solitude had finally been vanquished.

Within another 15-20 minutes, the much-coveted table that I had been guarding alone for the past 90 minutes transformed into an over-stuffed collection of friends, food and jovial conversation. Stories were swapped; french-fries were stolen from Chris Martin’s plate while he was lingering outside; friendly jibes were made in Tyler’s direction prophesying when he would ask others if they were going to finish all the food on their plates; glasses were emptied & refilled and consolations were passed around the table about the Pub’s empty kegs. Apparently, the Black Swan had been plagued with dry kegs on several occasions this year. McLatcher piped in that it was probably Michael’s fault, seeing as whenever he comes—or even thinks of coming—to the Black Swan, the establishment never has Guinness. Although Michael hadn’t come that evening, he had thought about it, and apparently that was enough to ensure the lines were dry. The whole table chuckled and bemusedly agreed that this probably was the reason for the troubled taps.

Burgers having been eaten & pint glasses with but a drooping halo lingering within, the conversations continued long into the night until the lure of sleep beckoned us homeward. We parted ways severally: some of us grabbed taxis while others hopped on motorcycles and whisked on through the night, leaving only the pub’s wooden sign waving us a farewell in the gentle breeze of our departure.

That day was a very good day.

Scratch 2.5 more items off the checklist…

Bangkok Reflections III — initial / final thoughts & retelling the tales of my checklist

2011-03-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

My trip to Thailand has now officially come to a close. I landed back in Canada 3 days ago without any luggage because the baggage handlers for the Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong forgot to transfer all of the passengers’ belongings to their connecting flights &those of us who were flying on to Vancouver were none the wiser until passing through Canadian customs, waiting at the baggage carousel in vain for our things to appear on the conveyor. Thankfully Air Canada (who code-shared the flights with Thai Airways) found my luggage & had the tardy bags delivered to my house early this afternoon.

It’s funny—I must be a creature of habit in some ways: I’m sitting in a Calgary McDonald’s at a booth, listening to random non-English conversations come & go around me. At first, a group of Russians were sitting behind me, who were replaced by some older Korean women that were themselves exchanged for a handful of Pilipino ladies shortly thereafter. This, of course, is the exception to the rule of English being the lingua franca in my city, and it was very odd to step off my second flight in Vancouver only to hear (and recognise) English conversations all around me. Eighteen days away from Canada & already I had accustomed myself to living in Thailand such that overhearing my native language seemed foreign to my ears. The tickle of familiar words and phrases overwhelmed me much like the cold, dry weather that met me at the Calgary airport; only, unlike the weather, the language reminded me that I could again integrate fully into this society—and that such integration was expected of me, having escaped the Western rat race for only 2 short weeks.

My time in Bangkok was filled with fond memories & wonderful interactions with excellent individuals. Food was shared, as were future dreams; great conversations & experiences; late night adventures and the general, inescapable camaraderie intrinsic to working (and living) at GES. For those of you who know the lifestyle first-hand, I trust you can feel with me the truth of these things; for those of you who haven’t, just know that living together & working closely with a small group of Christian people has a certain je ne sais quoi which points toward the joy that no doubt will exist in a shared, eternal community with the One and Only God—a future that I eagerly anticipate.

My Checklist

This excursion of mine to Thailand came with its own mental checklist—a small collection of must-dos during my stay in order for the trip to be considered a success. Among this list were several places that I wanted to re-visit, people I wanted to reconnect with and things I wanted to experience. Of the complete list, only one item wasn’t fully realised, that being a visit with the Jitgomnongmate family and their church. The rest of the experiences, I’ll relay in the following paragraphs & a few future posts.

A Taste of India & Tailored Suits

Among the random gallivanting after the teachers’ school work was completed for the day were trips down to Khao San Road to dine at the Taste of India, a wonderful restaurant whose most well-known server (to us) always responds to your order with “Yes please.” I was fortunate enough to grab a small group of teachers (all of whom were new this year) who were interested in visiting the restaurant. More than enough food was ordered & our conversations were as delightful as the meal we enjoyed together.

My primary motivation for going to the Taste of India that night was to rendezvous for a fitting, one floor down, with the tailors who were building a few suits & shirts I had ordered the night before (I brought no formal wear for graduation this year). The tailor work brought me down to the backpacker’s epicentre a handful more times throughout the remainder of my stay. They do pretty good work, but you really need to know what you want, or they’ll either give you just the barebones or suggestions that may not be 100% to your liking, as I had learned from my previous purchases through them. I guess that’s par for the course whenever you’re shopping for custom clothes, so I’m glad that I had a good idea in my head of what I wanted this time around.

The shop closed for the night and the newfound friends I had eaten dinner with all tumbled out of the restaurant, into the now-bustling street market of evening Khao San. We meandered through the several stalls & the congested international mob that swamped the street, eventually making our way back to the end of the road (with some freshly purchased merchandise in-hand) to flag down a taxi & wind our way back through the twisting arteries of Bangkok’s roadways to rest our heads for the evening for a few hours before the school-day began the next morning.

Item #1 in my checklist: Done.

The other items? Stay tuned... they’ll come up here soon!

Bangkok Reflections, 2011 - part II

2011-03-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting outside this morning at the Khao Sarn Starbucks which is tucked away off a side street from the main drag, where the tourists & travellers already browse the vendors’ various wares in a haphazard, groggy fashion. It would be nearly impossible to find this Starbucks if you didn’t already know where it was; and that makes it a wonderful location to get away & think... while you’re waiting for your suits to finish being tailored. To my left, sitting by the front door to the coffee shop is a white Siamese cat who is staring at me with its pale blue eyes. A few of its kittens gathered together, and as a group, they’ve now just strolled off around the corner.

Cats in Thailand are scarce, which to the uninitiated may seem strange. Dogs, on the other hand, are practically everywhere. It’s been an interesting observation that during this trip, the number of soi dogs (and their associated “kee ma,” or “dog crap” in English) both in Nonthaburi & in greater Bangkok altogether has been much lower than while I was living here—or even when I visited last year. The two dogs on GES campus, Daeng (Thai for ‘red’)—who was affectionately called “Nipples” by the foreign staff, owing to her many pregnancies & the ensuing udder-like underbelly from feeding many pups—and her mate no longer exist. They apparently started biting people last year & needed to be shipped out. Rumour has it that the male found his way back to GES once, which required another relocation. I, for one, do not miss the mangy mutts: the campus seems much cleaner & more professional without them.

General Observations

The visit has been different for many reasons already this year. Rain in March is rare, however, we’ve had some pretty good downpours over the past few days—the type of rain you’d expect to get in June or July where waterfalls appear off of roves & arid streets look more like canals than places for cars. This hasn’t really happened in my experience before Songkran, the Thai Water Festival that marks the traditional lunar calendar’s New Year. Why is it a water festival? Well, usually, the second week in April marks the hottest, driest time of the year. Water & mud made from talcum powder are used to cool everyone down, and it’s generally a mark of friendship & goodwill to drench other people during the national celebration. 2011’s weather is shaping up to be a definite exception to this rule of dry hotness.

Another quite noticeable difference is the way that this year’s foreign staff interact with each other and their demographics. There’s a surprising amount of family members comprising the faculty, either through marriage or through blood, which makes the single population very scarce. Also, it appears to be that the teachers don’t go out for supper together—either to Sombat’s or Rose’s—like we used to in a big group. People eat at home & generally do their own thing unless it involves a get together for playing board games or watching a movie over at the McLatchers’ place. The staff room this year tends to be only used for work & not as the GES “town square” where people gather to communicate & collaborate. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; just a difference from years gone by. I suspect that much of this is due to all of the pre-existing connections which trump any need to connect en masse with the greater group ...or maybe I’m just coming at a busy time of the year when finals are being marked & report cards being compiled. Y’never know ; )

Reconnections

I’ve been quite fortunate to have met up with several of my friends scattered throughout S.E. Asia in such a short amount of time. It’s been really great to catch up with old friends & swap new stories about life, learnings, struggles & hopes to come. As we all know so well, life’s pace knows nothing of respite: our stories grow and change from day to day and minute to minute without any need for us to push it along. The simple truth is that, through sharing stories, we remain interconnected; without this communication, the inevitable life-drift captures each of us with its tidal force and fractures our trajectories as we make our way toward the common ultimate end.

My first day back, I had an opportunity to sit down with a friend who’s living in Chiang Mai, serving and working with Compassion International. She’s recently had a change in roles within the office, working more as a copy editor these days than going out in the field with sponsors to visit the operating projects. Life for her is changing, and the future flux that she sees/feels makes her unsettled—you can see it in her face when she speaks. There is a struggle deep inside her soul, but one which she’s thoroughly equipped to overcome—you see that in her face as well. The foundation on which she stands is firm; she knows where her strength lies and the peace, the stalwart endurance, the faithful hope and the resolute passion produced from her faith in Jesus blossom forth with unmistakeable radiance amidst the shadowy struggle and the uncertainty of her current spot in life’s adventure. And as adventures go, she journeyed onward, back up to Chiang Mai the next day, ready to brave the next phase of her life, her work, her calling.

The following day, I spent the afternoon with another friend, Matt, who’s operating an orphanage in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He was in Bangkok for a short visit, part of which was motivated by gathering supplies for the orphans back in Cambodia. We met up with one of our mutual friends downtown who had recently moved back to Bangkok from living in Australia. Since her return, she’s opened up a clothing store in one of the malls with her sister & has plans on pursuing a Master’s Degree with her cut of the profit. Her face & her heart were filled with joy as we chatted over lunch, despite some difficult circumstances through which she’s weathered in the past few months. The life, the vigour & zest that she exuded was unmistakeable and even somewhat contagious! It was a vigorous joy that I have often missed in many of my daily interactions at work; a vigorous joy that is derived solely from the spiritual wholeness she’s received from the One who redeems all things. It was wonderful to watch her carry on as she did, and as we got up from the table to begin the next phase of our afternoon, she showed no signs of slowing down in the freedom with which she walked.

After flagging down a taxi outside of MBK, we hopped in & ventured off to Samsen, the Chinese district of Bangkok. Our mutual friend explained, between several random pauses where breathed the scent from a Bath & Body Works lotion she’d requested I bring from North America, that China Town would be the best place to get some beads for cheap that Matt would be taking back to Cambodia for the orphans to make necklaces with. All of the proceeds from selling the necklaces would go toward creating a college fund for the orphans under his care. As we were shopping for these beads, the three of us together in a crowded side-street, one Thai woman sandwiched between two blond haired, blue eyed white guys, floating upstream in a torrent of local shoppers all seeming to walk the other direction, he spoke about the developments in the orphanage & about his vision for whole-person well-being in the kids. Matt asserted that a lower child-to-staff ratio was paramount in providing stability and emotional health for the children’s personal identities. A sponsor had approached him to double the size of the orphanage provided that they first increase the number of children in the facility’s care, which caused a struggle in Matt, as he eagerly wants to help more children but needs to maintain the staffing ratios required for his vision. He went on to mention that he was drafting a proposal to this sponsor to see what could possibly be done. Amidst our tight-packed shopping walk & talk, we stumbled upon our third and final bead store. After a short conversation (half in English, half in Thai) with the shop-keeper about why we were buying beads and what would become of them, we struck a deal.

45 minutes later, the three of us together walked away with about 40 pounds of polished stone & plastic beads. We merged back into the stream of flowing shoppers, bulging bags in hand, and rode the commerce current until we spilled out of the tight side-street, only to meet a glacial wall of iron-hot traffic as far as the eye could see. With the wave of an arm, we hopped into a nearby taxi that was idling in the gridlock. Escaping the loud, hot, bustling street air, we transitioned, each on our separate paths, one last time through the communal, quiet & cool drive toward the Sky Train stations downtown.

Bangkok Reflections, 2011 - part I

2011-03-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

Coming back to Bangkok feels so natural, it’s almost as if I’ve never left. That old aphorism, “The more things change; the more they stay the same” couldn’t be more poignant. Although the world of Nonthaburi, Bangkok & Thailand itself is in constant flux, and although new things are popping up in places I never would have expected, it really comes as no surprise: my understanding of Thailand and my time living here has taught me that change & transition are fundamental aspects of this metropolitan centre.

The flight across the Pacific was largely uneventful. Landing in the Hong Kong International Airport blew me away, however—I had forgotten what humid air was like! The glass-and-steel construct, as sturdy & as secure as you would imagine, was nevertheless unable to keep the dense, moist ocean air from permeating through the terminal. Certain passengers would inevitably consider the dank quality of the airport’s atmosphere to be unpleasant or displeasing; I on the other hand, breathed deep the rich, heavy-laden air, treating my lungs to a sensation as satisfying as moisturising one’s skin with soothing balm. This prelude to Thailand made me all the more excited to complete my journey & land in my second home.

For the first time ever, I was able to avoid the mad taxi rush & expensive highway tolls typically required when escaping Suvarnabhumi International: the Airport Rail Link had opened sometime in the past year, which made for a pleasant surprise. I had been waiting to ride that thing for ever, watching it get pieced together, bit by bit, throughout the past four years (it’s crazy to think about it, but yes—it has been four years since I first set foot on Thai soil in 2007). The train is a wonderful bit of convenience, connecting the major public transit stations with the airport—something that’s great for everybody from tourists to Thais alike… except for the taxi drivers, whose big ticket fares accrued from shuttling people between the city and the airport have inevitably shrunk as a result.

One of the first things I noticed as I commuted via taxi from the train station to my former school, GES, was the massive progress that the city had made on expanding the BTS Skytrain system from Mo Chit station westward. Wongsawang Road was now bisected by a massive construction zone, wherein concrete piles were being poured & formed, growing like monochromatic monoliths, veritable vertebrae for the future expansion of the transit system into Nonthaburi. I wondered to myself, as my taxi skirted alongside the development, how long it would be before the need for a taxi to connect GES and the airport would disappear.

True to GES form, when I arrived at 10 pm, the school’s front gate was locked shut. I tossed my laptop bag over the fence & then hopped over myself, leaving the rest of my luggage stranded street-side until I could find someone with a key. Fortunately, Craig was working on some last-minute lesson plans in the staff room, so after a quick hug & greeting, we scurried back to the gate & rescued my bags from their sidewalk jeopardy.

The next morning, I left my apartment and almost immediately ran into some of my Grade 9 students (they’re in G 11 now, but that’s beside the point!). As usual, they were being diligent with pre-class studying & other scholastic work. Mild appeared around the corner, this year with her hair tinted ruby red. When she smiled, I noticed that her braces had gone the way of the dinosaur—that was fast! She just got them in Grade 10! The morning bell rang, and we made our ways toward the main field. I only made it about 15 metres before running into the Grade 10 guys (Grade 12 this year, but when you stop teaching them, they forever remain in your head as the last grade level you taught ‘em), and while we were chatting, Elf shouted my name from down the hallway & ran up to us with a big smile on her face. Unlike Mild, she still had her braces, however she got another new pair of glasses this year.

It was great being able to catch up with the students—if only in brief hallway moments—on day one back. After running into Boom by the school’s office, who was waiting for her cousin to arrive so that she could show her around (it was going to be the first day for Boom’s cousin to be at GES. Final exams were being held the next day: “classic GES,” I thought to myself), Esso turned the corner walking with a camera bag & wearing a shirt drenched with sweat. Why he was at GES instead of being in his university classes, I myself wondered, however the mystery was soon resolved: he was taking grad photos for NCA & this term’s schedule for him had all of his classes on a Tuesday/Thursday rotation. That afternoon, Oom & Katak came to the school to visit & we began making plans for the rest of the time I was in Thailand. Katak’s now living on the other side of the city, close to the Dusit Thani Culinary School, where he’s studying, so we’re hoping to be able to hang out more while I’m here… but it might be difficult for him to make the long trip across town.

One of the more surprising things I noticed about my old neighbourhood was the fact that everything seemed so clean. It hadn’t rained for a long time I was told, so I was a little amazed that the sidewalks were devoid of dust, litter & soi dog poop. Not only this, but there was a noticeable absence of odours—both on the streets & by the khlong. You’d typically expect to smell the pleasant aroma of fermenting black water, whose bouquet ranged from rotting cheese to pre-sewage… but this year, there wasn’t really anything to be said about the smell from the canal. Either that or I’ve become so accustomed to its rancidity that my olfactory awareness has chosen to ignore the presence of anything foul whenever I crossed the bridge. It might be a possibility, but why then do I smell the delicate fragrance from the school’s potted jasmine shrubs immediately adjacent to this bridge? You can’t mask khlong smell with jasmine; you can only mix the two together & smell them in concert. It’d be like tossing an open bottle of perfume into a well-used outhouse.

For being the end of the dry season, I’m surprised at how green things are. The trees in the courtyard and even the scant grass on the playing fields are a verdant hue instead of showing themselves in the wilted, browny-yellow shades that so often typify late Feb / early March. The cicadas are out en masse though, true to form. They were wailing their rattles incessantly last night after Matt & I returned from the soi with a couple orders of street-side pad thai. I couldn’t help but smile to myself, reminiscing in the repeated history of the moment: a small bag in one hand filled with 30 baht pad thai wrapped in waxed paper; a bottle of 7-11 water in the other; strolling down the blue awning-covered walkway toward the apartment with a friend, our ambling adventure accompanied by the cicadas’ communal cacophony and graced by gentle jasmine pockets wavering stealthily in the breezeless evening air. Although this was 2011, it could have just as easily been 2008. The only real difference was that the both of us were returning veterans visiting from our other occupations—his in Cambodia, and mine in Canada; nevertheless, the enchanting beauty of life at GES and the inexpressible fullness produced from a life serving at the school for the students, for the staff and for the surrounding community resonates in a deeply permanent way. The struggles, the trials & the sacrifices made while enduring the momentary difficulties inherent with a school-year at GES all fade away; what has truly remained is the legacy of love and purpose poured into lives throughout every square inch of the school’s campus. That is permanent. That is steeped deeply into every corner, every crack and every textbook in the school.

My hope & prayer is that the palpable infusion at GES would stick to the lives of those who’ve graced its campus; that their lives would be changed & transformed by the source of this difference, by the Root of what makes the place unique. This is the reason for the school’s existence.

The Present Resolution

2009-08-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

Well, word back from Satit Kaset, the school to which I applied back at the end of May has been a long time coming. During the past 10ish days while I was enjoying a wonderful time of community, encouragement & service at Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp, I was sent an e-mail from the school's administration. It turns out that, during the lengthy process of my application procedure (delays, lost documents requests & all), Satit Kaset had filled the position that I had been applying for, and Ajarn Parichart (the second administrator with whom I was in contact) informed me that there no longer were any open positions at their school.

To boil that paragraph down into a more potent, compact form, it looks like the Lord has closed the door for my return to Thailand until further notice, and that He indeed has plans for me to continue onward in His service within the realm of this hemisphere.

Thanks for all of your prayers. It, actually, is encouraging to me & exciting to know that I can now start working on pursuing a definite direction until He whisks me away to another random assignment whenever He does will :)

Those of you in Thailand, I miss you much & I will continue to do so; the same holds true for my American compadres. My fellow Canadians: I look forward to advancing the Kingdom's borders alongside you as we march together in this land with the Lord at our lead.

Leap(?)

2009-06-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone / random blog-reading people:

I'm posting this message because I believe that you who read this blog are praying types of people & that all of you—in one way or another—may have some interest in my Thailand activities.

A few weeks ago, one of my former associates from GES who now teaches at Satit Kaset—an International Program school based on the Kasetsart University campus in Bangkok—informed me of an open "assistant librarian" position with the school. He told me that I would probably be a good fit, that the school was a great place to work (from his fresh perspective, having just been hired in May) and that I should seriously consider applying for the job.

Being a person who likes to keep his options open, I figured that there would be no harm in me applying to Satit Kaset and seeing what (if anything) would come from it. A little more than a week ago, I e-mailed my resume to one of the school's Ajarns / administrators, telling her that I was interested in the open position, and I just received word back from her this morning. The school seems interested in my skills, and would like to further pursue the possibility of my employment at Satit Kaset: they asked me to fill out an application form & also send them copies of my academic transcripts. If they continue to like what they see, I may be up for an interview & possibly an offer of employment back in Bangkok this fall.

Here is where the subject of this e-mail gets its purpose, and here is where I need your help. Over the past 6 weeks, God has been making it clear to me & I, in turn, have been making it clear to God that I should be (and, indeed am) willing to work for Him wherever, whenever, however He would like me to be. This, of course, also includes the possibility of me giving up all of the plans & goals that I have had for my life—even the plans I used to hold so strongly—in North America (which every person holds, since nobody starts off assuming that they will be leaving their home-country & living their life somewhere else) and pursue ministry / work in Thailand. My request, therefore, is for your prayers. I ask and even urge you to pray for me at this time. Pray that God would give me wisdom and discernment; that He would continue to guide me where He would want me to be, and that I, in turn, would be willing & humble enough to listen and follow Him wherever it is that He may take me.

Right now, I can't say with 100% certainty that I will be returning to Thailand: that, still, is in the palm of God's hands. There still is an application process through which I need to pass before getting a job with Satit Kaset. If it is God's will that I return, though, I would ask that you guys pray with me to see this happen (or, if God so has in mind, another better opportunity). If, however, the Lord has other plans for my future, I would ask that you join with me in prayer also, so that God would make it clear to me in this situation by closing this door, breaking off this opportunity and showing me a new direction that my life should take.

It's an interesting time for me right now, one that honestly has me a bit scared since even I cannot see the ledge to where God is asking that I jump. Nonetheless, I know for certain that He is saying, "Jump!" Right now is that interesting moment where faith is tested; and where God must move to catch me in this leap of faith and place me on the very ledge He desires me to walk along.

Thank you all very much for your prayers in this situation & in this time. I'll be certain to let you all know where I end up landing.

