Record Lows; Missing Millionaires…

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

 

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

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

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

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

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(?)

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

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

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

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


Work

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


Play

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

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

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

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


Church, the Future & Stuff

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

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

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

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


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

Fast Forward / Rewind

Sunday, March 1, 2009

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


Let’s rewind… … …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


The Fallout

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

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


Conclusions

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

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

I can’t yet say.

Love's Labours Lost?

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

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!