Necessity.

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

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

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.