Humbly in the service of our Glorious Father, who knows all things & works all things both to His good and to our own, I remain.

April

2009-04-05T02:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Penultimatum

2009-03-15T03:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-01T00:36:00.000-08:00

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.

Love's Labours Lost?

2009-02-15T01:42:00.000-08:00

I officially am writing this letter for your reading enjoyment the day after Valentine's Day, and in all honesty, the contents herein may actually have a dash or two of love sprinkled about. But, enough of introductions: let's get to the meat.

Future Considerations

Well, it has been two weeks since my last update, and as I mentioned in that letter, there would be a good chance that I would be able to tell you what will be happening to me in 2009. Unfortunately, as my relationship with ministry in Thailand perpetually seems to be, there isn't simple, straight-forward answer. :)

Our offers of contract extension were to be given out at the beginning of this past week, and to my chagrin, I was away from campus attending a library automation conference for the first half of the week, which really only delayed the inevitable. When I returned to GES, I asked our English administrator, Michelle, what the scoop was with me. Quickly, she informed me that there indeed was an offer for my return to GES on the table, but she stated that it came some provisions. We met on Thursday to discuss what these provisions were, and it turned out to be one of the three fears I had anticipated. The provision was that I could return to GES in the same position as I occupy currently, provided that I sever all ties with the church plant dealie that I was working with. *Uugh.*

Politics

Here's a little more information, for those of you who'd like the elucidated version. The people who had started up this church plant used to attend the church in which the owners of GES hold leadership positions. The origins of the church plant stem from a small group that began as a ministry from this church. As the small group grew in numbers and depth, the church's original idea of constantly changing where the group met became unfavourable, so this small group asked the church if it could meet at one place. The original answer was one of approval, and due to the stability of location and meeting time, this small group began to grow even more until the church leadership decided that the group was big enough to be split into two small groups. The group, however, didn't want to divide, so as the church re-organised this part of its congregation, the group as a whole decided to continue meeting as a group of believers independent of the church's ministry.

At the same time that this was happening, there apparently were some pretty unpleasant church politics simmering in the background. I heard stories of how members of the church were doing and saying things to people of this small group that made them feel unwelcome & condemned—in fact, so much so that I saw some people pushed to tears over the way they were being made to feel by members of the church. As a result of the way they were feeling, many members of this small group started to attend other congregations scattered around Bangkok & even into the provinces while still meeting as a collective whole on Friday evenings for worship and Bible study.

It had been on the heart of many of the members of this small group to start an outreach ministry in the communities where they lived. They recognised the huge mission field that was around them and were compelled to do something about it after I had made a random comment one night saying, "Wow, those are a lot of really good plans." Later, I was told that my comment was interpreted as "You sure talk a lot, but are you going to do something about it?"—something that I never had intended, but I guess happens when conversing to someone through a second language!

Because of my inadvertent prompting, the small group came to an agreement that it would be a profitable decision to turn their small group into a community church—one where people would be able to come and share life together at any time of the day: a church whose doors were rarely ever locked. And that's precisely what they did.

Miscommunication(s)?

We now need to put this church plant into the proper light. The church that where many of these people had come from recently suffered a painful church split where the brother of GES's owner took a large portion of the congregation & also decided to make their own church somewhere. I'm not exactly sure what the timeline was for the event surrounding the church split, but I know that it occurred in the recent past. When the leadership of the church again saw a second group of its members leaving, it immediately perceived it as a personal attack, which I believe was an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Compounding this understanding were the events that surrounded my (and the king's) birthday weekend. Members of this small group had asked GES teachers to come with them to visit Lopburi & do some ministry activities with the church up in that province because it was a long weekend. We had been asked at the beginning of November if we wanted to go. It just so happened that a week or so later, the church from which these people had come declared that weekend to be the celebration of its 40-year anniversary. The GES owners suggested to our administrator to maybe have some of the staff come & help out. Unfortunately, the manner in which they presented the notion led our administrator to believe that this was an optional "would be nice to do" activity, so when she told us at a staff meeting, this was how she presented it to the staff. Things now turned ugly when the church leadership discovered that the members of the "contentious" small group had taken 6 GES teachers with them out of the city on the same weekend as their 40th anniversary celebrations. Again, the church leadership perceived this as a defiant attack against the church, which I'm pretty sure wasn't the case.

In retaliation, the owners of GES decided to forbid the children of one of the families in this small group from continuing in their classes until they paid more money, for the owners give their church members something like a 25% discount. This, in turn, upset the church plant community, who went to the school owners to try & reason/understand what was going on. From what I've been told, this meeting was anything productive, as both sides ended up hurting & insulting each other and the meeting ended with people walking angrily out of the room.

The tensions and problems have now progressed to the point where the school has told its Thai staff that they are forbidden to associate with members of this church plant under penalty of losing their jobs. I at first didn't believe this when I heard it, but it seems to hold some weight, since the same provision has now been extended to me—a member of this church plant who only recently has caught wind of these underlying problems.

My Desire

My desire in this situation is to see reconciliation and restoration of unity between all believers in the Body. Unfortunately, when I asked if the owners would be willing to meet with me & the "contentious" small group, I was told that it was out of the question. In all honesty, I'm confident that the whole situation lies in misunderstanding of events & defensiveness due to previous hurts—in both parties. But what do I do when my existence in Thailand is contingent on forsaking associations with a group of Christians who have upset my bosses—knowingly or not? I mean, if I say "no" to coming back, I throw away all of the foundational work that I have done with my ministry at GES _and_ with the discipleship I've started to enter into with the leadership of this church plant (by the way, my reservations and uncertainness with the members of this congregation have since evaporated due to a new openness that has flowered in the past two weeks. It's an openness that I can accredit only to God, seeing as it's engrained into Thai culture to keep dirty laundry and short-comings buried as deep as possible. Then again, is that really Thai culture, or is it inherent to the human condition?). If I say "yes" to coming back without investigating/trying to promote reconciliation, I submit myself to an unethical use of power whose goal is anything but noble, and in so doing, I abandon part of the body of Christ because someone tells me "Don't associate with them, or else."

My resolve is to investigate the matter & see if there indeed is anything that can be done to promote unity within the Body. If I discover that resentment, bitterness and "low-dealings" indeed have been undertaken by members of this church plant and that the motivations for the plant are less than noble, I will exhort them to practise humbleness and seek forgiveness from the church that they came from. If no such motivations are present, I will be compelled to ask the owners or GES again to meet for purposes of reconciliation, as it would then appear that this desire for perpetuated division and persecution is the result of bruised egos. In either case, the premises set by Jesus in Matt 18:15-17 & by Paul in Titus 3:10-11 perforce will be followed.

So what does that mean? It means that if the church plant is in the wrong and has no desire for reconciliation, then I wash my hands of them & I return to GES for another year. It also means that if this church plant indeed is willing to seek restoration, but if the owners of GES are not, my choice is limited to the adherence of the Biblical decree: I would no longer be willing to associate myself with GES and its authorities due to a poor spiritual standing. And then, there's outcome number three: if both parties are willing to cooperate & be united as a common Body of Christ (whether meeting in one place or severally), then I would be coming back to serve another year at GES.

So there you have it: two outcomes have me returning for another year, and one has me coming home. This decision will be made as late as Friday, when the owners expect my response to the job offer.

Please keep me & these two parties in prayer. I beg you. Petition the Lord for His will to be done.

Thanks.

Another Day; Another Week; Another Month

2009-02-01T05:54:00.000-08:00

Time is a funny thing. It seems to accelerate the longer you experience it, and living/working at GES is no exception. 2009 is already 1 month down—that's 8% of the year already, and I swear that I was just in Canada last weekend!

All that being said, there have been quite a few interesting things happening over this past month & especially in the past week. Here's the condensed version:

Library & IT stuff

With the addition of my new helper, Ann, who's volunteering with is from Taber, the book cataloguing project has begin to take off with a bit more oomph. Alone, I was averaging 40 title records per day; with her help the past two weeks have seen 450 & 300 title records created! Definitely an improvement, but I don't think it will be enough to complete the digital catalogue by April.

I discovered, in my tinkering with our library software, that Phase II of our project—which I thought would be a mindless snap—is actually more involved. Phase II will involve bar-coding every copy of every book in the library, and originally I thought that this meant scanning the ISBN & sticking on a bar code to identify the copy with the title. To my chagrin, it looks like the software also requires a call number to be applied to the book for record-keeping. Thankfully, Ann & I have been working on this already (originally as a method to streamline res-helving for non-/low-level-English speakers, but now a veritable requirement for the database) & the extra step in Phase II should proceed without much pain.

(Warning: nerd alert. Read the following only if you're interested in computers & IT system management)

I'm furthering my knowledge of Microsoft server technology by creating a network-based installation source/image for our workstations via MS's free Windows Deployment Server download. The current version of WDS has been designed for Vista deployment, so there have been a few snags along the way to get an XP image deployed through this solution due to differing bootstraps for the two versions of windows. Today, I finished configuring the PXE server to load WinPE successfully, only to be hampered by PE's 'image capture' utility refusing to recognise my system volumes. Booting PE outside of the image capture configuration, I was able to create an image through the command line with ImageX. My next step(s) in this project will be to create an answer file for the hardware independent image to automatically install itself on remote machines. In the end, my several month "hobby" should make the 90 minute/machine OS & software deployment process complete in 20 minutes per machine (even faster if I'm able multicast... Not sure if WDS supports it though... Maybe Ghost instead).

Church ministry

I actually got a chance to go to the new church plant dealie that I've been asked to work alongside last week. It was a fluke arrangement, since the things that were prohibiting my attendance got rescheduled out of nowhere. I visited the church on Wednesday night for their Bible study & Sunday for the morning service. Here are some details:

The church is situated in a community close to a huge temple school & a light-industry factory that employs over 200 people. We meet in a small, one-storey house that has four rooms: one for an office, one for services/meeting, one for a guy who needs a place to live to stay in & one for eating/welcoming. The eating/welcoming room is pretty much the atrium for the house, as the front door opens right into it. The hope is to keep the building open & occupied throughout each day for the eventual purpose to have neighbourhood dwellers drop on by whenever they're bored.

So far, the church seems to have 13 members: the Thai family who started it up (6 people), the pastor & his family (4 more), Aaron, Lorrie (my American compadres from GES in this venture) & myself. We had a planning meeting on how to proceed with the church's mission & vision last week Wednesday, but not much has happened since (almost as if we're all busy already).

In all honesty, there are a couple of things that make me uneasy about this church plant. 1.) it's a Thai church & although they do an excellent job of translating for us, inevitably there are things that get lost in translation which makes communication & planning a bit more difficult. 2.) This may be related to #1, but I get an uneasy feeling that there is some information—whether to do with the church or concerning the relationship(s) I have among the members of this Thai family, I'm not yet sure—that is being kept from me. I find myself being a little suspicious about something going on that is being deliberately hidden. Now, whether it's because "I shouldn't have to worry about it" or some other non-issue, there nonetheless is something leaking through the body language of certain members that makes me wonder. 3.) I find myself acutely aware that it would be foolish to enter into a working relationship with this church for an extended amount of time if I would be the only native English-speaker. Thankfully, Aaron & Lorrie have been recruited alongside me, but they're even more unsure where 2009 is going to take them than where I find myself when looking forward. The Thai pastor, when preaching last week brought up this very point in his sermon. When Jesus sent out the Seventy to go & preach in His name, proclaiming the Kingdom of God, He sent them out in pairs—never alone. The pastor's comments on this decision resonated with Ecclesiastes 4:11-12, where we're told that there is strength in numbers. In all honesty, I don't think that I could survive in Thailand without some strong sort of English-speaking interaction until I became fluent in Thai...

Students & Relationships

This past few weeks, one of my students in Grade 10 has shown a huge surge of interest in Christianity. His name is Tony, and he's fluent in English, owing to a couple years of elementary schooling in the USA. It's one of those things where you never thought things would happen, really. He said that the reason he started to become interested in Christianity was because of something I had said after a life group (a youth group type thing after school on Thursdays) game about talking to God & having a dynamic relationship with the Creator of the Universe. He asked me this week to pray for him because he wants to find God & experience Him. Pray with me for him, would you? Pray that God would indeed reveal Himself to Tony. That would be awesome.

On the other side of the spectrum, it has become strikingly clear to me that we as a staff have fallen into some bad habits—myself included. I've started to become acutely aware of a certain level of un-edifying gossip passing around from teacher to teacher. It's unfortunate, because such activities do nothing to build community, and I must confess that I also have been party to such activities. Expressing exasperation with certain colleagues to other colleagues just for the sole purpose of venting. Pray that this unhealthy environment would become rectified.

Future considerations

As I've been instructed to proceed in my life as if I were to work with this church plant indefinitely, I submitted an intention to stay for another year at GES. The school was supposed to come back to us with an answer either within 2 weeks of our submitted form or by the 1st of February, whichever was later. I received an e-mail on Friday informing me that these decisions would be delayed for another week (for now—that's my pessimistic attitude shining through). One of the conditions for me to stay in 2009 & help with this church plant is being able to stay in Thailand. Legally, in order to do that I'd either need to be married to a Thai girl, or I'd have to have some sort of employment. And there ain't no Thai girl in the works (or at least that I know of yet. Ha!). GES really is my only shoe-in, as all schools now require an education degree at very least (I'd get excepted at GES because of being hired before the law "came into effect") for employment, and my degree isn't a very attractive one in the eyes of most other employers. So, one of the big factors on whether I stay another year or not will—hopefully—reveal itself before my next update.

Summary

Okay, I'm tapping out. Pray for these things:

Thank the Lord that Tony's showing interest in Christianity. Pray that God reveals Himself to this Grade 10 student

Pray for revealed information & solidified intentions with this church plant: where they want to go & what they have in mind.

Pray for healthy relationships & constructive communication patterns among staff—and all relationships, really.

Pray that God would make it 100% evident on whether or not He wants me here another year or not in the next week or so through this re-hiring decision.

Pray for my back! The chair that I use in the library is broken, and my back has started to notice this in the past week. It has started to vocalise its protest by means of sharp pains that occur usually in my lower back, yet they're not isolated there: some days the pain's much higher up my spine. You would think that this would be an easy fix: get a new chair, but practically all the unused chairs on campus right now are broken, and the school I doubt would be willing to spring for a new one (we need approval from the school's owners now to spend 6 baht [that's 18 cents] whenever we need to print something for class in colour).

I think that's it. Thanks, again, for reading what I thought was going to be short. Another installation with life-changing news by Valentine's Day!

January Oh-nine

2009-01-18T01:19:00.000-08:00

Hello avid readers!

It's hard for me to believe that January's practically 2/3 over, and that only 2 weekends ago, I was braving -40°C weather. There was a bit of a story with my return flight, but in order to read that, you're going to have to check out the post before this one.

Since I've been back to Thailand, there have been a few developments:

The church that I've been asked to partner with began its first service on 1 January. I have yet been able to go due to my other service obligations at the ex-pat church where I attend (I mix sound once every three weeks). I've heard reports, though, from my friends (a couple from the states—the guy who's teaching high school math in my lieu) that seem optimistic and at the same time, concerned about the sheer volume of activities that the Thai leadership has expressed a desire to undertake. Owing to my absence at the beginning of January, I won't be able to check out this church next week either (sound mixing duty), but I hope that the opportunity arises sooner than later.

I had a chance to go to a Thai wedding on the day that I landed in Thailand. The wedding saw a couple of my friends—Dominic and Sherri—tie the knot on the 6th of January. It was a pretty cool experience, notwithstanding my severe jetlag, and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to celebrate with them. Sherri's parents are in North Carolina, and they couldn't make the trip out to Thailand for the wedding. Perhaps they'll have another celebration when the new couple moves across the pond later this year?

Last week saw my teaching career at GES all but cease & my library duties redouble their temporal allotments. After the typical Tuesday staff meeting that I sat through a few short hours after I had landed back in the BKK, I was called into the administrator's office along with the grades 1 & 2 teachers for a second, smaller meeting. In that meeting, we were told that the school thought it best if my classes were delegated to others & my efforts in cataloguing & organising the library become the primary focus of my weekly activity. It was sad to leave the students last week although I still do teach one class (grade 7). On the upside, however, there has been a huge increase in my library productivity since this shift. Because the computers classes are always scheduled 30 minutes (or less) after my last library check-out session, it becomes very difficult to get into a rhythm for the short "free time" that used to exist between my services. Cutting out my teaching hours has effectively doubled my productivity in cataloguing & data entry. It's great. Great, though, might still not be enough to cut it: there are thousands of library books that need to be catalogued & which need new shelf tags (the old ones have since faded, and the typical letter classification for book type: 'E' 'JE' 'F' 'JF' etc. Confuses the kids who try to do their best to keep the library in alphabetical order, so I’ve devised a new classification system for the fiction collection). With the few weeks that are left, I'm not sure if the records will be completed—not to mention creating "accounts" for all staff & students who will be using the system too...

This past Monday, I received a new helper! Her name's Ann & she hails from Taber. It's a huge blessing & relief to have someone with a strong command of the English language work alongside me in the library. She's been instrumental in helping with the cataloguing process, and we're coming up to the point where our combined productivity will double my throughput alone. She's a quick learner & is good, not only in finding the fine details, but also in understanding systems & the importance thereof. It's like she's been a God-send (which, perhaps she is, seeing that she came to volunteer with the school in December). Combined, we're getting close to reaching 80 completed title records a day for the non-fiction section. That's pretty good, considering that half of the library's operating time is filled with students running around & checking out books, with the mundane upkeep of re-shelving books and, lest we forget, checking in books also.

Along with Ann, my other helper, Mrs. Lorena, a Filipino mother/missionary has continued to help me, but now the school has given her more working hours toward the library project which is also a huge blessing. She's been a trooper in labelling & covering the books that Ann & I have been cataloguing. We're working a veritable assembly line in the library these days. It's awesome.

We were asked two weeks ago by the school to fill out forms of intent for the upcoming year. These forms are supposed to help the school plan & decide how to staff the next couple of terms after this one expires. The word on the street (and from our administrator) is that we should be hearing from the owners regarding job offers by the 1st of February. It's a huge time of transition right now as all the staff members are weighing the options & trying to decide what 2009 will have in store for them.

My bent on 2009 goes somewhat like this: While in Canada over Christmas, during one of my prayer sessions with God, we were talking about what my future portends. I expressed my anxiety and uncertainty with pretty much everything, telling Him that I didn't know how long He wanted me to stay in Thailand (How long is "indefinitely" anyways?), and if I were to stay for longer than June / July this year, how I would find lodging & finances required for living, what exactly He wanted me to do with the church plant, how far to take it, and on & on & on... Instead of answering my questions the way that I was hoping He would (which seems typical for God), He said this, an excerpt from my prayer journal:

[Holy Spirit:] Trust in the Lord and He will give you the desires of Your heart
Do not let your heart be troubled Trust in God; trust also in me. In My Father's house there are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you.

[Me:] You go ahead of me to prepare a place for me.

[HS:] "It doesn't matter if you know what I want you to do. All I require of you is that you walk in faith the path that I have laid before you. Trust in Me; trust that I know where I am taking you. Do not fear, for I am with you and I will make you great & prosperous. Only, be sure to walk in the way that I have set before you: walk in it and do not tread to the left or the right. Let me worry about where you are going. You, be mindful of where you put your next step. I have called you to help with this church plant, now be faithful in my call. Do not worry about how long you will be there: just be there as long as I have ordained you to be there."

[Me:] What, then, do I do about May, Father? What is the step after this one?

[HS:] "That will be revealed to you in due time. Only be mindful of what I have set before you at this current time. Let me worry about where I am taking You."

Make no plans until February. Proceed as normal. Plan as if you are returning in May, but make no solid commitment to any plan until after January ends. Who knows? Maybe something will surface that you are not currently aware of.

And that, my friends & family, is what I'm working with. It strikes me as a bit providential that this prayer was written on 28 December, and when I arrive back in Thailand, I'm told that job offerings will be on Feb 1. Who knows? Maybe God will have me here another year? All I know is that He wants me to be serving Him in this time—and that "this time" is in His hands.

Things that you could pray for:

Pray for the staff @ GES as all of us are considering the future. Pray that we be mindful of what God wants us to do & that we need only be responsible for following the step that He immediately lays before us—that the rest is in His hands until He goads us otherwise.

Pray for my G. 11 student, Kitty, who's leaving on Monday (ish) to live Brooklyn until August (or thereabouts). She's a professing Christian, but one of the difficulties of being a Thai Christian is that spiritual growth / discipleship is scant at best. Pray that she would get connected to a good, solid Christian community while she lives in NY.

Pray for this new church plant that God wants me working in/with. Pray that wisdom would be granted to the leadership & that above all things, the Lord would be followed. Pray for unity & harmony above believers.

Pray that we, as a Christian staff, wouldn't slip into the "game over" mentality with our 8 remaining weeks of school. Pray for our unity, for our fervour & for our lives to blaze bright as living examples of Christ, not merely resounding gongs or clanging cymbals.

Pray that the Lord's direction for my 2009 would be blatantly evident in February: if He desires for me to stay in Thailand for 2009 or beyond, that all those intimidating hurdles would be jumped / all those imposing doors would be opened. Conversely, if He wants me to return to Canada (or elsewhere), pray that that step would also be illuminated clear as day in a desert.

Thanks, all, for your interest & prayers. They're greatly appreciated!

