Answer? to prayer

I sent this email to some of our prayer supporters Tuesday morning, 

“A city official has written a report requiring us to put sprinklers in our building before we can

open the wall and let the restaurant use our former office space.  Gary says that would cost about $10 thousand and take quite awhile to get done.  That would be a prohibitive expense and time frame.  The city official is going to meet with Gary tomorrow at 11 am to discuss this.  Gary asked for prayer about this meeting.”

(Gary reminded me later that he said “$100 thousand”.  That’s my lack of number retention for you!)

Gary met with the official, and he did not change his mind.  God answered our prayer with, “No.”  At our church’s day of prayer and fasting last week, Dave Ness said to pray specifically in order to energize your prayer life and see God working.  Another side to specific prayer is that you get clear “no”s sometimes.  I have had several of those lately.

That afternoon, after I laid out the “Sacrifice of Praise” chorus for the worship team folders, it began repeating in my head.  I decided God was telling me to praise Him for these “no” answers as much as the “yes” answers, so I began to do that.

Another speaker I heard recently said we pray not to change God’s mind, but to change ours. When we see clear responses to our prayers, we gain a deeper understanding of who He is. If He gave us all we ask for, we would never be better.  We would make our faulty plans with our puny brains, without His help, and then keep asking Him to fix things when the plans fall apart.  We need His “no”s to begin searching out what He wants of us and to rely on Him as we try to obey the direction we understand from Him.  Also, as one of our prayer supporters reminded me, there may be a bigger issue God is working on and a “yes” answer might not fit in with that plan.

Certainly a “no” answer should drive us to more prayer rather than to less.  God commanded many times in His Word for us to pray and, as said by John Piper this week,  “If prayer did not work such wonders in heaven, ‘Satan would never have such an aching tooth against it as he has.’ Th. Brooks.”  That opposition by Satan is a good indicator that God’s will is accomplished when we pray.  

As to the building situation, if we don’t rent to the restaurant then we will need to rent it to someone else or leave it empty.  Without a renter for that space we won’t recoup the expenses we put out to fix it up.  Gary hasn’t told the restaurant owner yet.  He also plans to get some bids on sprinkler installations next week.  Keep praying with us for God to show His glory in what happens in this situation.

:J

Gary started his investigations into Thai language schools after we returned from Chaingmai, Thailand last June. The OMF missionaries there told him about their language training facility in Lopburi. He applied there, but we ended up second on a waiting list. There is still the possibility that some of those who have signed up for the school won't be able to raise their support in time, so they won't go then. The school starts in early December, so we should know if it is actually full by the time we leave. We won't give up going there until we are in the airport in Bangkok on December 30th. Gary plans on calling them from the airport and if they don't have a space then we would catch a flight up to Chaingmai and start looking for a place to live. (This picture is from www.backpackers-around.com/foto-thailandia-lopburi.php)

The Lopburi school sounds good to us because it is in a small town where little English is around. This is a picture of one of their back streets in a "middle class" neighborhood. This is from a web site called unglamorouslove.com written by someone who is learning Thai there as a part of their preparation for mission work there.

Also, the room and board are part of the price, so we wouldn't have to find our own. We could concentrate on learning Thai with few distractions, except maybe monkeys.

Gary looked at many schools in Bangkok which teach with many different methods, but they are all more costly and living in Bangkok is expensive (and polluted). A couple of schools are also available in Chiangmai and the living expenses are less there than in Bangkok. Gary is concerned we might be too distracted to study well if we were in Chiangmai, though.

These different schools each say they approach the learning of Thai by focusing on a different learning style. Gary hoped he might figure out which school would be best for him if he figured out his learning style. I found a test to determine learning styles in my papers, so Gary took it. He found out all the styles are nearly the same for him, so the approach of whatever school we go to wouldn't matter too much.

House sitters

A family we know well has told us that they have decided to be our house sitters. We met Ken when he moved into the house across the street with some other guys. Then, later, he introduced us to Karen and we went to their wedding. The other guys moved out and Karen moved in. As a young couple, they helped me out by teaching some Sunday school sessions to the youth at our

church on good male – female relationships, even though they were members of a different church.

Our friendship continued as they had their three children. Their two older children sent some presents with us to share with children on our mission trip to Chile. Now, Ken has said he would like to help us set up a website. Overall we have been impressed with their faith and determination to follow God in their lives. We are glad to help support their decision for Karen to remain a stay at home mom and to continue home schooling their children. Living in our house would likely ease their cost of housing.

Also, Ken has worked on fixing up two houses, so he has some expertise in maintenance. They have all had experience raking leaves, although not in a yard quite as big as ours.

When they read our email newsletter about our need for a house sitter, they independently thought of the possibility of their doing it. They were a little surprised when they mentioned it to each other.

Ken then came to speak to Gary and the first of our three dinners together came soon after. We have all been praying about it. Last Friday they brought dinner to our house to tell us they had decided to go ahead with this.

Now I need to write up something for us to work through so we will be clear about what we all have agreed to.

Thank you for your prayers about this already. Please pray now for wisdom for us as we go through this process. Please pray that we would know what we need to write down and that He would protect and increase our friendship as we enter this relationship concerning the house.

Miracles

How often do you go to Board meetings to hear miracles? That’s what we heard at the meeting of This Gracious Work foundation last Thursday. Janis came excited to tell about hers.

“The doctor said the radiation would only stop the growth of my spleen, but now it is only 11 cm, when before it was 18 cm.”

“Wow, about half!” members responded.

“Here is the school license,” stated Bill as he pulled out an official looking document.

