Riding a Motor Scooter

by Jean

Riding can be fun if you forget about the possibility of serious injury or death while you are out on it.  Actually, it isn’t that I’m brave, it’s more that my emotions seem to be fear resistant, so that I will do things that (at least according to my husband) are more dangerous than I realize at the time.  Hey, those people that go sky diving must be more fear resistant than me.  But, then it’s my reasonable self that puts the nix on that activity, so my emotional fear level hasn’t been tested there.

One fun part about scooter riding is the time warp factor.  I can ride somewhere on my scooter for what seems like half an hour.  Then, I look at my watch and see it’s only been 10 minutes.  I end up getting lots of places really early.  I hope that part of the experience doesn’t wear off very soon.

Of course there is the sense of being a part of all of nature when you’re riding.  There aren’t any walls to separate you from the Outside.  You can see all the sky overhead, feel the wind in your hair, the coolness and wetness of the rain, the heat of the sun, and the bugs hit your face.  All that exposure makes me feel small too.  I never felt that same smallness on a bicycle, but then I never rode a bike at 50 K per hour on a super highway either.  When I drive our Lincoln back in the States now, I feel like I am driving a tank. 

Traffic jams become a source of entertainment and sense of overcoming.  The cars are stuck behind each other, but the motor scooter drivers get to move on past them in the motor scooter lane, or sometimes weaving in and around them.  It works great until some car moves over or turns in front of you, or someone opens a door.  So far I’ve stopped in time for the moving cars and been able to get around the doors.  I think the Lord has saved me from being hit by other motor scooters when I suddenly cross their lane after getting between cars.  Most of the scooter riders here can avoid me like the fish do when you’re swimming underwater.  They have been riding on motor scooters since they were born, so they get around quite well.  The car drivers do pretty well at looking out for the scooters too, as long as they are following the unwritten rules of the road here.  They have nice little “beep beep” horns to help you learn what those unwritten rules are, too.

Even though I don’t feel fearful most of my riding time, I still prefer not to drive through rush hour traffic or to drive through down town, especially at night.  I am anticipating Gary to get back soon so I can ride on the back of his scooter while he faces those things.

:J

Do you like it?

by Jean

A few people have asked me this question and I’ve been slow to answer it. The best I could come up with has been “sometimes”.  Seeking something I like hasn’t been my frame of reference or purpose in going to teach in Thailand. What I do want to do is please God, to glorify Him, and accomplish His purpose in the world.  My role in this, at the school, is to educate my students in English, and support their Christian growth, so that they might become influential Christians in Thai society.

Doing this involves a certain amount of struggle, and I do think about whether the struggle will wear me out. I get tired of struggling with the students to keep on learning and not goof off. Sometimes they get excited about learning, but it is very hard to keep them there all the time. Also, there are the many requests from Thai people to teach them English and requests from the school staff to undertake more than we can get done.  Those are things I have to choose among wisely and politely resist when I need to.  The language barrier and that the English staff is all volunteer sometimes results in surprise changes to my schedule that raise additional difficulties.  There is also the sadness of being far from my family in the US and having fewer chances to see my children and grandchildren.

Does that mean I should go do something else? Where would we be if Paul had done that? He said, near the end of his life, that he had fought the good fight (I Timothy 4:7). He had finished the race. That doesn’t sound like he turned around when the going got tough.  When I run a hard race, maybe I will walk a little if I have to, but I keep going in the same direction.  In 2 Corinthians 11:25 he said he was beaten with rods three times and stoned (and that’s not stoned to take the edge off the beating).  I’m pretty sure he didn’t like those things, yet he kept at what the Lord had told him to do. This reminds me of 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (NIV)

When I think about some of our friends who have health issues that are debilitating them or the 20 year old who has cancer, I can only consider the difficulties here as momentary and light. The Lord has blessed us with health enough to handle the heat and ride around on a motor scooter.  Even the giant cockroach appearing on the wall in the middle of my shower is small by comparison.  God has given us a good Thai friend in a housekeeper that watches out for us out greatly. We have found food that is good to eat and good for us. We’ve been able to live in a nice, airy house. He has provided good tools for teaching, especially with the document camera and the projector.

He provides blessings along the way to keep the struggle from being overwhelming.  I was very encouraged to see the improved scores of the 6^th graders on the national test from this past year.  I rejoiced to hear that all three 6th grade graduates from BSF passed the test to get into the college preparatory school for 7th and up.  I am thankful that the Lord is using what I am doing and had given me the opportunity to use my life in this way.  “My life poured out” was a motto of some missionaries I knew.  I am making it mine too.  My goal is as Erma Bombeck said,  “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”

:J

The Hidden Purpose

by Jean

It was a writing assignment, an autobiography, for the 5th grade English students.  It was to be about three paragraphs when it was done.  Writing this much is always a difficult chore for these students, and this one was no exception.  The only reason they made it through the first draft was because the topic (themselves) held some interest for them.  I kept them at it, hoping they would learn something about English grammar, punctuation, or even how to use the English typing keyboard through it all.  Maybe they did, but the real purpose for the exercise came out about the time I abandoned trying to get them all to a final, corrected finished copy.

One of the questions they had to answer was, “Who is your best friend?”  A few of the lower students had trouble coming up with an answer for that.  Rungrit even wrote that he had no friends.  That surprised me.  Rungrit is kind and friendly with everyone.  I wondered if he might not quite understand and suggested that maybe he was friends with everyone.  No, he insisted, and crossed that out.  Again he wrote, “I have no friends.”             

This concerned me and it tied in with his recent negative attitude towards his efforts in English.  Over the next couple of weeks, I saw that he was often by himself during free times.  Then I noticed that he didn’t eat lunch one day.  He admitted that he hadn’t and that he hadn’t eaten breakfast either.  I wondered if he was discouraged not only at his inability to keep up in English, but in other areas as well.

Sandy had worked with the higher level 5th grade group when they wrote their first drafts so I didn’t know what they had written at first.  When I was correcting them, I noticed that Mark had named Rungrit as his best friend.  I checked with Mark to be sure he hadn’t just randomly written down a name to get the work over with.  He assured me that he did mean it, that Rungrit was his best friend.

At the school’s Christmas Program, I expressed my observations and concerns to the “Mother in Charge” at Rungrit’s home.  She assured me that English was his favorite subject.  I also caught up to Rungrit in an isolated moment in the hallway.  I asked him to join the group of students I give extra help to on Mondays.  He was happy to do that.  I also told him that Mark had named him as his best friend in his autobiography.

After the break for Christmas and New Years, I noticed a positive change in Rungrit’s attitude.  He showed up right away for the Monday group and his participation in class activities was better.  Then, when I had the 5th grade get into groups one day, I saw Rungrit go right over and join Mark.  They worked together well.

The timing and classes never came together for me to get the class to finish their second and final drafts of those autobiographies.  As I put them away for the last time, though, I decided that the activity had served a greater purpose than the one I had intended when we started it.

:J