A January Tidbit

2009-01-03T20:11:00.000-08:00

This officially is the first adventure of 2009. Missed flight! First class! Rerouted to LA! Free hotel (please may that happen)! It is pretty exciting to think that all this happened because of a small flame failing to ignite in an engine on the tarmac of Edmonton's International Airport in the wee hours of this morning. Something about it being -40°C or other… And on top of this, the clock in the room where I was staying got re-set with a different time, throwing me off my schedule be an hour! That was odd... Thank you, Lord, that my mom woke me up because I'd be willing to bet that even if my own alarms had woken me, I'd be poking around, biding my time during that hour before my plane was supposed to take off completely unaware that I was 60 minutes behind schedule. The great irony is that it didn't really matter in the end, seeing as the airplane only left YEG a full two hours after it was scheduled to depart.

And here I am, in seat 2A on Northwest Airlines flight 315 to Los Angeles for a 17ish hour layover before I fly out—a day later—to Tokyo for my connecting flight into Bangkok. I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of this delay is in the grand scheme of things, but there usually tends to be a reason that floats to the surface sometime later in this progression of time called life. I have never been to LA before, so it will be an experience to say the least. Is my rerouting a need to fill a gap or to interact with someone while I layover in Los Angeles? Was there something that was going to happen on my other schedule that I wasn't supposed to experience? Is there something that I am supposed to be missing in Bangkok? Not sure. Yet. Maybe one day I'll find out, but at this juncture, all I know is that I know that God is doing His thing: and when He works, ain't nothing gonna stand in his way.

I am going to be crazy tired for my friends’—Dominic and Sherri—wedding on Tuesday. Sheesh! I mean, talk about a busy day: first I get in at 12:30—all things going to schedule—then I struggle through customs & return to GES probably by 2 at the earliest, 3 at the latest. That morning, we have staff meeting at 7:30 am. My two computers classes plus library stuff. Maybe Thai class? The wedding at 6 & the party until who knows when? It's going to be a full day, especially when there's a games day on Friday which may or may not interfere with my classes... And then Teachers' Day the following Friday! The Grade 7 & 9 classes will be sooooo far behind if the time allotted in class is for instruction. Methinks we're going to have to hash out something—some sort of monthly plan of attack—to see if these classes can stay in line with each other (parity or something... Or not. I mean, who says that each class must have the same level of instruction? I know that it's kinda gay for those students who get less [or for those who get more, depending on your perspective. Ha!] instruction, but the way that the schedules have worked out this year really doesn't lend itself very well to instructional parity. Oh well.).

It's going to be an interesting year back, Lord, and You've decided to start it off with a bang :). I'm not 100% sure why my brain is screaming & throbbing at this point in time, but I trust that You've got it looked after & that it may merely be a result of fatigue or dehydration or both.

Father, I pray that you help me to be faithful with the resources that you've given me & the relationships that you've afforded me. Let me not squander them, but give me the wisdom & the direction to take these things and develop them for your glory. I pray for reconciliation between Sparky & I; for an open & curious spirit to overwhelm Oom; for opportunities to lead & develop the staff & the students that wouldn't become nullified due to lack of interest or lack of priority. Father, I ask you emphatically for wisdom with how to proceed in this church plant ordeal. I'm going to wait on you, as you've instructed, but in this time of waiting, let your wisdom steep my brain & pickle my thoughts so that all of the information that comes at me (and has already done so) can be processed through the distinct flavour of your loving wisdom & discernment. Jesus, I ask that you bring reconciliation & cooperation & understanding & restitution in the relationships surrounding this church plant project & NBC. I pray that William turns out to be an excellent resource & willing servant in the advancement of Your Kingdom. May his excitement / passion and vision not be swallowed up, but Lord, may you be so gracious as to use him as a catalyst to enliven those Christians around him.

My brain is sore—as are my legs—and I'm tired (not to mention that the battery on this contraption has sunk below 70% & I don't have access to my charger until further notice). So, that being said, Lord, I pray that you take my life & take my will & take my all and make it Yours. Give me the grace & strength to live in subjugation to Your will.

I's loves ya's.

December Oh-Eight

2008-12-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-29T03:20:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-16T02:00:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-01T02:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

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…

2008-10-05T04:14:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-14T03:34:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-23T23:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-09T23:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

※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!

Neogenesis

2008-06-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

June 7, 2008.

A week has effectively gone by, and in a few days, orientation for the 2008/09 school-year will begin. To say that the week was without note would be a gross understatement, as many new twists, turns, excitements and whatnots have been revealed within these few, short seven days.

When I arrived at GES, I had assumed I was the only foreign person around, and for the first few days of my return, it definitely felt like that. I didn't actually see anybody from the school until Sunday morning, at church... When Chris & Ro walked up on stage and began leading worship. "What what what??" I thought to myself, "There are other teachers around?! Sweet!"

The service went by in an interesting fashion. It being the final week of classes (or something) at ISB, the most prestigious International School in Thailand—which happens to be just down the street from the church—Sunday's service was oriented around the fact that many families would be leaving the community with the culmination of some of their children's educations. There were a lot of good-byes and a lot of heart-felt responses to which I felt a bit foreign, having just arrived back in Thailand; and after the speaking portion of the service was done, the church held a rather sizeable potluck session in the sanctuary for people to mingle & munch away the last service everyone'd be together. It was good to still see some familiar faces in the congregation and even better to have been noticed by a handful of folks too. I was surprised, actually, at how warmly I was welcomed back by a church body with whom I had spent no more than like 45 Sundays with. It felt good to be noticed & appreciated.

As far as school has been going, Monday was a very anxious day for me. Having just arrived a couple of days previous, with many of my memories from the end of last year fresh in my mind, I lay on my bedroom floor laughing nervously at the potential absurdity of the decision I had made. "What in the world am I doing here?" was a thought that plagued my mind that morning, coupled with, "What in the world will I be doing here," "How am I going to survive this year," and "What was I thinking?"

I knew, however, that God had indeed called me very explicitly to come back to GES and to Thailand to be used for his purposes. Still not knowing what those were, I was feeling a bit trepidatious... at best. Knowing Scripture seems to come in very handy, and since the God's Word admonishes us to cast all anxieties on Him (for He cares for us), I did just that. I prayed and told the Lord exactly how I was feeling, but let Him know that I would allow Him to deal with these issues and trust that He knows what He is doing. After taking a deep breath, I closed the door to my bedroom, went down the flight of stairs, out of my house and traversed the school's campus to head into the potential fire of the office.

To spare you from tedious details and episodes, let's just say that from Monday through to today, each day has caused my reservations & fears about my relationship with the administration to melt away—and not just melt away to neutrality, but in place of my fears, hope & excitement have begun to spring up in its place! Working with Peter & Sue directly, so far, has been not bad: even pleasurable at times. Sue's asked me to see what I can do about updating the school's website and to try to get some monthly content areas flowing as well as spearheading a project that sounds much like a school newspaper (springing from that, also a yearbook). These things sound quite interesting, and at present I'm looking forward to seeing how I can engage students in taking ownership of some of these activities.

I was also given the pleasure/responsibility of being able to pick up new & returning staff members from the airport throughout the week. It was good to see familiar faces & to be able to welcome my former colleagues back to the country—even if they were half dazed by the jetlag of trans-Pacific flights. Furthermore, it's been great to be able to get to know the new staff members who have been filtering in throughout the week. They are, for lack of a better word (and based so far on first impressions), awesome, awesome people & I am looking very much forward to spending the next year getting to know them & having the opportunity to support them in their teaching endeavours.

As I left Canada, Katie Wong had mentioned to me that the community atmosphere changes substantially each year that she had been at GES, and I can already see such differences forming. One of the biggest "new" things about this new group of staff is that the majority of new teachers all know each other very well, having all gone to the same college together (and all having graduated this past spring). The reservedness and social barriers that often come with people "trying to put their best foot forward" when conglomerating into a new social environment are practically nonexistent. These people feel real, and they feel very comfortable with each other—even the new teachers who didn't know any other soul at GES before stepping onto campus.

One of the most exciting things that happened with this group so far occurred last night, the evening after the newest arrival, Chris, landed in Bangkok. The whole shebang of new staffies had just come back from taking an excursion to Big C and came into the staff room where Surang & I were talking about campus security measures and other new ideas for the year. One thing led to another, and Surang expressed that one of her big dreams for this year is to have the school focus more on getting the students spiritually connected. She mentioned how, through working with the Baptist church on campus, it might be a good idea to have students be invited to come & hang out with the church folk once a month, with activities co-sponsored by GES staff & Thai church members. Suggestions were made about having dinners for the students along with activities & sports/games where they would be exposed to Christianity in more of a relational way than just the "instruction" style of exposure dominated by our devotional times.

Hearing this made my heart leap for joy.

And then she talked about maybe taking the whole high school to go to orphanages & children’s' ministries and other outreaches of the sort, to show them Christianity in action—and to give the students an opportunity to assist in helping the community! Goodness gracious, this woman must have been reading my mind over the past few months! All of the staff members seemed very gung-ho about such activities, which was really encouraging. And then, as it was Friday night & we all wanted to go do something, without even mentioning anything, the group decided that they wanted to get together & sing worship songs and pray. On a Friday night! I couldn't believe it!! Last year, trying to get staff together on a Friday night to worship God seemed like a painful chore, and here this group is, getting together on their own initiative, desiring to worship God together at the beginning of the year. Man, I have a feeling I am going to love working with these people this year!

* * * * *

Orientation begins for the new staff on Monday, and the first two days are optional for returning staff. I think I'm going to sit in on those days to try & further building amicable relations with the new staff. One of the things that I felt about my arrival last year was how disconnected & unsupported I felt from the returning teachers when they didn't show up at newbie orientation. I could really have used their wisdom and experience throughout that time, and my desire is to provide just that to these new folks this year—even with what little experience & actual proficiency I have.

As for my job description, well... It’s GES & I'm pretty sure no one really knows the full story as to what will ultimately happen with me. I've been hired back as a full-time librarian, who will be responsible for digitising the library catalogue, organising the collection with a recognisable standard, moving the collection to the new facilities (scheduled completion is September of this year), maintaining, weeding & adding to the collection. Extended responsibilities include (but aren't limited to: this is GES) the first on-call substitute teacher, the primary after-school "homework help" worker, secondary administrative support, non-library resource management and external communications head. On top of this, I've been asked by the Thai office workers to take up teaching Remedial English classes to high school students—essentially taking the lower level students from the main-stream English 10 & 11 classes and teaching them in line their proficiencies. By chance, Michelle—our half-time administrator—and I stumbled upon what also looks like me filling in for high school math instruction (grades 10, 11 & 12) until the permanent teacher arrives in the middle of July. Seriously, we literally stumbled upon this: during a casual conversation about who was going to fill in the blanks with the late-arriving staff, Michelle pulled up the master schedule and hovered the mouse over the empty Math slot, and a note appeared, which said "Mr. Daniel." Ha!

Michelle is in full support of me being a full-time librarian, and she—like I—recognises that in order for me to be able to do a good job at it, the position will require me to focus intensely upon the tasks within that job description. Having me take over the high school English "B" program (which we all thought was scrapped, after a parent/teacher/administration meeting at the end of last year) as well as becoming the acting high school math teacher pretty much sounds like my last year's experience... plus being the librarian. I was overloaded as it was with Math and English "B" last year; how in the world I would be able to pull of my library position would be beyond me.

This, hopefully, will all get sorted out within the next 10 days—or at least it had better. The first day of English instruction at GES is ten days away. It's going to be interesting to see how everything turns out.

More on that next time ;)

Update: June 8, 2008.

Turns out that I’m for sure going to be teaching high school Math until the permanent teacher arrives (hopefully) in July!

Day One Back

2008-06-01T06:05:00.002-07:00

May 30, 2008

Well, the trip across the Pacific turned out to be a success, because here I am, sitting in the Nonthaburi (Big C) McDonald's sipping on a Coke Zero jumbo, digesting a "dub-oh chee set, upsie."

My flights were, for the most part, remarkably uneventful, except that this time, the cuisine served was all North American! I was really looking forward to having another black bean dumpling for dessert on my Taipei / Bangkok flight, but instead they served danishes (don't get me wrong, danishes are amazing... Just not what I was expecting). The trans-pacific flight was, perhaps, the best leg of this trip, as for the first time ever, I flew on the second storey of an airliner—AND had an aisle seat with no one directly beside me. The gentleman sitting by the window was, I think, form the Philippines, as he remarked on how Bangkok had almost as many bars as the Philippines and that I should really check it out some time. Beside that, there was nothing really much to say about my flights. All the in-flight entertainment systems worked this time and I had great rowmates, who mostly kept to themselves & allowed me to sleep.

When I arrived at GES, the first thing I noticed was the remarkable new Kindergarten complex. It has a huge, sweeping roof & was painted white and blue—probably to match the primary/upper-primary building across the courtyard. Much of the complex is glass, which allows for a huge amount of natural light into the rooms. Ajarn Surang was standing outside the complex, looking over plans with some workers when I popped out of my taxi. I think she was a bit caught off guard by my arrival, because the first thing she said to me was, "I thought you were coming later." Apparently, it turned out, her son Solomon miscommunicated my flight details to her and she was uncertain as to whether my room would be ready for me to move in. She proceeded to tell me that in our absence, all of the apartments had undergone extensive cleaning (and repairs, I later discovered) & she wasn't sure if my room had had "the treatment" yet. After a short talk, it turned out that my whole apartment was done—even the icy biohazard that was the refrigerator—and that later on, she'd like to me with me to discuss her plans for the upcoming year.

So far, that's pretty much all I've done. I started unpacking in a zombie-like daze yesterday afternoon, as my 24 hour flight only allowed 90-minute powernap sessions (I'm sure those of you who fly understand why this is... What with the flight service making their rounds every other hour & row neighbours needing to evacuate bodily wastes), had a shower then went to 7-11 for water and didn't recognise a single face behind the counter. What was with that?! Where did all our Sev friends go in such a short time?? Maybe... Just _maybe_ I caught them on a bad shift or something. Later trips should tell all.

Post 7-11, I stopped in Rose's / Soi Dog for some of their delicious pad thai and was again surprised to see not a single customer in the store. They welcomed me gladly, asked me when I had come back to Thailand and if anyone else had come back yet. After my meal, they told me that I got really fat since I left (I think I gained 2 pounds a week when in Canada. So many parties & so much eating out. Ha!), which I must confess, is probably very true... though North Americans would probably call my weight healthy (every time I've gone home, my family makes fun of my thinness, calling me puny or anemic, and my mother expresses concern about my health since I look so thin. I dunno... I thought that I looked good!). Anyways, the day ended with me throwing in a copy of Rush Hour 2 that was lying around the house, and after I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, I stumbled upstairs into my bedroom and crashed for a nice 14 hour sleep.

Today, I woke up, worked out for the first time in 8 weeks & then walked to Big C where I intended on having lunch and making some household purchases upstairs for the apartment. While waiting in the McLine, a short dark-haired girl appeared beside me & said, "Where are you from?"

For a second, I wasn't really sure that she was addressing me, but then I remembered that I was in Thailand, and practically nobody speaks in English unless speaking to a foreigner. "Canada," I said.

"Really? I'm from America. Where in Canada are you from?"

"I'm from Alberta," not sure if she'd know where that was (sorry, Americans, but often it's true!).

"Cool. Some of my best friends live in Alberta. My parents lived in Alaska for like twenty years."

"Nice. So why are you here?" I inquired.

"My parents are missionaries," she responded and proceeded to tell me that her father pastors a church down the road as well as teaches at Global University, apparently a Bible college in Bangkok.

She and her family have been living in Thailand for six years now, and she goes to ICS—not only that, but she also frequents Newsong with the other ICS students and was supposed to be helping out with worship this evening there, but she had to help out with a Pilipino wedding at her church which pre-empted her Newsong participation. After placing her order in perfect Thai (oh, am I ever so envious), she introduced herself as Anna, let me know that the church services at her church (2 blocks down the road from Big C) started at 9:40 (maybe that was Sunday school... I can't remember) and then took off out of the store, with the bag of Mcgoodies that she was sent to retrieve for some people waiting outside. That was a cool little experience. Who knows? Maybe I'll run into her again some day.

All in all so far, Bangkok's been decent—if not with a touch of isolation & loneliness. It's become quite apparent to me how much the idea of Bangkok in my head depends on the people that I share it with. I really am looking forward to the teachers returning in the next 10ish days, so that we can share life again together. The first teacher to come will be Ben, and he should be here on Monday or Tuesday. Ben volunteered for the first few weeks last year and we had a good time hanging out. It'll be nice to touch base with him again, and I'm pretty sure that he'll be a good advocate of pushing the spiritual agenda here on campus.

If any of you reading this are of the praying persuasion, the only things that I can think of right now would be that you ask the Lord to help me and the rest of the staff prepare in all ways for this upcoming year: spiritually, mentally, socially, emotionally and physically. Also, pray for the students who will be gracing our school later in the month, that they would be open, receptive and respectful of the words spoken to them—both educational and spiritual words.

That's all I've got for now. Perhaps, it's the jetlag still fogging my mind, but I'm sure there'll be more to tell in a week's time. Until then, may the God of peace be with you & yours as you earnestly seek His face!

June 1, 2008

I had my first face-to-face chat with one of my students this afternoon, which was great. Apparently, Thai instruction at GES begins tomorrow & the regular academic term will take off on the 16th. I'm pretty sure that this year's gonna be nothing like last year! ;)

Resolve

2008-04-05T04:31:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't been informed of the current debacle in my life, read the post I wrote previous to this.

For those of you who are well acquainted with my current employment status & whatnot, concerning my ministry here in Thailand, I'll give you a brief update as to the progression on my end over here—brief not by choice, really, but because there really isn't a lot for me to share since I myself hardly know anything that's going on.

I got back from a trip to Indonesia yesterday. It was an excellent trip & it opened my eyes all the more to the vast variation that exists in our world. Indonesia truly is a developing country, for as we drove past the outskirts of Jakarta, the infrastructure & practically all of the modern amenities slowly began to fall off, much like the capital city's urban glow... All this to say that before I had left Thailand on this vacation, I was given the impression that my future at GES was being hammered out. However, after inquiring as to the progress of getting a hammered-out job description, I was told that now everything is again up in the air. Apparently, I may not even have a librarian position available to me anymore. Also, apparently, I might be given a class to teach, but none of this is for certain and none of the administration was willing to comment any further as to what may potentially become of me. Aaron promised to light a fire under the situation's bottom while I was in Indonesia and... that had little effect. I talked to Aaron earlier today, and he said that he still has no idea as to what might become of me. He expressed his wish that this had all been figured out months ago, and through all of this, I could tell he was a mite frustrated with the whole ordeal. Michelle, Aaron's half-time replacement for the upcoming year promised that she would make it her priority to see this issue figured out before the 12, my official "pack up and go" day.

All through this, I've been tossed, torn, beat up & discouraged. At the beginning of this calendar year, I was certain that God was calling me to come back for another year, but after all of this nuclear fallout I was left not radioactive, but unclear as to what I had understood. Did I really hear God's voice correctly? Was he closing doors for me now to tell me to go back to Canada? Was all of this confusion & miscommunication / lack of communication a full-out spiritual assault, bent on trying to compromise what may potentially have happened in the upcoming year? I had no clue. All I knew was that I felt helpless, clueless, confused, spiritually discouraged & emotionally drained. I didn't know how much more I could take of the uncertainty—whether I should pack all of my things, or whether I should act as though I were returning. I mean, my plane takes off in seven days!

I talked to one of my fellow teachers about it, expressing that I felt absolutely torn between seeing this huge potential for effective ministry to my students next year, but seeing also this huge barricade of what appears to me as an unsupporting administrative body. I didn't know. I've been suffering through this ordeal for four weeks now, feeling like I've been strapped into an emotional rollercoaster, sitting in front of a kid who's got one of those rubber mole-bashing mallets who just so happens to think that my cranium is a blind, burrowing mammal. The thoughy of such treatment perpetuating for another ten months made me want to break down and cry. But what do you do? Do you tuck your tail & run home to momma because the going's getting tough, or do you realise that you're kicking against the goads which are coaxing you to return to your homeland for further ministry potential there? I had no clue, and when my fellow teacher asked me what I thought I was going to do, I said just that. Oh, and that I needed to seriously pray about it—long and hard.

And that's exactly what I did.

I don't think that I've felt this desperate, this confused or in this much need of God in a long time. To be honest, I've felt rather self-sufficient for a good while & my prayers, though speaking of wanting God with all I am/have, might have been proclaiming a bit more than my actions and my honest, real thoughts were living. Today, though, I must admit, there was no disparity between my words and my heart.

I lay on the floor of my bedroom for two hours, desperate to hear God's voice and to seek His direction in what little time I have left in this country before going home. I had been talking to him & talking and talking, and wondering and thinking and proposing things to Him... until I decided to stop & to listen. "I don't know God. I really don't know what you want or where you're taking me. I can't figure this out, and I need you to speak to me. What should I do? I dunno... I guess I should probably start by listening." Then I listened. I listened, and for the first time in two or three years, I heard God speaking directly to me again. His unmistakeable, wholly recognisable voice—a mind-whisper that seems like an internal monologue, but is distinctly other (and, no, it's not a schizophrenic episode. This ain't no hallucination, baby) in its origin. Testable according to 1 John 4; a voice that passes the test with flying colours (there are often some thoughts which do not). A conversation arose, and these are the morsels that I was left with (if you think I'm mentally unstable, then that is your prerogative. I just respond to how God approaches me: nothing can convince me otherwise):

"It is through the stretching and the moulding when I work on you that you will see me."

"It is going to be a hard year: you are going to sweat and shed many tears, but I will be with you."

"Don't worry about all those things. Let me do that. All I ask is that you follow me. Trust me, and I will make you a fisher of men."

"Do you have anything else that you want to say to me?" I asked.