The board was praying to get that license after the last meeting. They also set $70 thousand as the amount Bill would need to raise before breaking ground on the new school. He hoped to have that amount within a month so he could take it on his next trip to Thailand. He reported that he had $90 thousand before he left and the school project was started.

He also had a need of a few thousand to pay tuition for the last semester of some of the students they support. The members offered different amounts they had available, and in 5 minutes the need was met.

All this came on the heels of our own meeting with our tenant. The day before we had realized that if the tenant took over all our building space as planned, it’s increase in utility payments would be more than what it’s President told us she could afford. I asked for prayer for guidance in writing a statement to explain that to her and also for preparation for a meeting with her. Our meeting went amazingly well. It was as if we had reached agreement on the problem areas before the meeting started.

The week started with our Pastor’s wife announcing they had bought a house. That was an answer to the prayers of several of us for about 4 years. Sometimes I wondered why they still had to live in the little rental. Now that it has happened, the timing and location make sense.

All this gives me hope that some of the other situations I am praying for will work out as well. Once again it is a matter of remembering the goodness of God and His promise to work out everything for my good as I obey Him. It’s much harder to see a miracle when you are in the middle of it than when it is finished.

“Do they wear uniforms at the school?” asked Jane.

“Do they have pandas there? I like pandas,” said Emily.

The third graders were answering my request for questions for us to answer in our presentation to their school about our going to Thailand. Earlier that week, I was struggling with getting it written.

“What do I put in this that will interest them as well as inform them of how we believe God is leading us, “ I wondered. “And what pictures do I have to go along with it?”

Then the principal called to ask me to substitute in that class on Friday. I gladly took the opportunity and decided to ask those students for questions they might have. Helen and Chloe continued the theme of comparing the Thai school to theirs.

“Do they use slates with slate pencils? Do they have desks like ours?” they asked.

Their questions showed me they are interested in information that relates to their school experience. The pictures I have of the Ban San Faan classrooms should be good for that.

Then I remembered taking pictures of the Ban San Faan children playing a couple of games familiar to students here. Those also might spark interest.

(Here they are playing 4 posts the way children here play 4 corners. Sarah will choose a post number, without looking, and the children at that post will be "out")

The class showed interest in my comments about the Thai language, too. We were correcting run on sentences that day.

“A sentence is even more important in Thai because they don’t put spaces between their words, only between their sentences,” I told them. Then they wanted a demonstration. Later, they paid close attention when I taught them how to count in Thai with Thai numbers. Amy’s request to see some Thai writing related to this interest. Roman tied his language curiosity with his courtesy when he asked for the Thai words for “Thank you”.

Thomas didn’t make a request, but he showed his interest by drawing my head on a dollar bill. It’s an amazing likeness, don’t you think? (I did have my hair up that day and my nose is almost non existent, isn't it?) I will include a little information about the Thai Baht for him. I’m sure he doesn’t know that they only put royalty on Thai money and high government officials on dollars. Then, again, I am a child of the King.

:J

I've come to another kind of packing away this week; this time upon conviction from a passage by C. S. Lewis. It came up in the daily reading for August 31 and it took about a week to strike home. He talks about forgiving others, not just excusing them, which sometimes we take for forgiving. He is discussing people trying to forgive by thinking out a way the person really didn't do the bad thing they want to forgive them for. When they can't quite make those excuses, "They keep on replying, 'But I tell you the man broke a most solemn promise.' Exactly: that is precisely what you have to forgive. (This doesn't mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart--every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.)"

As C. S. Lewis has done before, he has gotten to the heart of my behavior. Most of the time I have tried to forgive by finding excuses for what someone has done to me rather than forgive the central hurtful action. Also I have found myself wanting to "get back" at people and waiting to have revenge when something doesn't work out right for someone else's plan. I've been hoping that they will see that they shouldn't have pushed my ideas out of the way to start with.

So, this week I realized I have packed away some resentment. I have had to let go of those desires to be proved right and my efforts to do so. I also have become aware of my need to forgive right away after an event rather than dwelling on it for awhile. The only dwelling I should do is on figuring out a boundary to keep me from letting the same person do the same thing to me again. Realizing this is easier than accomplishing it. At least God can help me move in the right direction from here as I pray and you pray for God to do so.

( The C. S. Lewis passage quoted in my devotional is "On Forgiveness" from The Weight of Glory)

Packing

Will I want my jingle bells in Thailand?

I started packing up my sewing things today, putting my fabric, craft tools, and sewing accessories away for perhaps years. Will I ever sew again? I haven’t for a few years, but somehow it seemed like I might when the things were out and ready for use.

Other things have to be packed too. What do we really need for the next couple of months? It seems so final to be putting things away. The house looks empty with bare cupboards and walls.

Gary keeps saying, “Well, I guess that’s the last time we’ll be doing that!” as we participate in some of our regular activities here.

In this process I also found a little book my daughter, Amanda, gave me a few years ago called The Dangerous Duty of Delight by John Piper. (Finding missing things is one positive to packing up) Rereading it, I am challenged to find delight in the Lord and what He asks me to do. He is telling me to look ahead to what good He is doing in my life, to the adventure He is calling me to. This packing is for the purpose of going somewhere else. I know that staying here, out of His will, would be worse than this packing and leaving my ties here. I need to focus on the opportunities He’s giving us in Thailand. He is also showing His goodness to me through the packing process. We ran out of tubs Tuesday, then Wednesday a friend brought over nine more that she said they were done with. PTL! (and thank you, Pam)

Then, also, it really isn’t as final as it all seems.

I decided to pack away my jingle bells, but I marked the tubs and put them on the storage list. If I realize I could use them after teaching for a year, I can come get them on our home visit.