He replied: "Cast all your cares upon me for I care for you. Do not let your heart be troubled: trust in God; trust also in Me. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your heart until the day of Jesus. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to carry it out to completion. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I will be with you. Humble yourself before the lord and he will lift you up."*

When asking about whether I should stay another year, in light of these recent events unfolding, He said, "If you have enough faith to believe that I will carry you through this, then yes."

I listed off some objections, or some possible sour outcomes, but He repeated to me what He said, "If you have enough faith to believe that I will carry you through this, then yes."

I can't believe that I'm doing this. I'm sitting here with a huge grin on my face, totally aware that this could potentially be one of the most difficult years of my life—in some ways—and all I can do is sit here giggling like a schoolgirl, half-questioning my sanity, filled with joy and all the while praying, "Lord, what the heck are we getting ourselves into?"

I guess we'll find out.

*For the majority of our conversations, God seems to speak to me through the use of scriptural excerpts. This I like, since I feel like there's then a second fall-back, as the Word of God is the Word of God. Nonetheless, it is still important to test the spirits, as Satan quoted scripture to Christ Himself in the desert. These are the related passages that were spoken to me while talking to God above: 1 peter 5:7; John 14:1,27; Phillipians 4:6,7; Phillipians 1:6; Matthew 11:29,30; Matthew 28:20; James 4:10.

Floored

2008-03-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

Where are things at with me these days? That's a very good question. Here's a bit of the story:

Tuesday last week, I asked Aaron, our "principal" about what I would be teaching next year, for we were required to inform the school about our intentions for the upcoming year at the end of January. Seeing as I hadn't heard anything back from him yet, I figured that everything was going well--just like the rest of the staff.

So, Tuesday evening came, and after I asked Aaron about what I'd be teaching, he said that we would have to talk about that soon. As I was walking to me class to do some marking, Aaron caught up to me & asked if he could talk to me about next year. I said, sure.

"So, Daniel, I just want to let you know that during the time Peter & Sue [the school's owners] were in the States, they hired a Math & Science teacher for high school. They didn't tell me this until they got back [which was 3 days before this conversation] and I've been trying to convince them to keep you in those positions because I know that you've been doing a really good job, but I don't think it's going to happen. I mean, the teachers they hired have their Education degrees & are experienced, so..."

Now, this came to me as a mixed blessing--I didn't want to have to teach math again a second year, it being the bane of my existence--and I could cope with not being able to teach high school Science. So, I then asked Aaron what my options were for next year, since the school historically is always looking for staff at this tie of year, what with turnover & such.

At this, Aaron kind of stalled. "Well, uhh... Actually, Sue said that she doesn't even want to renew your contract. Now, I've been fighting and fighting for you for the past few days, but ever since I told her that I'm not coming back next year, she just seems to not even listen to what I have to say."

This totally floored me. "Did she give any reason as to why she decided not to renew my contract?" I asked.

“No, not really,” he replied. “She thinks you’re not a good teacher and that you can’t control your class, but I’ve told her that you’re our hardest-working teacher here, that you spend hours and hours preparing for your classes so that you can give the information to the students, and I know that you’ve made improvements in classroom management after I sat in and observed your class at the beginning of the term. But it seems that the more I try to convince her, the less she wants to listen…”

“Well then, would it be possible for us to meet with her so that I can get some sort of explanation as to why she’s made this decision? I mean, this totally seems to be coming out of nowhere.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said, “that would be a good idea. Though, don’t expect a good explanation; I don’t think that that’s going to be possible.”

“Oh, I know… I just would like to try and understand what’s going on.”

“Okay. I’ll set up a meeting with them tomorrow. When do you have your spares tomorrow?”

“In the morning; from 10:40 to lunch.”

“Alright. Let’s have the meeting then. How are you doing? Are you okay with all this?”

“I’m doing fine; I would just like to understand what the crap is going on.”

“Yeah. I can understand that. Well, okay. Do you have anything else that you’d like to say right now?”

“No. No, I think that’s about it for now until we can have that meeting.”

“Alright.”

So, that being done, I pretty much waited for the next day’s meeting, wondering what the crap was going on. Wednesday morning came, and I went to the staffroom, waiting for the meeting to begin. I saw Aaron in the office talking to Sue, and it looked like things weren’t going well. I wasn’t surprised when he came to me a few minutes later and said that the meeting wasn’t going to happen today. “I’ll try to get is set up for tomorrow.”

Tomorrow came, and in the morning, before school began, I ran into Peter in the hallway. He stopped me, looked left & right and then said in a hushed voice, “Now, I haven’t talked to anyone about this yet, but would you like to be librarian? I think you would be good for school.”

“Well, maybe. But aren’t there any teaching positions open?” I asked.

This question made Peter physically uncomfortable. He hesitated for a moment, motioned to speak, stopped and then said, “Librarian. Good position. We talk about it in meeting later.” He smiled awkwardly and then walked off.

Later that day, I again was sitting in the office during my spare waiting for our scheduled meeting to begin. Aaron came to me out from Peter & Sue’s office and said that it would be pointless for us to have the meeting today. He told me that Peter really wanted me back next year, but Sue didn’t & that they were arguing over this and that there wasn’t a resolution in sight. It had now been two days since I was told that my job was filled out from under me, with no apparent reason why. Knowing that this was probably a huge miscommunication, the fact that they were not willing to talk to me made me not only feel like garbage, but also it frustrated & demoralised me. “Aaron, I need to know what’s going on. I feel like I need to know as soon as possible, so I know what the heck I’m going to do. I don’t know… Right now, I feel like not going back to my classes & teaching until we have this meeting.”

“Yeah, that’s probably not a good idea.”

“I know. I know. I’m not going to do it; it’s just how I feel. Could we please get a time set for this meeting, so it can be over & done with?”

“Okay. I’ll go back and talk to them about it again, to see if we can figure something out.”

Aaron left and timidly entered into the owners’ office, reappearing several minutes later. “Neither of them are on the same page. All they are doing is arguing over this, but I made them promise to come to a decision so that we can meet tomorrow.”

“Okay. What time?”

“I don’t know. They couldn’t give me an answer on that, but I’ll call you as soon as we figure that out.”

“Okay.”

Friday, 9:10 am, the meeting finally is called. Aaron & I wait for almost an hour before everyone finally shows up. And the meeting went something like this:

Me: So, I was told by Mr. Aaron earlier on in the week that you were considering not renewing my contract. Could you tell me why?

Sue: Well, some students and some parents are concerned about your teaching. They think that you are not doing a good job.

Me: Well, then how come no one has told me about this before now? And if I weren’t doing a good job, then why are my class averages at a 62%—only 3% below the target average for a typical class in North America. I mean, my objective performance speaks for itself.

Sue: . You are not a good teacher. The students do not think you know how to talk to them.

Peter: That is not true. That is not true. Only a few students say that, and they are the students who do not like to do work. They are the ones who sit in class and do not try. The good students, the students who try say that he is a very good teacher. He works very hard. He prepares for his classes. The students say that he not only teaches them the information, but that he also tells them why things are that way.

Sue: (To me). I am the administrator of this school. It is my right to choose who comes back and who does not. Because this is my school, I have chosen not to hire you back.

Me: Could you give me a reason why? My classes’ averages speak for themselves and Peter is telling us that the students think I am a good teacher, except for a few who always complain & don’t try to learn. So, how come I am not being considered for next year.

Sue: I do not have to give an explanation.

Peter: But he doesn’t understand. He would like to know why. We are going to open up a new library—

Sue: No! He is always the good guy, the one everybody likes because he makes people happy. I always have to be the mean one. We are not hiring you back. You can talk to him as much as you like, but your answer from me will always be “No.”

Peter: Let me speak!

Sue: He always wants to make people happy. He never thinks—

Peter: Woman, I am the man; let me speak!

Peter: Would you like to be the librarian?

Me: Well, perhaps. Are there not any other teaching positions open?

Sue: No. There are no positions. Every teaching position has already been filled. Mr. Aaron was not supposed to tell the teachers that they were going to be hired back. I told him to say nothing until we got back from our trip to America. And then I would personally invite teachers. We have to say no to someone already because [one of the current teachers] is going to stay. We do not have enough positions available.

Peter: So, would you like to be the librarian?

Sue: You can talk to him as much as you want. I will not allow you to be the librarian.

Aaron: Peter and Sue, this is not fair to your teacher. He needs a decision made so that he can start planning about what he’s going to do in the future. It is obvious that the two of you are not in agreement, so I think that it would be useless for us to continue right now. Could we meet at a later date, when you have made a decision?

Peter: Yes. We will come to a decision. We will talk about it over the weekend—

Sue: Yes. There will be a decision. He will say yes; I will say no.

Peter: Woman! How about Monday? We will meet again on Monday.

Sue: He is not the administrator of this school. I am. It doesn’t matter what he says.

Me: Please, you two. I would encourage that you take time this weekend to think & to pray about this decision. I feel that I must remind you that this is not your school—you are stewards of this school, but it is God’s school and He is our Master. Remember that as you try to come to a decision this weekend.

Sue: Do you have anything else to say?

Everyone, severally: No.

Sue: Okay. (she walks out of the office).

Can you understand what happened in this meeting & what caused them to make the decision not to hire me back? Neither can I. It made no sense, and both Aaron & I left the meeting feeling more confused and more frustrated than before. Aaron apologised to me, saying that they had promised to him that they would have come to an agreement about this situation before the meeting began. That obviously was an empty promise, and it made me wonder if I should hold them to their word for an agreement on Monday’s meeting.

At this point in the week, all of the teaching staff knew—no one really knew how the information got out or spread, but everybody knew, so when Aaron & I walked out of the office & into the staffroom, everybody there was on the edge of their seats, waiting for the fallout. “So, what happened? What did they say?”

I sighed, “I don’t know. They didn’t really say anything. I wasn’t given a valid reason for being let go. Sue said that some student & parents “were concerned,” but then Peter told her that the majority of the class really appreciated what I was doing for them. So… I dunno. I really don’t know. Peter offered me a position as a librarian, but Sue flat-out rejected that option. I mean, she said that she was concerned about me teaching; then why would she be so dead-set against me being a librarian?”

Several teachers expressed frustration with the situation. They wondered if their own jobs were filled from underneath them & everybody was wondering if they would be hired back. “Heck, if they’re not going to hire you back because they think that you aren’t a good teacher, there’s no way that I should be hired back,” was a comment that I was told by several teachers throughout the day. Some teachers were so upset & frustrated that they expressed that they couldn’t handle the drama & the stress that this situation was putting on everybody. They were beginning to re-evaluate whether or not they would be returning for a second year.

Reports began to circulate that as many as 8 teachers may step down if Peter & Sue decided not to bring me back next year. Sue caught word of this and one of the teachers who was more relationally close to Peter & Sue asked to have a meeting with her on Sunday to talk about what was going on because, he said to me, “This whole situation is ripping their marriage apart.”

Sunday, Easter Sunday, there was a meeting without me between the administration (all levels) and this teacher to try & figure out what was going on. The meeting went likes so, I’m told: Sue broke down crying, not understanding why every teacher was wanting to leave & not understanding why the staff “hated” her so much. She told the people at that meeting that the reason why I wasn’t being hired back was because the Ministry of Education was now requiring that, in high school level courses, all teachers needed to graduate with their specialty in the subject that they would be teaching. Since I had a degree in Psychology & Drama, I was then not eligible to teach Science or Math. (I still wonder that if this is/were true, then why wasn’t it told to me at the beginning…. Part of me wonders if this was a convenient scapegoat). No explanation was made as to why I wasn’t offered a position in the lower grades, but apparently that wasn’t an issue. It did, however, come out that Sue’s decision-making process was based solely on inaccurate information gathered at the beginning of the year without investigating to see if any of the rumours she was hearing were true (or not).

The owners’ daughter piped up, “Well, my dream for the school is that one day it would have a world-class library, with everything organised, categorised and catalogued with a database on computer. We would need someone who has excellent organisational skills, who works hard & who is very good at computers. My father already offered that position, but I don’t know if he would be able to do it.”

The North Americans in the meeting all piped up & said that there was no one more qualified for the position than me, and Sue—perhaps—began to come around to what her husband was offering me.

I was called after the meeting by the teacher who arranged this meeting and was told that Sue wanted to offer the librarian position to me that night, as soon as possible. To be honest, I was feeling rather uncertain about this miraculous change of events. Was this offer genuine, or was it just a concession to avoid a mass exodus of teaching staff & to appease her husband all in one stroke? To this second, I still don’t know. All of this seems rather contrived, completely unreal and, for the most part, twisted and warped and “presented” in such a way as to cover up what actually is going on at the heart of the situation.

So, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I, to be honest, have been stretched & beaten & attacked and degraded because of this. I don’t trust my employers; I don’t trust their ability to communicate; I don’t trust their ability to be honest. Heck, if a wife cannot confer with her husband over a decision of staffing and if they cannot come to an agreement before the decisions are made (like not telling your husband that you are letting a teacher go that he wants to keep), then what confidence do I have that any further decisions or conflicts will be addressed appropriately? Should I come back & live in fear that my job may be in constant jeopardy? Or should I wipe everything under the rug & try to forget that any of this happened? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

I’ve asked of Aaron to see if he & the rest of the administration can draw up a contract or at least a job description / list of expectations for this librarian position, because already it seems that the vaguery of the job has room to be exploited. “You will have after-school requirements,” I’m being told, “and you will have to sub for teachers when they cannot come to class.” All of this I’m okay with, but I need to know what to expect from the position & I need to know exactly what “Librarian” means in the heads of my potential employers.

Why would I come back? Well, because of the potential to operate in a more relational capacity with staff & with students: to act more like a missionary & have more of a chance to elevate the spiritual environment on campus. I’d potentially have less after-hours requirements; I’d have more free time on weekends; I would have less stress (potentially) and more freedom to act & respond to what is going on around me instead of having to be relegated to my classroom for 18 hours a day as I plan, prep & grade the hardest material in the school for the school’s most difficult class to teach.

So, if you could pray, that would be awesome. Sorry that this is so epic in length; I just needed to get it out. I’d understand if you didn’t read the whole thing... ;)

Rounding Up

2008-03-01T23:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I started trying to write an update to send out over two weeks ago, and it seems that time has gotten the better of me, as now I'm finding myself in March with less than 20 school days left before the academic year finishes.

February was an interesting month. Interesting, mostly, because I was quite sick for the majority of its four weeks. After going on that fishing trip with our student & his family (I'll get to that later on), I arrived back in Bangkok and that very next Monday, I awoke unable to speak. Talk about making high school instruction difficult! For the following two weeks, I found myself battling a severe cold &/or flu which had completely overrun my throat, decimating my helpless vocal chords. I've only ever once before lost my voice due to illness, but this was the first time where my occupation required the adequate functioning of such faculties.

Now, normally, you would assume that a teacher wouldn't be teaching in such a sickly / helpless condition, but GES & its severe lack of a substitute pool (especially those who feel confident enough to tackle high school math & chemistry) didn't afford the luxury. It definitely made teaching interesting—but thankfully I've managed to corral my students into a position of respect (man, was that a long process) and they were quite willing to sit there, listening to me scratch out broken sounds & whispers on the finer points of equilibrium reactions or statistical probability (depending on the class).

As for the fishing trip that the two Jonathans & I went on with our student... It was a great time. We slept outside on a houseboat without walls on the edge of a pristine lake in Canchanaburi province—west of Bangkok, close (100 km.) to the border with Burma. The scenery reminded me of home: there were tiny mountains encircling the lake, forests of trees that had almost all sluffed their leaves (winter here still experiences a 'fall' of sorts, though not due to lack of heat, but lack of water), and not a single sound save for the quiet lapping of gentle waves caressing the hull of our wooden island. It was peaceful; it was relaxing; it was a great time of bonding, even though not a single person caught a fish (our student, Pop, and his family were amazed at the lack of fish, making it sound like the typical excursion results in several impressive catches). There was talk about God, but there was no pressure—everybody was pleasant and relaxed. Except for at night. Apparently, Bangkok mosquitoes are a certain breed that pretty much sees me as a walking bag of poison—they rarely even attempt to land on me, but these mosquitoes... These ones were much more reminiscent of the Alberta & BC kind. Swarming and landing and eating and crawling and pestering all night. Think that DEET is an effective repellent? Well, it only keeps off the less determined mosquitoes. Those wonderful mosquito coils that usually send the bloodsuckers humming for the trees? Yeah, even with 5 of those coils fuming away over a night without so much as a sniff of wind, the crawling carnivores still ventured through to feed. The only respite was found under a few layers of blankets—and this while lying outside in a tropical country, whose nightly lows are about 28 degrees (I know, poor me, right?). I think that perhaps my cold/flu/whatever came on as a result of a lack of decent sleep that weekend... Probably a good guess.

Cool things to note:

1.) My students really have turned over a new leaf, both as a class AND individually. Soda, the drama queen thorn-in-my-side and bane-of-my-class has now, for some reason, become one of my most charming students. The only thing that I can really think of is one Friday evening during a session of informal worship & prayer that we (try to) have every week (it always happens, but numbers sometimes aren't bigger than 2), the evening turned towards a theme of spiritual intercession & more aggressive prayer, petitioning God to release students from spiritual bondage and oppression; opening eyes to see truth and spiritual identity. Ever since that night, it seems, Soda for sure, and perhaps a handful of other students in my class, have experienced a night-and-day transition in attitude.

2.) One chapel in mid-February had American Jonathan talk to the upper half of the school, comparing Buddhism & Christianity and trying to address the shortcomings of Buddhism as a 'complete' religion quite tactfully, while still without dancing around the topic. The students, who for the most part are Buddhist, all seemed to listen rather attentively & afterward, apparently half a dozen kids in Grade 7 decided to choose to pursue Christ (aka: Awesomeness!). The difficulty with Thai Christianity is preserving "fertile soil," as there is disgustingly intense social/familial pressure to remain true to Buddhist & Thai Animist traditions.

Apparently, one of my students in Grade 10 decided to become a Christian a few years ago, but when he went home and told his mother, she got so upset with him that she broke down crying and threatened to kill herself if he chose to follow Christ. What do you do in a situation like that? I mean, really—what do you do? I think (and really hope & pray) that he still believes on the inside, but he couldn't bear the sight & thought of his mother's distress and told her that he wouldn't be Christian any longer (though, he tends now to spend a lot of time over at the house of one of the Thai Christians in my class & hang out with their family, all of which believe... I really do hope for him).

3.) This past Friday, two different teachers on two different parts of the school campus were asked by two different Thai staff members about Christianity. This is practically unheard-of. The majority of our Thai staff, I'm led to believe, are Buddhist & just work for the school as a source of income. I've even heard reports from some students about Thai teachers trying to convert kids back to Buddhism in their Thai classes, but whether this is substantiated or not, I can't be sure. Anyways, these two teachers got to share the message of the Gospel to two adult Thais who came up & asked about what the message of the cross was all about. That is awesome.

4.) Another cool story is that in mid-February when there were those tornado storms in the Eastern US (perhaps you guys heard about them?), one of our teachers here was sent a text message from someone back home during his class, telling him that this person & her family were in the middle of a tornado storm, fearing for their lives. She asked this teacher through the text message to pray, and when the teacher read the text message, he talked to all of his students and told them the story. He asked them to all get together & pray, saying that God could do something all the way over there even though we were all over here—just through our prayers. The kids were dead-set & all started to pray fervently that the storm / tornado would go away & while they were praying, the teacher received another text message. The message said, "Did you guys pray or something, because all of the sudden the storm & the wind stopped completely, without so much even as a warning." The teacher, in turn, shared this message with his students. Amazing stories of the awesomeness of tangibly answered prayer. I love it.

Conclusion...

Twenty schooldays left. There's not much time to have with these kids for the rest of the year. Pray that our ministry would be as fervent, or maybe even more, than it was at the beginning of the year. Pray for teachers & staff who are making plans & decisions about what to do in the upcoming academic year—whether to stay or whether to go. Pray for the administration as they try to fill the vacancies that they're aware of. Pray to see if perhaps God may be calling you to come & join us in this not-so-conventional, but hopefully still fruitful ministry/outreach in the heart of what may be one of the most open to yet seemingly most uninterested people group as far as the message of the cross goes.

I'll say more in two weeks. Thanks for reading!

7 Months & Going Strong(er)

2008-02-03T01:26:00.000-08:00

Hello search engines & random passers-by,

It never seems to amaze me how quickly time seems to blow by over here in Thailand. It has already been two weeks since I sent my last update—and already January is over. The school year here ends on the 30th of March, which, at this perceived rate will probably feel like it'll be tomorrow.

Not surprisingly, it has been a busy couple of weeks at GES, as we've finally struck our full-paced stride in the world of academia. No more short days, no more long weekends, no more crazy excuses to get out of class. In fact, the only day off that we have left will happen on Feb 21, meaning that there is little time left for seeking adventure and pursuing craziness.

It seems like I have come into my own in this whole teaching thing. My workdays no longer consist of 7am to 11 pm durations in my classroom (now, I have only 11 hour days on average), yet I still am not exactly certain as to what has caused this marked decrease in time spent working. Granted, my accumulated experiences definitely play a role, but I think that, sine I've now been operating on a Godly amount of sleep each night, my working hours seem to be more effective simply due to the fact that I have more time to rest.

My first six months here, I was working like a dog, and I felt that it was necessary, since I really didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. After a few months, though, when I had gotten my feet wet, I thought that things would settle down, and in a way they did. However, I had been burning the candle at both ends for so long at that time, that I was suffering from a serious bout of over-exertion / mental exhaustion, which affected how effective my waking hours actually were. As a result, I ended up maintaining the same ridiculous hours as the first few months just in order to keep up with the daily grind, which in turn caused me to forfeit desperately needed sleep.

During our Christmas break, I slept a lot. And I mean a LOT: 10 to 12 hours each night in a bed that actually was comfortable & in a room that wasn't sweltering. I'm pretty sure that the amount of rest that I got over the break prepared me exceedingly well for when classes resumed. Because I had been getting enough sleep & rest, each of my waking hours was more effective... Which meant that I got (and am getting) more work done in less time. The end result being that, of course, I now have more time to sleep, more time to rest and more time to recharge. It's effectively a very simple feedback system: the more rest you get, the more effective at your work you are, which means you spend less time doing it... Which means the more time to rest you get. The less rest you get, the longer each task takes (due to a lack of mental efficiency) and the less time you have to sleep, which results in spending more time doing work, etc. Etc. Etc. So yeah. Things are going well right now.

One thing, though, that I'm certain has had a positive impact on my effectiveness at work & in daily life is my much more consistent (and prevalent) time with God. I've noticed that the days (and weeks) where I forego spending at least a half hour alone purposefully and actively seeking God, that these are the days (and weeks) where work seems to be more difficult, where tasks seem to take longer and where my daily efficiency goes down the toilet. In contrast, my most productive times have been founded on a solid foundation of purposeful, directed prayer & meditating on Scriptures. If there's one lesson that I've re-learned in this past month, it has to be that if we do “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, all these things will be added to you."

It hasn't just been productivity, either! Students have been working better in class; they have been more respectful; they have actually been expressing an interest in learning (at times). It's nuts, and I can't thank God enough for the help that He's throwing in my corner of the ring. Speaking of having things added, one of the students in grade 10 has invited myself along with the two high school Mr. Jonathans (one of which, I'm sure many of you know) to go and spend a weekend fishing with him in one of the provinces at their family's cottage. What better an opportunity could there be to try and show the love of Christ to this student and his family than having the three of us interact with them relationally for a whole weekend?! It's awesome!

Jon, Jon & I will be heading out to this fishing cottage next weekend. I would (and I'm sure that they would also) appreciate your prayers concerning this matter. Pray that our student, Pop, and his family would be receptive to the message & the demonstration of the Gospel; that we would be good conduits of the love of Christ and that we would make the most of every opportunity presented to us (even if that might be to say nothing, and just to love). Pray also for continued resilience in the staff to fight the fight until the end and not to check out before the race is over. Those who have made the decision not to return seem to have a propensity these days to sometimes slip into mindset which results in a decreased level of engagement in the work that is set before time. Now, I know that this isn't always the case all of the time, but I know the temptation to consider the battle over before it truly is far, far too well.

Pray also for the teachers and the administration as the rest of the teachers make their decisions as to whether or not they will stay for another year. It's a big decision that each of us has to make (though, for me, I'm confident that God has called me remain for another year), and those positions that will be vacated are always difficult, it seems, to be filled.

That's all I've got for this instalment. Check back again after Valentine's Day for another glimmer of life in Thailand from the eyes of a Canadian fool who's just doing his best to walk in the path that he's been called to walk.

Where to Begin…

2008-01-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

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.

A Brief Rendition of Life on the Tuk tuk Timeline

2008-01-06T01:33:00.000-08:00

I apologise to all you who have been waiting eagerly for an update from me in Thailand. December (and November) has been a busy month, and it seems that it ended almost before it began. I find myself now in January, the day before our 2008 session begins, with a mere 12 weeks left before the school year ends. That being said, there still is a lot to be done & a lot to tell. I will do my best to be brief here; if you’d like more details, feel free to e-mail me.

Alright. So, where to begin? I think that my last update left you hanging in the middle of November, about a week before our staff had a “spiritual retreat” weekend in Pattaya during our one PD day for the school year. I’m sure that the administration had good intentions with the whole expedition, but instead of feeling recharged & refreshed, I know that I myself left the weekend on the beach feeling stressed & discouraged. Being away from Bangkok for 2.5 days when you have a week of teaching to prepare for really isn’t my idea of relaxation or recuperation. Imagine having been given a huge deadline on Friday at work that you need to complete on time for Monday morning, or face being fired & then being told that you have to go to a beach resort for the weekend a part of a staff-development initiative where you can’t bring any work with you—oh, and that the huge deadline is still set. Doesn’t rest very well with you, now does it? Well, at least it didn’t for me. Instead of having my usual weekend time to spend getting the work out of the way, so that I’d at least have something to teach on Monday & the following schooldays for the week, I had to sit on a beach, trying to reflect on staff unity & getting in tune with God. Unfortunately, the blaring burden of work kept itself high on my conscience’s back, leaving me with little to think about but how the heck I would have to manage getting all my work done on Sunday, so that my students wouldn’t be left in a lurch for a week.

That weekend and the following week coming and going, we soon found ourselves entering into December, and the first Tuesday in December just happened to be my birthday. It was the best birthday that I have had in a long, long time. The day started off like a typical morning, heading off to work at 7:10 am, getting ready for the instructional day. After doing some paperwork & starting my photocopying session, I left the copier to do its thing and made a quick run to 7-11, just down the street for a caffeine fix. I passed a couple of teacher who were getting coffee shakes at one of the street vendor’s, and on the way back, I ran into them again. One of them thrust a large cup filled with frozen brown liquid toward me and said, “I remember you saying one time that you wanted one of these, so… happy birthday!” It was a coffee shake, and for those of you who know me even a little bit, you know that I tend to steer very clear of the bean juice. I said thanks, and then almost sheepishly admitted that I really didn’t like coffee—but that it was awesome that they thought of me. Out of courtesy, I at least tried the chilled bevy, and to my remarkable surprise, it tasted amazing! I let the teacher know that it was actually really good, and she gave back a knowing smile, “Yeah, they are pretty good, aren’t they? They’re sometimes a bit too sweet, but I get them to make mine with Splenda, so I don’t have to eat all that sugar.”

By the time we had walked back to the school, it was time for our Tuesday morning staff meetings. At staff meeting that morning, I was surprised by an impromptu “Happy Birthday” rendition by the teachers, as they whipped out a couple boxes of donuts for the staff to have (where in the world did they get donuts so early in the morning in Thailand?!), and then when the rest of the day progressed, we were ordered by the King of Thailand to clean up garbage for the first half of the day—less teaching equals less planning on weekends which equals awesomeness. The best thing of all, though, was that the King’s birthday just happens to be the day after mine, and it’s a national holiday which also means no school: super awesomeness.

The night of my birthday wasn’t all that amazing. The girls had a sleep-over planned, which made birthday festivities markedly difficult to get people in on (especially when they tell you “It’ll always be ho’s before bro’s, man!”), and in joking retaliation, it just so happened that a bunch of the male teachers decided to have a pizza & video game party, which left only two teachers who wanted to come & celebrate my birthday with me, which was better than nothing ;-). We headed down to the (in)famous Khao San Road to go eat some Israeli food and enjoy some cold beverages. During the past weekend, we all had decided to have tailored tuxedos made, so we took the opportunity to go to the shop & have our second fittings before we fought to get back to the school.

I say “fought to get back” because the next day was the King’s birthday, and Khao San, being close to the royal palace, was literally flooded with people & lights & fireworks & festivities. We tried hailing taxis for 45 minutes, and every single driver laughed at us before driving off. It didn’t occur to us why they all were so reticent to drive away from the area until we tried to catch a cab at the other end of Khao San. We took a little walk towards the main thoroughfare and then realised what was going on: the typical traffic flow on this street was 5 lanes each direction, but because of the King’s birthday, 4 of the outbound lanes were now being filled with vehicles trying to get in towards the palace. That’s right: a gridlock of 9 lanes of traffic in one direction, with a tiny trickle of vehicles in one lane going the other way. It was nuts.

We finally were able to convince a taxi driver to take us out of Thailand’s Mecca, and after weaving through back alleys, side streets and through lanes and lanes of opposing traffic, we finally left the congestion behind us. It took 40 minutes to travel 12 kilometres, and by the time we arrived back at GES, the fare was double what it usually is to get back from Khao San. Sheesh… what a night!

The following weekend boded GES’ annual Christmas programs—one for kindergarten to grade 3 & one for G 4 – G 11. Essentially, it’s one big party with food and live entertainment performed by the students on a huge outdoor stage that goes on & on for hours. The female teachers performed an original dance routine with practically every style of dancing that you could imagine, and us guys… we serenaded the audience with a stunning performance of Country Roads—all of us in the most elaborate attire that we could muster from our wardrobes. It was a spectacle, for sure.

Saturday marked the end of the Christmas program, but I had decided the weekend before to try & do something special for our staff before everyone went their separate ways, as the Christmas program was the last weekend that we’d all be together before the break. That Sunday, we got together and had a nice Christmas feast of dishes inspired by one of my previous workplaces: Ginger champagne salmon, peach tea marinated pork tenderloin and poached chicken breast with an apple cider / shitake mushroom reduction sauce complete with two salads, garlic mashed potatoes, rice pilaf and finishing with a dark chocolate caramel torte with strawberry compote—a meal like none other you would ever find in Thailand. It was spectacular. We all sat around, ate and enjoyed each other’s company for hours: a delightful change from the ordinary weekend activities of lesson plans & leftovers. Mind you, it didn’t really set up the last week of teaching before the break very well :-).

Again, I was surprised by the rest of the staff: while I was busy prepping the meal, they had decided to all get together & write some notes of appreciation in a small journal, and after the meal was served, they presented me with this token of their gratitude along with a simple bouquet of flowers. I must say, it was the first time anyone has ever given me flowers, and it was one of the most thoughtful things that has ever been done / given to me. I’m pressing a few of the blossoms in the journal to keep as a tangible reminder of that excellent evening.

The next week flew by, and I soon found myself riding to the airport with four girls who were heading to India an hour before my plane to Canada took off. 18 hours of flying and practically zero layover time had me looking out of a window on snowy, grey Alberta, with its patchwork parcels of farmland stretching out as far as the eye could wander. Looking out over Alberta felt light and refreshing, and for the first time in months, my spirit within me felt invigorated and free—as if a cloak of darkness, or a cloud of fog suddenly had been lifted off my soul. There was a tangible feeling of spiritual legacy and the life-promoting spiritual atmosphere that only (in my experience) accompanies Christian dominion, almost as if I had entered a bastion of light and love—an environment that I hadn’t lived in for six months. It was an amazing feeling. Without even any prompting, my soul within me started to sing songs of worship again, something that I hadn’t actually found myself doing at all in Thailand, but something that tends to be a regular occurrence with me while living in Canada.

I touched down and wandered out of the Edmonton International Airport, only to be met promptly by my family, waiting for me. Some of their first words to me were, “Don’t turn sideways, or else we won’t be able to see you anymore.” Apparently, I had lost a lot of weight. My brother was certain that I was suffering from malnutrition, and my family’s response was to whisk me away quickly home to start feeding me. And for the next nine days, I did little more than hang out with family & friends and feast until I was stuffed to the gills.

Canada was an excellent time, one filled with refreshment, joy, reconnecting & celebration. I had the chance to see friends from Calgary, friends from Edmonton, extended family from up north in Alberta and even a cousin of mine who lives in New York, who I haven’t seen in over ten years. I met some new friends and caught up with old ones. Did I mention that I ate a lot? Yes; I ate a lot and often. Mmm… there’s nothing quite like delicious Alberta beef—Thailand’s beef tastes like newspaper mulch.

I was really blessed by my time in Canada. I’ve been living like a pauper in Thailand, due to my mandatory student loan payments, and having the opportunity to eat lavishly with people—often at no expense to me—was an amazing treat. Furthermore, my family was exceptionally generous this Christmas, as I had expected that my plane ticket home for Christmas was the only thing they’d be able to pass my way. Man, was I wrong. Not only that, but the Alberta government had sent me a health care refund cheque back in June for all my premiums that I had been paying (but didn’t need to, since I’ve never made enough money to qualify for paying premiums) and had I not been back that week, the cheque would have expired. It turned out well, especially since my driver’s license expired on my birthday, and had I not been back, that may have proven to be a bigger deal to renew in May (if I even would have remembered or noticed).

Talking about time flying, the nine days that I had in Canada flew by like the jets that were taking off at the airports. The next thing I new, I was back in the Edmonton International, checking my luggage and flying across the Pacific on my way back to Bangkok. And now, here I am, 18 hours before school begins again ,writing this little update as to the life & times of yours truly in Thailand.

The Future

There are a few things that are filling my brain these days. One of them happens to be the impending return of students tomorrow. I don’t feel completely ready to return to teaching, and I really hope that I don’t end up being stuck in the same dreadful workload that I have been experiencing over the past 6 months. I can’t say for sure, but it’s likely that I’ll be stuck with 80-hour work-weeks until the end of March. It’s something that I definitely am not looking forward to, but it’s something that I know has to be done.

Something that I’ve learned / realised over the past few months is that just because God calls us to do something doesn’t ever imply that it will be an enjoyable experience. Actually, looking to Biblical examples, it seems to rather be usually the opposite: Noah was called to build an ark, and in so doing, he became the laughing-stock of his community only then to be proved right and watch all his friends and associates drown in the judgement of God. Abraham was called to leave the opulence and luxury of Ur to go live in unsettled, “barbarian” territory that was promised to him by God, yet not once in his life did he see it established as his own land. Instead, his wife was taken by kings on more than one occasion, his nephew was kidnapped & almost killed and the son that God had promised him was then subjected to be sacrificed on an altar (which, in the end didn’t actually happen, thank goodness). Joseph was almost murdered, sold into slavery and thrown into prison under false accusations before he rose to power. Moses was forced to live as an exile from Egypt for 40 years, and then was hated by the Jews when he came back to “liberate” the people from Egyptian dominion before crossing the Red Sea. David had a bounty on his head for years and had to pretend that he was insane just to stay alive before becoming king. Jesus was publicly executed before rising again. All of the apostles, save John, were executed. And the list goes on. To be honest, I really don’t think that any of these people thought that these things that happened to them were ‘fun’ or ‘enjoyable.’ Nonetheless, they were following the will of God and walking according to the paths that God called them.

Now, I don’t know why, but I know that I was called to serve here in Thailand. Here I am stuck teaching advanced Math to students who mostly couldn’t give a rip about learning, and I’m stuck having to teach myself the material so that I’m proficient enough to regurgitate it to them. What do I get it return? Umm… well, not even so much as a thanks or even an attempt by the majority of my students to do the required homework assignments.

The time’s quickly approaching for me to decide whether or not to stay on board for a second year, and I know that the choice isn’t mine to make. It has to be God’s. I cannot live my life following my own path; I know that I necessarily must follow His. It turns out, though, that it seems He wants me to stay another year—I just hope that that doesn’t mean I have to teach Math again (please Lord, no!).

Items for Prayer

For those of you who read this & are of the praying breed, please consider the following:
o Pray that I wouldn’t become exhausted by all the work that needs to be done.
o Pray that I would have (make) the time to spend deliberately seeking God.
o Pray that the students would be open & receptive to the word & life and love of God.
o Pray that the staff would be united in pursuing Christ first.
o Pray that the staff here would pray first, do second—something that we’ve seriously been lacking in these past several months.
o Pray that God’s name would be glorified in everything that we do over here, and that we would be sensitive enough to the Lord to follow His leading, even when it’s difficult to do so.
o Pray for tomorrow—that we as a staff would all be ready & energised for the last 12 weeks of instruction.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks for hanging in there. Sorry again for the lack of correspondence over the last few months. Hopefully, the trend stops here [another thing that you could pray about ;-)].

euthanAsia

2007-11-24T08:07:00.000-08:00

There us a dog who lives in a cage right next to my house. Usually, I ignore the beautiful golden retriever, as it lies there, lifelessly bored out of its skull--I have never once seen its owner take the animal out of it's tiny living quarters (nor do I know who owns the creature, for that matter. Sometimes, if the retriever's up on its feet or looking in my direction, I make friendly woofing noises, letting it know that I notice it & that I recognise it. I don't really know if the dog cares or not, but it makes me feel like I'm at least somewhat engaging the poor creature.

Today, I came home, and after a particularly depressing weekend, I decided to go say 'hi' to the dog in a bit of a more personal way. Man, was this dog ever glad to see me. He sprang up from his catatonic stupour and started sniffing and pacing and panting, being all excited-like with his wagging tail--even jumping up against its fence to try and get closer to me. Then he started whining. I knew that he wanted to get out and have some fun with me, but there was no way for me to release the dog. After a good minute of the dog's excitement of human interaction, he seemed to calm down, sit by the fence and just pant gleefully, knowing that there was someone there watching him and being right next to him.

I was saddened that I had to leave. I went inside my house to grab my school keys & get some of my belongings that were locked in a room. When I hopped back outside to go & get these things, I looked at the dog in his prison: back to the catatonic stupour, yet this time it almost appeared that the dog was even more depressed.

I immediately had an overwhelming sense of compassion for the dog. Here he was, trapped & isolated in a cage that he didn't want to be in. He desperately wanted to get out, to have fun & to be with people. Then, when someone comes along & pays him a bit of attention, his hoped get raised to the point of ecstasy--someone noticed him! Someone wanted to be with him! Someone wanted to pet him & be his friend! But it was all for naught. The would-be friend quickly abandoned the poor dog and walked away, having better things to do that evening.

I bet that if I had got in that dog's head, it may very well have thought: "Why did you even bother coming over here at all? All you've done now is made me just that much more aware of my wretched prison."

* * * * *

This weekend, I had the "pleasure" of going on a PD day retreat with my fellow staff members. It was meant to be a spiritual retreat--a time where were were supposed to get reconnected with God & to build relationships with eachother. The intention was to encourage and strengthen us as individuals & as a "team."

All it did was make me all the more aware of how trapped I feel.

I was for 36 hours exposed to an opportunity where I could hang out with people, where I had no obligations toward school, marking, lesson planning, students or anyone else. I had a taste of freedom. It was delicious.

I was given the opportunity to have time to spend with God--something that my superiors wanted me to take advantage of. I was amazed.

We were asked to share words of encouragement about each other at one of our sessions. A lot of words were said, and all of them with good intentions. The only things that got said about me were that I was a good worker, that I strove for excellence and that I seem to accomplish what to others would be an impossible task. I was told that people wished they could be as diligent as me; I was told that people respected my efforts.

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate their words. I know that they were doing their best to encourage me. However, I wasn't encouraged. I do not define myself by what I do or by how much I accomplish. Work is work: it's a necessary evil of life. Granted, I live my life by the motto: "Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, working as if unto the Lord," but I don't desire to be defined by my workingness.

Later that night, we as a staff were all gathered together to hang out on the beach where we were staying with the intention of getting to know each other better. I sat down by one group of teachers, and half of them got up & left, because the sand was too dirty there (granted, it was rather gross). Those who remained didn't bother to acknowledge me, but instead, started to talk in whispered voiced. Another teacher came and sat down nearby me, but didn't say a word. I think he was in a contemplative non-talking mood. Myself, tired of being ignored, decided to try the other side of the group, hoping that there would be more of an interaction over there.

Walking around the highly-engaged group of people, busily chatting with each other, I was certain that when I sat down I'd be able to squeeze into a conversation or two. I think, though, that I must have some sort of social disease, because as soon as I sat down, the conversation that was going on tapered off to silence within the next minute. Those who were talking slowly turned themselves inward, engaging me with naught but their backs.

I think that my co-workers think I'm a workaholic. The sad thing is that I would much rather be hanging out. All they know of me is that I sit in my classroom, slaving away so that I don't drown in schoolwork & so that my students don't end up being grossly under-schooled. I think that they've defined me by this presentation of who I am. What they don't know is that it kills me a little bit each time that I have to say "no" to hanging out with people in light of my insurmountable responsibility. But, why bother trying to form new relationships when the people that you always hang out with are right beside you on this beach, right? It's much easier to talk with someone that you know and much easier to build a relationship once it's already founded. Of course I was left on the outside. And it made me feel like crap.

What was the point of going to a group hang-out session if no one wants to hang out with you? Why bother trying to build relationships if you're already on the "don't bother" list? How do you engage people if they make you feel unclean?

I hate my cage. Part of me wishes that I had never gone on that stupid "retreat"; all it's done has been to make me all the more aware of my current situation. It's better to never have been made aware of what was on the outside if you never can take part in it. Leave me to rot here until my penance is up, if all you give me is hollow shimmers of something greater. At least then I won't have to think of what I'm missing.

Post Script

2007-11-17T01:42:00.001-08:00

An interesting quirk about speaking English in Thailand:

Last night, myself, Jon Fairbridge & our visiting friends from Canada went down to Khao San road to hang out. We stopped into the Starbucks there to caffeinate ourselves sufficiently for the evening. As I handed the barista my Bangkok Bank card, she asked if I lived in Thailand.

"Yes I do," I said.

"What do you do?"

"I am a teacher. I teach English."

"Where?"

"At an English school in Nonthaburi."

"Really? I am from Nonthaburi! Close to Nonthaburi pier," she said.

"Wow! And you work all the way down here?" I asked--Khao San is easily a half hour taxi ride away, about a 300 baht round trip.

"Yes."

"How come?" I wondered, since there was a Starbucks at the Central Plaza mall on Rattanathibet Road, not more that a 15 minute's walk from the pier.

"River taxi," she said with a smile as she busily worked behind the counter finishing up my drink.

Ahh, English as a Second Language! She spoke excellent English, with barely even any accent, but my question skipped right over her comprehension level due to this, perhaps our most irregular interrogative structure! In any other language, "how come" would have meant, "How do you come here" (as it would in Thai), but in English, it doesn't mean this at all.

It's amazing, the idioms that we take for granted, isn't it?

Learnage

Things that I've learned about myself so far this year:

I'm pretty sure that my calling's not to be a Math teacher. I feel remarkably gifted in & rewarded by teaching--just not by learning math (and maybe not teaching high school students).
I'm pretty sure that my calling is much more directed toward full-time ministry with a primary focus on outreach, as opposed to the outreach being a tacked-on thing. Three years ago, if you had asked me if I was going to pursue a life of full time ministry, I probably would have told you that you were out of your mind. Interesting how things change...
Language barriers suck. I think that we (or me), as North Americans, largely miss out upon the mission field where we could have the greatest impact: next door. I myself have been made extremely aware at how poor of a steward I have been with the time I could be spending with the seeking / hurt individuals in my home community. Whenever I get back to Canada, I'm hoping that this will change.

Re-Leaf

2007-11-17T01:35:00.000-08:00

It probably has been close to two weeks since my last, "cliffhanging" update, where I communicated a great deal of frustration, disillusionment, discouragement and exhaustion At the end of my letter, I said that something inevitably had to change--and that that change would have to happen quickly. Well, it did.

Thankfully, the change did not come as a heart attack, a car accident, a nervous breakdown or as some random tropical disease. It came as a realisation. A realisation that I myself am nothing; that what I do in my own strength amounts to little more than a pile of dust in the light of a broader perspective. I have been working my tail off for the past five and a half months, trying my best to do my best and be the best that I possibly could be--that's kind of who I am. Yet, despite all of my vigorous efforts, all of my sleepless nights, all of my work-filled weekends, I never felt like I was ever going to meet the expectations that were had on me--whether they were real expectations from my employers, perceived expectations that I thought (and maybe still do think) existed, manufactured personal expectations or any countless other benchmark that I was aware of. I always was feeling like I was falling short: other staff members would be having evenings & weekends free, making extra money tutoring or helping out / volunteering in non-school ministries and pretty much enjoying life while I felt as if I was rotting away in my classroom, pouring over my lessons, struggling with my work & with the content (teaching yourself the finer points of linear algebra is a bit tough--especially when you're expected to be teaching the same material to students the next day). I was discouraged, despairing and beginning to get depressed. But then, I realised something. I realised my real station in life--how much my own individual actions actually make a difference.

The Story

It became blatantly obvious to me on the second Monday of teaching after we had come back from our semester break. I had just burned my weekend away, sitting in my classroom pouring over minute details of trigonometric identities for grade 11 math and quadratic transformations for grade 10. I had planned these amazing lessons, where I was going to introduce the concepts to my students in many exciting, engaging ways, but as a result, I didn't get a chance to mark the grade 10 homework assignments. "No problem," I thought, "Most math teachers get their students to mark assignments in class. I'll just allot some time in one of the classes this week to do that, and we can all review together the more difficult questions." It was an excellent idea, I thought.

The week started, and when it came time for me to dazzle my students with amazing teaching & learning techniques... They wouldn't even pay attention. My Grade 11 students (a class size of 3) were just "not in the mood" to learn: One refused to sit at a desk, but instead, lay down and began to sleep; another student chose to play with a Rubik’s cube throughout the class; the third decided that it was more advantageous to stare off into space instead of learning math. When I asked what was going on, they balked my inquisition. Choosing to switch my teaching approach for that day, I asked them to take out their textbooks and turn to the section that we were studying. None of them--not one--had brought their textbook to school that day, nor had they bothered to bring notebooks or even paper to class. Joy.

So, grade 11 was a failure that day. All of the work that I had poured into trying to engage the students was for naught. Hopefully, Grade 10 would be better. Well...... It wasn't. A homework assignment was due that day, so instead of collecting them, I thought that I would get the students to mark their own. It was a fiasco. Only 2/3 of the class even did the homework, and when it came to marking, half of the students refused to even look at another person's work--making excuses ranging from "I don't understand this math" to "I cannot read their writing" or even "I cannot find their homework" (when it had just been handed to them to mark). After sorting out their logistic protests, the whining ensued. "Why do we have to mark someone else's work?" "What is the point of this?" "How are we going to learn from marking assignments?" and, my personal favourite, "You are just lazy, Mr. Daniel. You're making us do your work because you don't want to do anything!"

I was dumbfounded. Crushed. My students accused me of being lazy and not doing work, when they themselves couldn't even manage to sit down for 20 minutes on the weekend and finish their homework assignments. They called me lazy; when I had just spent over twenty hours on the weekend coming up with ways that would help them learn the material better. I couldn't believe it--and what's worse is that a bulk of the class all grunted in assent with this last vocal attack.

There's a limit to how many pearls you throw to swine before you realise that they're just going to poo in them anyways. That day was my breaking point, and on Tuesday, I decided that, instead of giving them my dazzle, I would give them a satisfactory instruction performance--no extra work, no sweating through how to make this information more accessible, no lateral thinking exercises in how to make abstract mathematics more concrete. I would just lecture, review and coach.

They didn't even notice a difference. Not a single one of them. The rest of the week was devoid of Math-o-lympics; free of games, mind-challenges; missing the pictures and the puzzles and not one of them even blinked. The good students were doing just as well; the struggling students were still struggling at the same rate; the hellions were still as hellionish as ever. Why had I been working myself to death for something that the students didn't even appreciate?

That same week, I was given a written notice that I had failed to submit lesson plans for the next week on time. Every Thursday, our lesson plans for the following week are due. I have never been able to come close to meeting this deadline, usually just squeaking in my lesson plans my Sunday at 11pm or Monday morning. This week, when I had been totally demoralised by my students the last thing I needed was to be told that my efforts, again, were not good enough. So, I rebelled.

Instead of trying to do my best to get my lesson plans in as soon as possible, I decided that I wouldn't even do any of my lesson plans until I had a reasonable amount of time to do them--which ended up with me completing lesson plans the night before I'd be using them. Did the world end? Nope. Did my performance as a teacher suffer, when my lesson plans were completed the day before the lessons instead of the week before? Nope. In fact, they probably were better (or at least more efficient), since that way, I could tailor each day's material a bit better in response to what had happened in class that day.

As a result of these events, I've decided that striving for excellence while here at GES is an unattainable goal. Despite all of my efforts, nothing is good enough for anyone anyways, so why should I bother working myself to death? Experimenting with being "adequate" as opposed to being "spectacular" has shown me that the amount of difference that "spectacular" makes in comparison to how much work, stress & time it takes to "achieve," is just not worth it. Am I going to go the extra mile to try & teach students who would rather sleep, rather talk, rather play games or rather spend their parents' money on whatever their hearts desired than making an effort to learn (especially when they know that they can buy a passing grade from our school)--especially when they accuse me of being lazy? Nope. I'll help the students who want to learn; I'll help the students who even at least make a bit of an effort. Am I going to lose sleep over missing manufactured deadlines and administrative make-work projects? Heck no. I don't have the energy or remaining stress tolerance levels to even try to play that game.

The Results

So, I've changed my approach. I'm learning to take work a bit more lightly, which allows me to get more sleep ( though I still am needing 2 Red Bulls a day just to make it to 5:00 without passing out in front of my students). I've actually spent time with people & have had conversations for what feels like the first time since July! We'll see how this whole new approach works out.

We have a PD weekend next week. It's supposed to be a spiritual-retreat dealie, which I am earnestly looking forward to. I haven't had uninterrupted time to spend alone with God & honestly pursue Him in months. Pray that there would be an opportunity to do just that.

Kand, my 10B student who chose to follow Christ, transferred out of GES at the beginning of the term to go study in Australia. Pray for her, that she'd get connected to a good set of Christians over there--I doubt she even knows where to look for them.

One of the biggest problem-students in my classes, a girl named Soda, is beginning to realise how horribly lost she is in school. She has about a 40% average in both Math & Chem., and that's completely due to lack of effort. She's an intelligent girl, but her attitude towards school, authority or anything that stands in her way of getting what she wants when she wants is rotten. On Friday, she asked me for help--the first time this year--and it was clear that she hasn’t learned a thing since the beginning of September. As a result, I'll be spending some tutoring time with her in the mornings before school to try & help her catch up. Pray that this would be an opportunity to reach into her life & show her Christ. It's the brazen, unruly students who typically need love the most, as often times, they act the way they do due to a severe deficit of love.

I've been asked & have begun to adapt and produce Shakespeare's The Tempest, which will be performed by the student body (hopefully) by the end of the school year. Pray for wisdom, guidance and for help from my associated staff members to pull off this gargantuan project.

That's all I have for now. If I continued, your eyeballs would fall out & my schoolwork wouldn't be getting done.

Peace.

An Overdue Update

2007-11-04T04:09:00.001-08:00

Well, October has come and gone. Its 31 days felt like a little less than 24 hours for me over here, what with the end-of-term, report cards, regular classes, the two-week break from school and the return to classes. It definitely has been a whirlwind.

To make this a quick update, and to spare all of those who are actually interested, we'll jump right into the essential parts: School, my break & my current outlook on everything.

School.

We finished off the first term of school here at the beginning of October, meaning compiling grade books and making report cards... from scratch. Nowhere are there any nice bits of software to help make things easier or to streamline the process: every single character on every single report card had to be individually typed and perfectly formatted. Even if so much as one missing space (or one extra) was detected by the administration, the whole report card would have to be redone. Many of the teachers think that this is a bit excessive, especially since these report cards are for high school & will most likely be thrown out by the end of the month anyways (who cares if they all aren't 100% identically formatted?!).

After compiling my grades, I discovered that my expected class averages were achieved—between 65 & 70% for both Math & Chemistry subjects. What I wasn't expecting, though, was what I found out on the Monday after our October semester break started. Before leaving on our adventures, I noticed a half-dozen of my students at the school, waiting around for something. I asked them why they were here on break and they told me that they weren't on break—that they were here to go to school. Surprised, I asked them what subject. They said "Chemistry."

It then dawned on me that half of the kids there were in the 10B class—which only received English Language instruction—while the other half were the students in my class who had failed (precisely because they never handed in a stitch of homework & consciously decided to doodle on their chapter tests instead of actually filling them out). Asking Aaron, our administrator, about this on the way to the airport for our getaway, he said that he just found out about it himself. Apparently, these kids were going to be instructed in Chemistry for the next two weeks because their parents were paying for extra instruction to help the kids get a "step up" before the next term began. All of the instruction would be in Thai to assist them in knowledge acquisition.

Then Aaron's cell phone rings. It's the school asking him where the teachers had put their midterm examinations. The school was wanting copies so that the kids could retake the exams. Aaron apologised, say that he didn't know and that since he was already in a taxi, he couldn't help them find these tests. After the telephone call was finished, Aaron promptly turned off his cell phone.

Thailand is notorious for being a country where you can buy anything. This includes academic grades; even at our school. Apparently, after all the foreign staff has handed in their marks and issued report cards, the Thai staff enter these grades into the students’ records for the Ministry of Education. This is how the rich kids who don't do any school work and refuse to complete their tests end up being promoted to the next grade level: If mom & dad have enough baht, then your passing grade is purchased.

It's considered shameful in Thai culture for someone to fail & to be held back an academic year, and parents don't want this to happen. The kids all know about this practise—in fact, it was a couple of students in my class who told me exactly how it works. Since we are a private school, and since tuition is so "high" (compared to public Thai schools), it is generally recognised as the parents' & students' right to be able to pass any class that they take, as long as the school is compensated enough for this trouble. The irony, of course, is that these students who will eventually graduate (financially) from our institution will enter the greater community (maybe even university) without a high school education, and the school's own reputation will be destroyed, since the greatest testament to a school's excellence is the calibre of its alumni. Word will spread about how poorly educated the students from this school are (even if it's only 1 in 10 students who buys their diploma) and as a result, no parents will want to enrol their children at that institution. It makes a lot of sense if you have foresight enough to consider the ramifications of your immediate actions. Though, just as Aaron turned off his cell phone after that conversation, so will I do likewise & continue onwards.

Break.

My break was very much needed. At the beginning of the year, I was running on 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night, and not needing a single drop of caffeine. By the final week of school, I was down to 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night and up to 2 or 3 bottles of Red Bull a day just trying to keep my eyelids from collapsing. It was beautiful to get out of Bangkok, to not have to hear traffic, to not have to worry about stepping in random piles of dog crap everywhere, to not have to breathe in the smoggy goodness that is Bangkok air. The best part, by far, was the chance to get some much needed sleep.

I travelled with the Aaron & Katie Wong, along with the visiting Snyder family, to two very nice beachside resorts in southern Thailand, where we relaxed and adventured and did whatever we wanted to do whenever we wanted to do it. My first day there, I slept for 14 hours. I got up, ate breakfast, walked around on the beach for a bit and then took a 4 hour nap in the shade of a palm tree. It was great.

We did other things too though. Active things. We rented motorcycles and cruised around this island for the day, stopping every once in a while for good photo op's or for food and whatnot. We went snorkelling, sea kayaking and rock climbing. One day, John Fairbridge and I decided to climb up this 1237 step stairway to the top of the highest mountain in the region, at the top of which was a very large Buddhist shrine. How do I know that there were 1237 steps? They had painted markers indicating the number of stairs every so often, and 1237 was on the final post for the handrail at the very top of the mountain. It was definitely worth the trip: the view was amazing, and had the smoke coming from Indonesia's deforestation projects not been blowing in across the Gulf of Thailand that day, it would have made for a spectacular sunset.

Our sea kayaking guide, whose name was Mun Gee (yes, it does sound a lot like "monkey," and he made joking references to how his nickname was "Chee kee") said that, on the behalf of his people, he wanted to thank all of us from North America for our generosity in helping them recover from the tsunami in Dec. 2004. He said that all of the people around were very thankful, but that the majority of them did not speak any English but were always happy and excited to see foreigners because they wanted to thank them for their generosity. He told us that apparently 90% of all the funds donated went directly to work & relief projects for the effected areas (which I was surprised to hear. I would have thought that the government would have skimmed more than that).

All things, alas, come to an end, and this Monday marked the beginning of the new term. School started off very well: after day 1, the students seemed eager and ready to learn. On day 2, I received a new student in grade 10 without any prior warning, and the school hadn't given her any books or anything for the classes that she'd be taking (surprise, surprise). We're still trying to figure out what to do for her Chemistry text...

Speaking of students, the girl who chose to accept Christ back in July, Kand, didn't return to GES this term—also without any notice. I was told from her classmates that she had gone on an exchange program to study in Australia. Hopefully there she'll have good exposure to good people & (let's pray) a better opportunity to learn about Christ than what GES can do.

Outlook.

My current outlooks and perspective about everything right now is quite bleak. After the 2nd day of classes, my students returned to their usual non-caring, external locus of control attitudes, blaming me for giving them too much homework when they refuse to finish assignments & consequently complain that they don't know how to do the mathematics (since math skill is developed through practising math and not manual dexterity on PSPs or cell phones). A couple students even had the gall on Friday to tell me that I was lazy and I wasn't doing my job when—for the first time this year—I had the class mark a homework assignment.

It is attitudes like this that really make me wonder why I bother putting in 15 hours a day for these kids. I literally am in my classroom or at work in the office from 7:15 am to 10:30 at night, leaving only for a 30 minute lunch & a 30 minute supper break. It's an unsustainable level of work, and I acknowledge this. I became physically ill last term because of the levels of stress and lack of rest that my job is currently demanding from me, and I do not want to repeat the same fiasco. Something's gotta give, and it's going to have to happen soon...before I give out and collapse on the floor somewhere.

I decided, yesterday, to try a new approach starting tomorrow. This approach is a "take no crap, take no excuses" attitude, where I'm going to set a high level of expectation from my students. The good kids are already meeting or exceeding this benchmark, and those who don't will have to whip into shape, or else they'll be sitting in a detention faster than they can spell "supercalifragilisticexpialadotious."

On the topic of expectations, I've discovered that I'm pretty sure it's almost impossible to both be a teacher and be a missionary at the same time. The former requires that you take the posture of an impartial authority, so that when a student fails, they don't feel personally attacked (or when you're personally attacked by them, you don't let it bother you). The latter works better when you meet the people on their terms, in their space, on their playing field: trying to love them and invest your life into theirs with the goal of sharing Christ with them. If both can be done, it's mighty difficult. I applaud any person who can do this with hormonal, defiant & spoiled rich teenagers.

To be really honest, I don't think that I've had much of a ministry impact on Thailand at all since the middle of July, when my course-load shifted from Math & basic English to Math & Chemistry. I simply don't have the time, and because of that, I really am beginning to wonder what the crap I am doing here. I decided to come to Thailand with the purpose of working in some sort of ministry-related activity, and right now, I don't see how teaching children about the finer points of quadratic equations and stoichiometric balancing really advances the kingdom of God in Thailand, where what feels like (from my perspective) the majority of Christians are foreigners—either teaching or working for multinational corporations—who don't really feel compelled to learn the language or reach out to Thai people at all, as it would extend beyond their comfort zones.

I think, perhaps, I am feeling rather starved of edifying Christian community (an 85 hour work-week will do that to ya) and just straight up time with God. Our organisation, which claims to be a ministry, really gives no opportunity or avenue for spiritual support—at least in a way that I can relate to. We’re required to go to church on Sunday, yet the only churches that I’ve found have congregations that either are: a.) full of partying, extraverted socialites who’re always on the go; b.) filled with professionals, their wives and pre-teenaged children who daren’t leave their personally-constructed white-man ghetto; or c.) conducted in Thai. The one prayer meeting / corporate worship time that we have as a GES staff happens twice a month and feels rather rigid, religious and empty. There is no focus on staff members' spiritual health really at all, and all the attention is, instead, directed on whether or not you have completed your paperwork on time. Rather than ensuring the priority of the staff's spiritual health and well-being, we are given 30 minutes of mandatory “devotional time” with our students (which are 90% Buddhist and don't want to hear about Jesus for what is—for some of them—the 6th year of the same stuff) each day—and those that are the most receptive (the new kids) barely speak a sentence of English. Of course, the irony with this is that every other class gets Thai-English Bibles, yet these new students aren’t so lucky. What do they get? Nothing. Not even a devotional instructor who interacts with them for more than 2 hours each week (consequently making the devotional time rather irrelevant to whatever actually might be happening in their lives).

I’ve been finding myself really questioning what I’m doing here & why I continue onward. Pragmatically, I stick around because I signed a contract, and my name on that contract is my word. I don’t like breaking my word. Also, I get reimbursed for my airfare if I stay the full term, which is another pragmatic plus for my retention. Those things aside, I find it extremely difficult to rationalise my work and my efforts here. I mean, the students who actually do their homework and who actually try are a joy. I love ‘em to death and I have great hopes for them. Honestly, there probably make up just as much of the classroom population as the rotten apples (maybe even more), but it’s the yeast that taints the flour; not the other way around. Regardless of the students who are good or bad, how is teaching here any different than teaching back in Canada? It’s not that I’m disinterested in teaching; it just never was my primary motivation to come here and do this.

In the middle of writing this update, someone asked me why I don’t do anything about this situation. Perhaps I have learned too much from my students & consider change as being beyond my control. I feel too overwhelmed with work and duty to try to even get around to making the effort to instigate change. That, and my personal history is chalk-full of instances where I try to get the ball of change moving only to be ignored or squelched by the powers that be. Let’s just say that I have no faith in my ability to motivate or to inspire people. Maybe that also translates into me not having faith in others’ willingness to change. I don’t know. All I do know is that I don’t feel that me raising these concerns to you or anybody else is really going to change anything (perhaps prayer would. Please consider this something to bring to God, if you’re a praying person).

Am I having any impact for God in this place? I’ve no idea. The answer would seem to be “probably.” I presented the gospel to my students in July and one of them wanted to follow Jesus. Yes, that is super awesome. It’s huge. It’s enough to have made this entire experience completely worth it. I just wish that the school would have done a better job helping follow up with her decision to follow Jesus instead of ignoring her desire while celebrating the cute grade 4 student who accepted Jesus several weeks later. I try to remember to pray for her whenever I find myself remembering to pray—which, unfortunately, has been rare since the middle of August.

To sum up, I’m discouraged. Really discouraged. I feel like Luke Skywalker when he crash landed on Degobah and was invited into this strange creature’s house for food while he was looking for Yoda:

LUKE: Look, I'm sure it's delicious. I just don't understand why we
can't see Yoda now.

CREATURE: Patience! For the Jedi it is time to eat as well. Eat, eat.
Hot. Good food, hm? Good, hmm?

LUKE: How far away is Yoda? Will it take us long to get there?

CREATURE: Not far. Yoda not far. Patience. Soon you will be with him.
(tasting food from the pot) Rootleaf, I cook. Why wish you become
Jedi? Hm?

LUKE: Mostly because of my father, I guess.

CREATURE: Ah, your father. Powerful Jedi was he, powerful Jedi, mmm.

LUKE: (a little angry) Oh, come on. How could you know my father? You
don't even know who I am. (fed up) Oh, I don't even know what I'm
doing here. We're wasting our time.

I’m not sure what I’m doing here, and I definitely feel like I am wasting my time (somewhat. I mean, teaching is a noble thing to do; it’s just not what I expected to be doing exclusively). I’m working wa-a-a-ay too much to live a healthy lifestyle, and my spiritual state has drowned in the khlong behind the school (that’s an open sewer, for those of you who don’t know). All of this is unsustainable. Something inevitably is going to change. It’s just a matter of what and when.

I’ll keep you posted.

15 hours later

2007-09-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

It has been 15 hours since I talked with Mr. Sombat. I just talked with my fellow teacher, Matt, who went to have lunch at Sombat's place, and the elderly gentleman told him the same story as I was told yesterday. The doctors looked inside him from the top down & from the bottom up looking for this problem that they had seen before, but they couldn't find anything anymore—the lesion had completely healed. Mr Sombat told Matt that it was our God who had healed him. Apparently, there were some Thai people having lunch at the same time as when Matt was there, and Mr. Sombat turned to these people & told them about how our God—this God of the Christians—had healed him from this illness that was supposed to have had him 'under the knife.' Matt told me that the look on these Thai people's faces as Sombat told them the story of his healing was a look of wonder and amazement.

A non-believing man tells of how this foreign God heals him from this potentially life-threatening sickness. That is amazing. That is "Book of Acts" type stuff. This isn't you're ludicrous "my leg feels stiff & then the preacher put his hands on me & now I can move it... but then 18 hours later, it's just as stiff as it was before" placebo effect rubbish. This is real. A bona fide miracle.

God still does do this stuff. That's awesome, and I find myself humbled in light of it but awe-struck at the same time. What a crazy/beautiful God.

“Your God. I Believe Your God Heal Me.”

2007-09-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

I’m literally flooded with emotions right now. I don’t know what to think—it is like my head is not on straight &/or I’ve been smacked across the back of my skull with a heavy, blunt object.

There is an old gentleman who runs a food shop / sidewalk eatery out of his house that pretty much every farang staff member at GES has gone to for who knows how long. His name is Sombat, and apparently he has been dealing with a rather serious gastrointestinal problem for many years. It had become so bad in the recent months that the doctors were telling him that they would have to perform surgery in order to fix whatever was wrong. The downside is that Sombat is well advanced in years—probably about 70 years old—and as far as surgery goes, the older you get, the less advantageous the risk of an operation becomes.

His pre-op screening was scheduled for Wednesday—yesterday. On Tuesday this past week, one of my fellow teachers, Matt, & I stopped and talked for a bit with Sombat after we had finished our meal. Matt asked if we could pray for him before he went to see the doctors the next day. Sombat, like the majority of Thailand, is a Buddhist, and because of this, he graciously accepted the prayers offered up for him to a foreign God, since any good thing has got to help (right?). We quickly prayed for the man as we were standing in the shop, asking God to heal him & that Sombat would know—if he did get healed—it was because of God that he was healed.

Wednesday came & went. Today, I just finished my meal at Sombat’s place, and after paying, I asked the man how his doctor’s appointment went. He told me, as best as he could with his limited English, that the doctors took a scope and looked up inside him from underneath & down from the top side for the problem. He told me that the doctors said the lesion in his “stomach” had sealed up, motioning with his hands by taking his pinkie finger and wrapping around it with his other hand, as if to seal off the tip from the rest of the finger. Instead of the surgery that the doctors had told him was going to be mandatory, they gave him some medicine to take & he was told to sleep a lot for the next month, until he went back for a final check-up.

He stopped, looked at me and said, “Your God. I believe it was your God that heal me.” There was a look on his face of unmistakeable joy and honesty that it would have been impossible for me to in any way think he had just been polite, trying to make the farang who prayed to his foreign God feel good for offering up “good hopes.”

I walked away surprised, overjoyed and completely taken away. I’ve pretty much been a basket case ever since. Here I am in Thailand, feeling useless & drained; on the verge of giving up on my God because he supposedly threw me here in Thailand to do stuff for Him, but all I’ve been doing has been schoolwork. The first—and most recent—time that I ever prayed for God to do something big was to heal my best friend’s father from his cancer. I had firmly believed that God would; then 3 weeks after rigorous prayer, my friend’s dad died. I was sent in a tailspin, having to reassess everything that I had ever believed: This God who I was serving—was He even real? He told us to ask Him to do stuff & to “believe and not doubt” that it would happen, and that it would, but here I was, totally devastated by the fact that God didn’t come through in the way that I had expected when my friend’s dad passed away.

I find myself reaffirmed that God does listen; that prayer does work; that God does love; that God exists. Furthermore, I find myself horrified at how I’ve let my walk with God very much slip away, recounting the many adventures that we have had together in my life.

Then there was this man, a Buddhist, who had more faith in my God than me. A man who believes that a God who was not his own reached out and healed him. That takes faith; more faith than I can confess to ever having. God has always been mine—He’s always been “there”; a part of my existence. There hasn’t really ever been a leap to grasp Him for me, as fundamentally, my very life has been founded on Him from day one of my life. I grew up in a Christian home & decided to follow Jesus at a very young age, so in that respect, I’ve had it easy. On the other side, though, I’ve never been subjected to the “otherness” of God—having to reach out and take hold of a supernatural being & relate with him without really having a background to set that relationship. I haven’t had to decide to switch allegiances from one god to another or from one set of religions / spiritual beliefs to another. Yet, here is this man who credits this God, which wasn’t his own, for restoring his health.

Increase my faith, God. Increase my faith.

And you Christians who are reading this, pray for Sombat—that this event would lead soon to his decision to give his life over to Christ.

Le Struggle

2007-09-09T02:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a long, busy month.

I remember in June saying that I would try to post updates to this blog about my Thailand adventures every other week. Perhaps I was a bit too ambitious; nonetheless, I still hope to be able to do that.

August Highlights

To sum up August over here at GES in Thailand—at least for me—there is only one word: Gong Show. The first week of the month heralded the last week of our interim Chemistry teacher's presence, as she was to return to school on the 7th. Being the resident Chemistry teacher, it was my job to take over the course load that she was bearing & incorporate it into my already busy schedule. At that time, the school hadn't really considered that 8 of my 24 hours of in-class instruction were directly conflicting with the Chemistry course load that I was to resume. Having been myself filling in for another class—the English 10B course—I didn't really have any flex room, and the school didn't really anticipate the fact that there would be no 10B English teacher when I took over Chemistry. I'm pretty sure that the Thailand mentality of "ignore it & it will fix itself" came much into play here, where my thoughts are that they were hoping I'd be able to teach all of the high school math classes, all of the high school chemistry classes while still managing to teach the 10B English class at the same time. In fact, the first copy of my revised schedule reflected just that—that I was to do all of this. Thankfully, the laws of physics overruled the school & my restriction of only being able to be in one place at one time won out (though, as we will see later on, this wasn't an isolated case).

Jumping into Chemistry was alright, for the most part. At the beginning, I pretty much had to have the students tell me what they'd learned in the course so far, for although the previous teacher covered the content, with these students there is no guarantee that they retained a single thing. As for my 10B class, they were pretty much abandoned for a whole week, until the lines of communication finally connected & it was discovered that the school was short one teacher. For the next two, weeks, however, the 10B class was completely dissolved, being conglomerated into he 10A class—a student body whose English proficiency is, for the most part, pretty good (in contrast with 10B who, at the beginning of the year, didn't know what a door or a window or a stair was). The 10B parents were becoming a bit upset with the school, for the students were placed into classes & were not given any textbooks with which to study. The sad thing is that not a single person knew how long these students would be remaining in these classes.

Then one day, there was a bit of a "melt down." I was asked to come into the Thai administration office for a chat, and pretty much I was told that the parents of all the 10B students were making very angry phone calls to the school, questioning the academic standards of the school and—since I was technically the "home room" teacher for the 10B students—that I was the primary cause of this "failing" of the school in the parents' eyes.

I was taken aback, to say the least. After being lectured about not doing my job, about not teaching these students, about not having enough textbooks for these kids, about failing these students' parents & failing the school in one of my primary job requirements, I was then officially directed to create a new ESL class which would occur at the same time as my current ESL instruction time, where I would be responsible for an intense, comprehensive instruction plan for these 10B students, to help them with the coursework that they currently were taking. The great irony was that not only was I not teaching the 10B students at all any more, but that having the 10A & 10B students who were enrolled in ESL for the morning (which is supposed to be a total of 14 students, but only one ever shows up) to be part of the same class for ESL in the morning was strictly forbidden—there would be too many students in the one classroom. I mentioned this to my employer, but it fell on deaf ears. I was, then, perforce to teach two separate classes 5 times a week at the exact same time. End of discussion.

Feeling greatly encouraged, being told that the school's failings to its students were my fault because I didn't have enough textbooks for the kids (which, apparently is my responsibility, even though the school didn't order enough textbooks to begin with)—even though our English administrator told me to not bother with textbooks for these students, since they couldn't understand the material anyways and that they would be moved to a new class as soon as things were worked out—I went back to my classroom, trying to figure out how in the world I would be able to teach two classes at the same time without being in the same room. No, no I didn't do that. I instead thought of just walking off the school property and never coming back. I had had it.

But then, my first class of the day began & the students—praise the Lord for them—lit up the gloomy day with their smiles, energy & enthusiasm for the material. Were it not for my kids, I most definitely would have been gone before lunch that day.

After school, I talked to our English administrator, telling him about this "meeting” that I had had in the morning. I let him know that there was absolutely no way that I could be doing this, and I asked for his advice help. He picked up a sheet of paper off of his desk and handed it to me, saying, "Here."

Not sure what I was receiving, I looked at the sheet & was immediately met with a wave of dumbfounded relief. He had handed me a schedule for the new 10B teacher, and after a second of me looking at it, he said, "That should probably help." No kidding. Needless to say, my anxiety and stress levels immediately dropped from a balmy 300% to a more manageable 85. Oh, and I decided to remain teaching at the school.

Current Conditions

Right now, if you were to ask me how I was doing, I would probably tell you that I was drained, strained and empty. I've been chastised from some of the lower grade-level teachers of doing too much work, that my personal health (mental, physical & spiritual) would be at-risk were I to remain working at the same rate that I currently found myself. They're right, admittedly, but I unfortunately cannot see myself reducing the workload. I am teaching advanced Mathematics—algebraic theorems & trigonometric proof that I myself don’t even fully comprehend, yet I am responsible for disseminating said concepts to the children in my classroom. Needless to say, I spend hours pouring over the material to try and wrap my mind around the information enough to be able to present it to the students in each & every lesson. Suggestions have been made to me to let the students teach themselves, but I don't know if these students—who, as a whole, haven't the determination to complete 6 homework questions in 3 days—would be capable of "teaching themselves." At present, I employ a cooperative learning approach to instruction in my class, grouping the students into teams, where a representative distribution of abilities (poor students & over-achievers) are compelled to work together in order to progress along a scheduled system of rewards. It works out well, but even the brightest students wouldn’t be able to teach themselves this material. Ask yourself: could you effectively master the concept of "rationalising the denominator of radical expressions" all by yourself, or do you think that someone who's at least been exposed to this stuff sometime before would be of great benefit to your learning?

That being said, I am at an impasse. I feel torn in many, many directions. I am overwhelmed with the amount of work that I have to accomplish on a week-to-week basis—so much so, that it beings back dreadful memories of those 100+ hour school weeks during final projects with my double-major (the temporal investment here doesn't appear to be as much, but the feeling is reminiscent—one of dreadful drowning). However, I am fully aware that the only way I can accomplish this task is to rely wholly on God. And there's the catch: I've no time to give myself a respectable meeting with God anymore. Deadlines, projects, marking, content mastery & lesson plans all haunt me for 18 hours each day, leaving me only with a 6 hour respite in my dreamless sleep.

Add on top of all this, the desire to retain some semblance of a presence within our community, and I might as well tie those concrete shoes onto my feet before jumping into the swimming pool. I am consumed by work; I am stretched by community; I am torn by my relationship with God. As a result, I feel empty, broken and useless.

I have not felt more alone spiritually right now than ever before. God seems to me to be a distant memory, and I constantly have to fight off the thought that Christianity is a delusion. I feel abandoned by God, yet I cannot cast Him off: I've seen Him & experienced Him too much to say that He isn't real. He just seems to have gone on hiatus or something. Or rather, I am probably much too busy doing stuff that I do not give Him the time of day to commune with me.

Would I say that I'm under spiritual attack? I'd love to, but since I am currently _in_ this situation, I cannot really say that I am—the thought that I've been living a hoax is just as prevalent in my thoughts, so there is no consolation; there is no way for me to judge without bias. You, oh reader, probably can. If you're of the spiritual persuasion, you'd probably conclude that there is a war going on & since I've placed myself in a front-lines ministry position, I'm apt to be attacked pretty heavily. I myself just do not know. Not anymore.

All I know is that I'm tired; I'm empty; I'm stretched to capacity & I would like some rest. Please don't quote any Bible verses to me about coming to God to get rest—that will only exacerbate my frustrations.

But please, do pray.

Three Weeks and Waning...

2007-08-05T02:02:00.000-07:00

Hello, friends and family!

It has been a long three weeks, let me tell you. Much has happened since my last update, though I do not know if I will take up too much of your time with the details. I want to communicate effectively the activities that are happening in my life and with this ministry at GES, and not bog you down with a deluge of words (though if you would like more details, don't hesitate to drop me an e-mail).

The last time I left off, we here at GES were going away for what was called "overnight camp." My original perception of this outing was that the students & staff would be spending time in the Thai country, living in tents and cooking over a fire. As it turns out, "camping" in Thai culture really means "staying in a hotel away from Bangkok."

For three days, the students and teachers from grades 5 through to 11 went to a 4 star resort called "Fountain Tree," where our meals were catered, where we were given free access to their archery range (though, only 5 shots each), paintball course (only 30 paintballs—pretty much just a "taste" of what the sport's really like), paddle boats, soccer field and swimming pool. It was pretty much just a get-away, where the kids were allowed to eat as much junk food as they could afford while also not having any parents to tell them to go to sleep. Seeing that we were a group of 120 strong, pretty much the whole resort was booked for our school. It was interesting.

Much fried rice and bottled water later, and having two games of capture the flag under our belts, the school returned to the city to finish off the week with two days' worth of classes. As I said, it was a very interesting experience. I never really expected to go camping in a hotel, while sharing a king-sized bed with one of the other teachers.

The following week was school as usual. When I arrived here in June, I was told that I would be the "homeroom teacher" for the Grade 11 students—four very intelligent young lads—but after the first week of school, the administration introduced a new homeroom with students that were barely exposed to the English language. This was the 10B class. It turned out that the ESL teacher from last year was returning to GES shortly, and seeing as she was the Grade 11 students' homeroom teacher last year, the administration thought it best to keep them with an instructor who had already cultivated a working relationship. While she was away from the school, I'd be conducting homeroom activities with Grade 11—leading devotions, being responsible for student behaviour during morning flag ceremonies, etc. As a result, the 10B students (whom I had officially been given, when the school found out that this other teacher would be returning) were, for the interim, globbed with the 10A students—those kids who had a relatively decent grasp of English—and their homeroom teacher.

Why do I tell you all of this? Well, it was this week after "overnight camp" that I officially began taking the reigns of 10B's homeroom activities. Up until that point, I had only been exposed to the class through our daily 90 minute classes of English acquisition, which I was given as filler while the volunteer teacher from San Francisco took over my Chemistry classes. It wasn't bad—the kids are great, for the most part. They're usually active and willing to learn/listen/engage in the classroom activities, and when I started leading their devotional times, I was excited to be able to a.) Use the relationship that we had built through English classes and b.) Reach these students at a level of English and at a level of exposure to Christianity (all but one of these students had never been to GES before, meaning that there was a 98% chance that they had never heard about Jesus) that would allow me to reach them effectively.

My first devotional session with these kids, I asked them what they knew about God & Jesus. One of the students asked why Jesus had to die, and there I began with creation, the Fall, the first coming of Christ and the wages of sin. I explained to them the matter at hand, and the extent of the love that God must have had to desire so eagerly for a restoration of the relationship between ourselves and Him that he would willingly kill his only Son in order to bring about redemption. I then told them how Jesus conquered death, and hoe both Jesus & God wanted to have a relationship with each individual—including these students sitting in the class. Learning something about "sales" from my time as a retail manager, I was taught that the biggest failing of making a sales-pitch (or evangelising) was forgetting to close—to present the chance for the individual to accept or reject the proposal. Armed with this knowledge, I asked the class if there was anyone who would like to have a relationship with Jesus. One girl in the corner raised her hand. "Perhaps she didn't understand what I was saying," I thought, so I quickly re-presented the implications and the information of the gospel message in a different way. I asked a second time if anyone wanted to be friends with Jesus: this same girl with the same amount of resolve raised her hand, not caring what those around her were thinking. I was ecstatic: my heart leapt. Then the bell rang and they were off to their next class.

She was sick the next two days, and the male students from Grade 10 upward are sent to military training on Fridays, which means no school for those grades (by implication, this also means that my first four days of the week are 25% longer than normal school-days). The following week had a 4 day long-weekend, giving me only 2 days with which to touch base with my students, and it just so happened that this girl was in some sort of accident (my students tell me in their broken English, which also might have meant that she was still sick). I therefore, haven't had an opportunity to build upon her initial decision, nor do I know how she's doing—or if the decision was based on personal motives and not "to please Teacher."

If you could pray for this girl, that would be amazing. Her name's Kand. Pray that her decision to follow Christ would well up within her, that God would found her fledgling faith and secure her in her conviction to follow Jesus.

When I broke this news to the other teaching staff, no one really seemed all that excited. This came to me as a shock, seeing that those involved in my next most intensive outreach ministry—Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp—would have been hooting and hollering, praising God for another child being brought to Him.

Well, that week being over, there were plans for a couple groups of teachers to go away for the long weekend: some were thinking of going to a popular beach location called Hua Hin, while others were hoping to spread their wings a bit further and go to a tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand. Seeing as the majority of staff here are female, there isn't really much "guy bonding" available, and the only two single guys who are on staff had decided to go on a retreat with the church that they were a part of. Yep. That left me with hanging out with one of two groups of girls. That being the case, I decided to go the more adventurous route & hit up the tropical island, Ko Chang.

Our bus tickets needed to be purchased at the central hub of Bangkok's tourism industry: a place known as Khao San Road. This is apparently the "must-go" place for intrepid travellers, hippies and consumerism junkies. As a result, there were more farang (white people) in this street market than there were Thai folk. I felt extremely uncomfortable.

If there were any suitable picture to give you at home of how Khao San Road feels, I would have to describe it to you like this: I have come across no better a representation for a modern equivalent to Sodom & Gomorrah. The place is horrible. The tourists come and flock to the beer gardens, the brothels, the tourist shops to consume at to satiate any of their appetites for anything you could possibly imagine. The Thai folk, knowing that these white people are flush with expendable income, prostitute not only themselves, but their culture and their very identity just to make a Baht. Every 5th Thai woman is dressed up in a mock version of traditional Buddhist Thai costume, stroking these carved wooden frogs with polished wooden sticks, making them "croak." As soon as a white person passes one of these ladies, they start following you, stroking these frogs, and if you stop walking, the wooden croaking acts like a "money alarm," causing the convergence of about 10 more of these ladies dressed in the same garb to surround you, hoping—practically begging—that you will throw some bills at them as the sell out their culture. Along with these various barrages of wooden frogs, every third Thai man would come up to me, asking if I would like to see/sleep with any of his fine, beautiful ladies in the back of his shop. I felt sick. The place was covered with a dark evil that made me itching to leave.

Since being there, I haven't quite felt like myself. I've been feeling frustrated, sad and constricted—as if something were dragging me down, sapping my strength and sucking the joy out of my life. Initially, I thought that much of this may have been due to the news of my best friend's father passing away, but I've been leaning more towards the notion that there's been a hint of spiritual oppression plaguing me since wandering into Khao San Road unawares. Praying to God today about this, and using my authority in Christ to rebuke said oppression, I've felt a release and a bit of a renewal.

On the note of difficulties, I feel that the community we have here as teachers is falling apart. It breaks my heart to see and to hear that people are beginning to fight, bicker and distance themselves from others because of petty, insignificant things (like who gets to live in what room). It is getting difficult, and it seriously devastates me as I watch this body of Christ—perhaps the representation of God's love that this un-exposed country gets to see—crumble and fail.

Pray for us, I beg you. Pray that the staff would be unified. Pray that we would do everything out of love for others; not out of love for ourselves. Pray that we would all consider others as being more important than our personal desires. Pray that we would have the courage enough to be humble, the strength enough to confess to each other, the love enough to love each person.

And pray for Kand, as she starts her walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Post Script

2007-07-08T04:35:00.000-07:00

You know when someone tells you something, and you automatically filter that information into the, “Oh, they’re just over-exaggerating,” category, where you heed the person’s message, but decide to take it with a grain of salt & consider it less potent than the propounder implies? And do you also know that feeling of realisation you get when you discover that not only was the messenger telling the truth, but they might’ve even been down-playing the severity of the issue so as to not appear sensationalising the state of affairs? Well, I think that that feeling has just hit me.

Moments ago, I went for a short stroll down the sois (soi = residential street; road = arterial thoroughfare) behind the school. We teachers were told in orientation by an ex-pat who’s lived in Thailand for decades that the culture is largely one of appearances, and that they like to put their best faces on, while sweeping the secrets up, behind corners and under rugs. I don’t think that there’s any better way to exemplify this very attitude than in walking into the bowels of residential Bangkok. The deeper you go, the narrower the streets, and the more difficult the access, until you find yourself walking along a concrete sidewalk-sized “road,” surrounded by jungle and swamp, wherein dwelling after dwelling stands. I don’t think I would venture to call these places houses, so as to give you an improper idea of how many people live. These abodes are literally sheets of tin tacked together with an odd wooden beam here or there for some random structural support.

To be honest, I don’t quite know what to say. I can tell you that my heart was deeply moved, and that my eyes have seen past the veil of “everything’s groovy in Thailand” that the roads project. I often wondered how people survived here in Thailand, when many prices for items (save for the most basic staples) are comparable with prices at home and when the average monthly salary works out to be something like $700. Now I have a better understanding: these people don’t, for the most part, have anything besides the most basic staples. Now, is this true for the majority of Bangkok & the majority of Thailand? I don’t know. I’ve only been down one section of the soi network, which connects millions of people to Bangkok’s arteries much like capillaries in the circulatory system. Are other communities the same, where people are literally living in swamps, having nothing more than a few sheets of tin nailed together as a roof for shelter? I’m not sure.

I’d like to find out, though.

Update Part II: The Empire Strikes Back

2007-07-08T02:23:00.000-07:00

This is the second week of the second month of my time here in Thailand. It's amazing how quickly time passed by. Looking forward, I'm discovering that I have already completed 10% of my contract time here with GES (at least for this year—who knows if I will stay for more?). It has increased my awareness and my feelings of the brevity of time. I feel like I've done so little in what appears on paper to be a lot of time, whereas what, in my mind, seems like only a few hours.

Hopefully, things will improve. I mean, they are already. I've seen myself spend less time undertaking the daily drudgeries of teaching paperwork, and what used to take me 4 or 5 hours has been compressed into 2 or 3 (they say that by month six, these activities will be able to be completed in something like 20 - 30 minutes. I can't wait!). All this being said, much has happened in these 6 weeks, and a lot of it has been boring, boring paperwork. In the future, I expect this to change & that will be nice.

On a lighter note, here are some highlights from the past two weeks:

The very first night after the very first day of classes (last week, Monday, the 15th), I was working late in the evening up in my classroom on the fourth floor of the school. Suddenly, my eardrums were barraged by what I could only describe as a rather potent roar—strikingly resemblant of a jet engine, yet a few decibels quieter. I knew that I wasn't in an airplane, and the airport was about an hour away. Just then, though, a peal of thunder broke through the encompassing white noise, and I knew that the beast roaring outside was none other than the rain.

It was an amazing thing to watch as the playground quickly transformed into a shallow pool, as the walkways flooded into rivulets and as the ground-floor hallways disappeared under a blanket of water. I laughed a bit in awe, watching what could only be described as a chunk of the Pacific being cast upon the city. The awnings over our open-air walkways between buildings wept with such ferocity that veritable walls of water materialised, veiling these corridors with a sheet of this warm, liquid film. I kid you not, nor do I even exaggerate. My laughter quickly shifted from that of awe to that of nervousness: I was on the fourth floor, having the keys to this building, and those keys needed to be returned to the central administration building, about 100 metres away. "No problem," I thought to myself, "The walkways are nice and dry underneath the awnings, and the water pouring off of them like a million fire hydrants saturating the sky all falls into the ground-level drainage troughs. It'll be nice and dry all the way to the office!"

Quickly, I gathered my things, locked my room & the school and began my trek to the office along the several interconnected strings of awnings from building to building. Everything was going well until I started to traverse the kindergarten complex. Remember those hallways that I had watched fill with water? Well, now that water was creeping dangerously towards the classroom doors (In Thailand, interior rooms tend to be about 2 or 3 inches above the floor. I didn’t really understand why for the first week, but after my first experience with rain, I soon figured it out. This example further confirmed my conclusion.), and I barely managed to skirt around the huge, huge puddle before heading to the last walkway which led to the main office. Here, though, there was no avoiding the puddle. By now, the water had been pouring so heavily that the drainage troughs couldn't choke down their air-borne beverage fast enough, leaving a nice, thick layer of water about 2 inches thick all over the ground. "No problem," I said to myself, "I have full-grain leather shoes: that means they're waterproof!" Waterproof they were, and I began to splosh through the deep puddle... Until I felt my feet get soaked. Yeah, so that 2" puddle decided to become steadily deeper the farther I travelled, reaching as high as the middle of my shins before I finally reached the office building. Suffice it to say, I was thoroughly drenched; however good my waterproof shoes were at the onset, they could no longer avail against the wading pool that was GES.

I returned to my room that night, dreading the morning and having to slip on my saturated shoes. Just thinking about it made me shudder, reminding me of many-a-morning while tree-planting back in 2002. Nothing, I don't think, is worse than having to get your feet wet even before you begin work. Thankfully though, Thailand is warm & air conditioners typically dehumidify. In the morning, when I gingerly approached my insoles to stuff them back into their cavernous abodes, I was greeted by a wonderfully dry surprise: the only things that were still damp were my shoes' "cuffs." Praise the Lord for air con.

Highlight number two fast-forwards us to Thursday or Friday night of that same week. Again, the setting and time are the same: fourth floor of GES, late late late in the evening. As I'm in the middle of making my lesson plans for the following week, my body tells me that it would be a good time to check out the WC. Flicking on the switch to the fourth-floor loo, I waltz in, and on one of the sinks' cabinet doors, I am greeted by what I could only describe at the time as a sandy-coloured land crab—but this crab didn't have any claws. This one, instead, had eight beady eyes and a couple of furry fangs. Yup, folks. That's right: a huget—aka ginormous—spider. This thing was literally the size of my outstretched hand, with a leg-span of 8". I laughed as it looked at me: it was incredible! Seriously, the thing was the size of a little crab! After doing my business, I went to grab my camera & take a photo, but as things like this generally happen, the silk-spinning land crab decided to scurry off into a drainage pipe as soon as I got my camera back to document its enormity.

Talking about crazy animal adventures, often on the walls or on awnings, you hear the scurrying of little feet. Typically, the noises you hear are geckos running about, eating random insects and keeping the environment generally bug-free, which is every nice. The one downside to living among the wall-clinging geckos is that they tend to defecate wherever they walk, and this leads to little brown pellets randomly strewn upon any surface, as if the lizards were decorating for Extreme Home Makeover: Reptile Edition.

Anyways, this past Wednesday, while I was walking back to my apartment after a long bout of marking, I heard what I thought was the common scurrying of a reptile on the roof, but something was different this time. As soon as I had finished walking out from under the roof, I heard something fall to the ground behind me with a bit of a "slap!" It was big and dark, and at night in the low light, even still I was certain that this monster was no gecko. I've been told that there are rats in Thailand, so I considered for a moment that a hapless rodent had drunkenly stumbled off the roof and plummeted to the stony pavement below, but this beast didn't look furry and I couldn't see any feet. I took a step towards it in the low light, trying to figure out what had fallen almost on top of me, and then it raised its head, began uncoiling and stuck its forked tongue out at me. A snake. A pretty decent sized, dark brown/black snake had almost fallen on top of my head thirty seconds ago. I suddenly got all jittery, imagining what would have happened if that snake did manage to land on me. Now, I know nothing about the indigenous snakes in the region, so the though of catching it quickly subsided as I considered the possibility of it being poisonous. Ha! It's only right now that the idea that the snake may have been trying to strike at me from the roof has entered my head. Who knows? At any rate, I decided to let the reptile be and continue on my way. The slithery, scaly coil of blue blood seemed a bit defensive on the ground, and I had no intentions of keeping it company, so we parted ways & I went to bed.

Well, those are my random, unrelated stories for this update. On a more serious note, I'll discuss things that actually are related to what I am doing with myself here in Thailand. Two Thursdays ago, schools all over the nation celebrate "Wai Kru," which literally means "Show respect to the teacher/master." It's a very ceremonious day, where teachers are put on display and children sing, while bringing offerings of flowers and incense to the teachers and then bowing down before their instructors, touching their foreheads to the floor, where the teachers' feet are placed. To be honest, I felt a bit awkward participating. I mean, who am I that these people should be paying me not only mere respect, but outright veneration? I recognise that this is a cultural difference, but it reminded me of a passage (Matthew 23:6-12) where Jesus once spoke to the crowd that was following Him, telling them not to ascribe the titles of "Rabbi" or "Teacher" to anyone but to Jesus. After experiencing this ceremony, I now understand why Jesus was saying that a little more now. In cultures where wisdom, knowledge and understanding are highly esteemed—valued and honoured much more so than even wealth—the teacher, the sensei, the Jedi master is the preeminent figure in society. They and they alone embody that which others aspire to have. It cannot be stolen or usurped from them; it must be given or passed along by active choice from the one who possesses such knowledge. It makes more sense, now, to me that Jesus said these things, for we all are his disciples, learning to mimic him and absorbing as much as we can from our Master. None can be called "Teacher," because we all must come to the feet of the one who teaches us, humbly being willing to accept whatever he wishes to reveal in his time, on his terms.

On a less profound note, though, I've come to the conclusion that George Lucas &/or his production team for Return of the Jedi must have used Thailand for some of their inspiration—especially as far as the Ewoks are concerned. While we were rehearsing the Wai Kru ceremonies on Wednesday last week, the school went through the full assembly and did all the speeches and whatnot. During that time, I swear that I heard the words, "Toronto gosh," and, "Oo tee nee." For all you Star Wars uber-nerds like me out there, you are probably already grinning, but for those of you who are less nerdish in the ways of the force, let me explain...

In the Return of the Jedi, when Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, R2-D2, C-3PO and other random rebel alliance members are on the forest moon of Endor, trying to disable the force-field that protects the second (almost completed, but fully-operational—sorry for spoiling the surprise for those of you who are shut-ins and have never seen the movie!) death star, they all get trapped by the moon's furry little native inhabitants: Ewoks. They break out of the trap, and the Ewoks notice that C-3PO is shiny gold, so they start worshiping him. Everybody is taken to the Ewok's village in the trees, where the captured members of the rebel alliance will be eaten in a celebratory feast to worship the Ewok's shiny new god, C-3PO. In the meantime, Princess Leia waltzes in, having befriended an Ewok on the forest floor, and she tells them to let the people go, stating that they are her friends. They don't listen, so Luke tells 3PO (who can talk any language in the galaxy) to let them free or if they don't he [3PO] would get angry. They still don't listen, so Luke levitates the android and the Ewoks get scared, shouting all different random words in their own language, one of which is "Oo tee nee!"

Immediately after 3PO floats around in his throne, the Ewoks set the prisoners free, and the protocol droid recounts their epic tale of tragedy and valour to the warrior Ewok tribe. During the story, when C-3PO is talking about Luke's encounter with Vader in the cloud city of Bespin (see The Empire Strikes Back), he uses the phrase, "Toronto gosh!" and the Ewoks all gasp.

I couldn't help but be amused when I heard these very similar syllables strung together while the ceremonies for Wai Kru were being rehearsed and performed. I literally had to bite my tongue a couple times to keep me from laughing out loud as I did my best not to think of the brown children speaking a foreign language in front of me and paying their respects to us as little Ewoks who were worshipping us as gods who came from the stars. I'm so glad that I was in the back row of teachers; because I'm sure I had a huge, stupid grin on my face for the longest time. So, whenever you're bored and you find yourself sitting through two hours of listening to uninterpreted Thai speech, just think of furry little Ewoks, and you'll be amused throughout the duration of your sit!

Wrapping Up

Okay, time to settle this update and get back to living life in Thailand. Things of note for the upcoming week include one of our volunteers, Jason, leaving on Tuesday to head back to the States. We'll miss him as he goes, as it'll be like losing one of our family members. The teacher that he was filling in for arrived this past week with his family (the Saxtons, for those who might know them) and they've settled into Thai life rather well. Aaron and Katie, I believe, will be coming back this following weekend, so I'd ask that you pray for all this travelling as the "changing of the guard" occurs at GES over the next week. In 8 days, our overnight camp programs will begin, with the lower primary (grades 1 - 5) sleeping over at the school in tents on the fields for one night, and with the upper primary (gr. 6 - 11) students being shipped off to Pak Chong for a couple days' adventure. To help with all of this, a team from Liberty University & Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg, Virginia will be flying in late this week and undertaking a lot of these programs' execution (among other things). I'd ask that you pray for their health and safety as well. Above all, I'd ask you to pray that we here don't lose sight of the eternal by focussing on the petty things. The staff here is all well united, but that—as with all social dynamicst—can change in a heartbeat, if we let it. Pray that we work for the Lord with all our hearts, all our strength and all our determination. Pray that we glorify God in all things at all tines this week, and that our students would be able to see the love of Christ in spite of our imperfect selves.

Blessings to you all.

PS. I am hoping to post some more pictures on my flickr photo feed, and some of those pics may be student photos. For privacy reasons, I'm going to make the student photos accessible only to my flickr "family and friends" contacts, so if you'd like to see what my students look like, you're going to have to get a flickr account & ask me to be your friend. Otherwise, just enjoy the random snapshots that I acquire throughout my random bits of free time!

June Aftermath, Part I

2007-07-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well, the first couple weeks of teaching here have been busy, to understate things! Let me give you a snapshot of the typical weekday for yours truly:

6am: wake up, shower, eat & prepare for the school day.
7am: sign-in to the workday, do some last minute photocopying & maybe check my e-mail
7:30am: staff meeting, prayer meeting or personal devo time, depending of the day of the week.
8am: personal devo time, except for days where I’ve had the chance to do so at 7:30. On those days, I teach ESL at this time.
8:30am: lead classroom devotions
9am: “Flag time.” Every student & teacher lines up outside of the classrooms, facing the Thai flag in the courtyard & we sing the national anthem as the flag is hoisted for the day. Announcements & birthday celebrations follow.
9:10am – noon: 90 minutes of lower-level English instruction & 90 minutes of prep time—half of the time, I get full 90-minute chunks… other days, I’m not so lucky.
Noon – 12:30pm: “Lunch,” which typically consists of a mad dash to the cafeteria for tasty, tasty Thai food, where I shovel the sustenance into my mouth as quickly as my body can handle it, so that I have some spare time (usually about 15 minutes) to run off to the staff room & get some emergency photocopying done. Often—since the school only has one photocopier—when you hope to photocopy, someone else is usually already using it. On Tuesdays, I do not have this 15-minute luxury, as I’m on lunch supervision duty.
12:30 – 3:40pm: 2.5 hours of high school math instruction, with a 30 minute break sprinkled randomly throughout.
3:40 – 4:40pm: On Wednesdays, I’m on after-school supervision. Every other day, I usually start working on teacher homework.
4:40 – 10:30pm: Teacher homework with a 30-minute supper break happening anywhere between 5:30 & 7:00pm, depending on where I’m at with my homework.
10:30 – 10:45pm: lock up the campus, head home & get as much sleep as I can (usually 6.5 hours)

Saturdays are typically filled with personal correspondence & exercise for the mornings; teacher homework throughout the afternoons; and heading at 5:30pm to “Newsong,” the ‘underground’ church in downtown Bangkok, where a bunch of us teachers attend. Afterwards, we typically hang out for a couple hours at Siam Paragon, Bangkok’s most opulent shopping-mall, which is literally across the street from where Newsong meets.

Sundays have me up again at 6am to get ready to leave at 7 for worship practise at 8 at an ex-pat church in one of the more wealthy boroughs of Bangkok—Nichida Thani. A fair chunk of the staff make the pilgrimage to this part of town because it’s one of very few churches where the service is conducted in English. There are other nice perks too, like the church having a membership to the community’s Olympic-sized swimming pool, and the nearby Mexican restaurant which is pretty much the only place you can find food that contains cheese, sour cream or tomatoes. The GES staff are heavily involved with leading worship at this ex-pat church, and as a sound guy, I was roped in to help out the very first Sunday I went (the church basically only has one guy who knows how to even run a soundboard, and he’s often at church only every other week due to his working schedule. The congregation sees it as an answer to prayer that I’ve come along, especially since this guy will be leaving Thailand to go back State-side at the end of the month).

And that’s my week in a nutshell.

I’ve quickly discovered (and if you take a peek at my schedule, you probably will too) that teaching’s a much more arduous task than I initially thought. It seems that, right now, for every hour of in-class instruction, I have 2 hours of prep-work. They tell me that this will eventually trim itself down, as I get more used to the teaching gig & what actually is involved in instruction. Certain tricks of the trade get learned along the way, apparently, and I’m looking forward to that. One of the challenges that my position does have over the other teachers here—whether they’re returning staff or rookies, like me—is that I’m pretty much breaking new ground in all the subjects that I’m instructing this year. There is no curriculum for me to follow, no pre-formed resources, no previous lesson-plans or course-schedules on which I could model my classes’ pace or content. I’ve pretty much got to build the whole thing from scratch, which definitely is a challenge.

On top of all this, I’m teaching Math: a subject that I haven’t even touched in over 5 years. Needless to say, my mad skills are more than rusty, and I find myself having to re-learn much of the material in order to be prepared sufficiently to teach my students—who themselves are learning the material in a foreign language.

Well, it looks like I’ve run out of time again. Here’s hoping that the upcoming weekend will allow some time for me to continue painting the picture of teaching in Thailand. If you’re the praying type, I’d ask you to pray for staff health—there seems to be a bout of sickness roaming around the staff, and that mostly in the females as well. Pray for continued unity & for a deepening and strengthening of what currently exists. Pray that we would have energy and wisdom in conducting our classes and doing all the work that we have. If I could ask you to pray for one student in particular, I would ask that you pray for this guy in my grade 10 math class, Benz. He seems to be really hurting; he actively tends to remove or distance himself from everyone else in school. Pray that the words & love of Christ might become sustenance and life to him in spite of his current situation.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end. Here’s a gold star, just for you. *

An Open Letter

2007-06-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

June 10, 2007

To the Readers of This Blog,

Greetings from Thailand! I am writing this letter to inform you all of a rather intense month that I have just had, which ended up with God placing me here over in Nonthaburi Thailand for the next year.

Five weeks ago, I received an e-mail from an associate of mine here in Thailand, Aaron Wong, who is administrating at Global English School, an English immersion academy with a primary focus on reaching the Thai children and their families for Christ. He had written me, asking if I would consider a teaching position with the school for the upcoming academic year, which would start on June 5. At the time, I was three months into a new management position with Staples, and the thought of dropping everything that I had been working at for the past year suddenly to fly to the other side of the world and work as a teacher/missionary seemed a bit fanciful, if not a touch ludicrous. Nonetheless, I've known God to do crazier things, and with that in mind, I wrote Aaron back, letting him know that I would pray about the opportunity and get back to him before the week's end.

After some discussion with God and with a handful of people at the Mount Carmel graduation ceremony at the beginning of May, it seemed very clear that God wanted me to take the steps towards going to Thailand, whether or not I would eventually end up there. Many obstacles stood in the way of my departure: I needed to maintain a certain level of income with which to make my monthly student loan & bill payments; I needed to get a work visa from the Thai government; I needed to ensure that my vaccinations were all in order; and I needed a place to store any belongings that wouldn't fit into two duffle bags for my flight across the Pacific all within four weeks. It would take a miracle, I thought, so originally, I had figured that God was testing me to see if I was really willing to commit to this radically sudden call to service—I never thought that it actually would work out.

Within those four weeks, my application for employment was approved by the school, my work visa came through (with 24 hours to spare), I found a place to store my car & furniture at a reasonable price, my vaccination rounds were completed (they all took one day instead of the projected three weeks with an earliest appointment time 10 days before my flight to Bangkok), funding for paying my bills was provided, my open-ended, round trip ticket went from costing almost $6,000 to just over $1,700 and the completely-booked flights to Bangkok managed to open up one seat for little ol' me to park my rear and ride the airways. Four weeks, and this all came together. There is no greater confirmation for me that God wants me to serve over here at GES than the fact that He literally orchestrated everything together perfectly, leaving not so much as a few hours' space between making this trip a viable possibility and having this whole exercise in faith nothing more than just an exercise. And here I am, finding myself in Thailand, thirteen degrees above the equator and thirteen time zones ahead of all you folks in Edmonton.

So what am I doing here, exactly, you might ask? Well, I've come to GES to teach and develop the curriculum for grade 10 & 11 math and chemistry subjects. Aside from a few weeks of rock-climbing instruction and another few weeks of random substitute teaching, I have never taught a class in my life. The school body here consists of 300+ local Thai children whose parents desire that their offspring gain a mastery of (or at least an exposure to) the English language. Pretty much every class will be taught in English, with instructional materials & textbooks imported from the United States. Such a method of instruction is rather common in Thailand, but what distinguishes GES from the other schools is that it is an institution with a Christian focus.

Thailand is a country where 95% of the population follows some form of Buddhism, and another 3 or 4% adhere to Muslim practices. Less than 1% of the Thai population has been exposed to Christianity, I'm told. The mission field is huge here, and the goal of GES as an organisation is to reach these people fro Christ—not through cultural imperialism or through random detached proselytising, but through intimate contact with the people, showing the love of Christ and the impact of His presence on our lives as opposed to life without Him. In Thailand, teaching is perhaps the most venerated profession, revered more so than lawyers, pharmacists or doctors. As Christian teachers here in Thailand, we have an opportunity to use this cultural respect for education in order to advance the Kingdom, and that is precisely our goal.

Through the upcoming year, GES will have an English-speaking staff of 25 teachers, each of whom will be working to show the love of Christ and to present the message of the gospel to the students and their families. I ask that you all would consider joining together with us in this mission field through active, directed prayer. Pray that the students, their parents and extended family members would be receptive to the message of Christ. There is a large cultural cost to become a Christian here, as many families will disown those members who forsake the household religion—whether it be Buddhism, Islam or the Thai indigenous animism. Pray that the staff would be a united body and a consistent, cohesive front as we display the characteristics of Christ to everybody around us. So far, everybody is getting along great and the staff is acting like a large, healthy and supportive family group, yet it is early in the year—things often change when the novelty of freshness wears thin. Pray also for the school's administration, that they would have the wisdom and the humility to follow wherever the Lord would have the school go. And most of all, pray for the local Thai Christians as they adhere to their faith in spite of the cultural adversity. There seem to be several "underground" churches here in the Bangkok region, operating underground not because of official persecution (at least, not that I'm aware of), but because of the cultural pressure against Christianity.

So here I am, in the middle of Thailand, five weeks after being asked to come. It is my desire to serve Christ as much as I possibly can while I am here, in whatever faculty He would have me. English classes begin for us on the 18th, with the first two weeks of June filled by staff orientation / development. Thanks for your interest & your prayer support. If I had more time before coming here, I probably would have said something in person. Sometimes, however, God is spontaneous like this, and it is up to us to follow wherever He takes us, regardless of how much warning is given.

The Lord's peace and grace be upon all of you.

PS.
We were just informed yesterday of some exciting things happening in the Jakarta churches. A report came to us that ten people were raised from the dead, and that a girl who was born without fingers grew them immediately after the people of the church prayed and laid hands upon her. God remains the same; it's our willingness to believe that is inconstant! How great is God!