The Way Through

When my classroom printer stopped communicating with my classroom computer on Saturday afternoon, I knew it was God's message to me to go home. I had finished making all the copies I needed for class the first couple of days of next week and was starting on some picture cards for the next days.

I was able to make it through all the copies I needed even though it ran out of ink part way through. However, I still had a spare cartridge from last year that I could put in. The school had bought two cartridges last year when I ran out of ink.

I was using the printer because the desktop Canon copier in the office had finally run out of black ink. It had said it was low when I started using it, but it made about 50 good copies before it ran out. It lasted long enough to get through all the pages that needed to be copied because they weren't on my computer for printing.

I was using the Canon copier because the big, main copier was out of ink. It had limped through making copies on Friday, barely making the last one I asked for. It did ok on Thursday, when I needed to make copies of worksheets for the 4 classes I learned I had when I arrived that morning. It was my first day back at the school after being gone for the 2-month break.

When I left Friday evening, I wasn't sure how any of those copies were going to be made. My computer was refusing to connect to the Internet, and that's what it seems to need in order to communicate with my printer. I also knew the main copier was out of ink.

God made the way through for me, in answer to my prayers and some others'. When I turned on my computer, it connected to the Internet right away. The main copier still didn't work, but God reminded me of the Canon.

It's another time that He has shown me that He is in control even in the midst of circumstances that seem to be getting out of control.

 

By Jean

Failure Possibilities?

by Jean

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" was a question posed by Robert Schuller and similar questions have shown up on little posters around the Internet. Recently I've been having some second thoughts about applying that question to my life. The question ties into Philippians 4:13 that says ,"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (NKJ) and Proverbs 16:3, "Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. "(Amplified Bible) If Christ is going to give us the strength and wisdom to do all things, then should we know we won't fail if we are following his direction?

Generally, I tend to head into whatever tasks I believe God is directing me to with maybe too much of a "can not fail" attitude - sort of like Peter when he stepped out of the boat to walk to Jesus on the water. (Matthew 14:25-29)

I will see something that I think will be good for someone, or a group of people, and I can take some steps to make it happen. There are usually some nagging doubts about parts of what will happen if I start the ball rolling, but I pray and go ahead anyway. The vast majority of the time everything works out well in the end, especially when the goal I envisioned to start with did not involve my glorification. Most of the anxiousness comes up once I am in the middle of the project. That's when all my inabilities become clear and the possibility of failure looms large - as when Peter suddenly noticed the storm around him once he was standing on the water. (Matthew 14:30)

For instance, for the school Christmas program for this year, I really wanted to give

Caleb the chance to be the main angel that appeared to the shepherds and to choreograph a dance for himself, and then for the rest of the angels coming on to join him. Caleb enjoys expressive dancing ,is good at it, and remembers dance moves well. Also, Piewon has been an enthusiastic break-dancer in past school shows. I thought he could lead some kind of breakdance with the shepherds. I am not any kind of dancer, though, so I knew I would have to have help to have this idea work.

School this year has been more work than ever, so I had no time to work on any Christmas program. Two and a half weeks before the show was to happen our office manager wanted to know if I had any Christmas program ideas. I told the Thai teachers that I had a little bit of an idea, but I would need some help. Their help was to do something with the 1st -4th graders and let me work out something with the 5th and 6th graders. Caleb was willing to lead the angel part and Piewon was sort of willing to lead the breakdancing part. That left me to work with a third group to tie up the little story about what the shepherds did. The first couple of days the third group and the shepherds' parts weren't going well. I found out they need words in their songs in order to make up dances to them. They don't count beats, so they need the words to know when to do what.

Caleb's group was going great! Then they said they wanted to dance to another song besides the ones I gave them. That turned out to be the key. That song was a good song to finish with instead of the one I was trying to use. We reformed our groups a little, and Caleb and his group worked out that other song too, while I went to help the shepherds. Piewon and I found a better song to use for them and then the rest came together. The only hang up was when a shoe of one of the shepherds flew up when he did some sort of flip and stayed in the green cloth hanging over the stage for decoration.

There are still other things I am in the middle of that feel like they are one step or a few weeks away from disaster: finding new English curriculum for next year and preparing it for all the grades, getting the 1st -3rd grade students to finish their pen pal letters and Christmas cards, making quizzes and worksheets for the areas the students need work on. It seems like I am doing the things I would do if I knew I could not fail. The thing is, I could fail, and sometimes I do. Someone told me getting into things like this is a matter of judgment (or misjudgment?). Still I don't think I should sit down and do something like count all the hours it could take to do what I am thinking of and how many hours I have available. That would stop me from doing just about everything I am doing. Instead, I think the judgment should come from time spent in prayer asking for wisdom and meditating on the Scriptures to consider how the hoped for result would conform to them. After all, Jesus criticized Peter not for getting out of the boat (he wouldn't if he had calculated his ability to walk on water in a storm first), but for becoming frightened and doubting after he was out doing it. (Matthew 14:31)

The challenge for me then is to keep going without becoming anxious. There is plenty of scripture about that! One reference is Philippians 4:6,7 "Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.

7 And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace], which transcends all understanding, shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." (Amplified Bible)

Furniture Adventures 1

by Jean

We had been looking for chairs for two days to go with the used computer desk we just bought. Sharing the ladder wasn’t working out too well. Then we saw a great price on office chairs at the Big C department store. They only had 2 left, the one on display and one in a box. Gary decided to get them, with just a germ of an idea on how to get them home on our motor scooter. I did not want to sit on the box!

We crammed my back pack, the yogurt, 2 short loaves of bread, and 6 apples in the back carrier. Then we bungee corded and string tied the put-together chair upside down on top of the carrier. I got behind Gary and put the box on my lap between us. The bungee cord was down to 3-4 strands of rubber at the stress point, so I reached my left arm back to help hold the chair on. I felt like I was going to tip over to the right most of the trip home.

We had to go about 5 km over speed bumps and then fast moving roads. Finally, we were off the main street for the last 4 blocks. Gary said if the chair fell off then we could come back and get it, so I let go. The bungee cord snapped in 1.5 blocks. The chair hung way down, but didn't hit the ground. We untied it and I started walking toward home with the box. Gary was going to try to tie the chair on the seat when Piak, a young man that’s been helping Gary at our house, came up and offered to carry the chair. He must have seen the chair slide down as we went by his house. So we paraded home, the box, the motor scooter, and the chair.

Our friend Hok and her niece greeted us at our house. I got home just in time to give the niece the English lesson I had promised to give her at 6:30 pm.

And the bread was hardly smashed.

:J

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

If I get to sleep in a wat again…

by Jean

The next time (if any) that I am told I will be sleeping in a wat, I will have some idea of what to bring with me.  Experiences are great things to learn from. Sometimes it takes more than one of the same kind to really figure things out, though.

First, I would try to bring something with more of a cushion to it than a regular blanket.  Even a fluffier one would be better.  I really need something with some foamy stuff in it.  If I can’t bring a full length one, maybe I could just take some to wrap around my hips, where the sore points happen.  Then I could use the blanket I took as a blanket.  The sheet I had wasn’t warm enough, even at 60+ degrees.

Our mosquito net would be good too.  The girls were smart enough to bring theirs.  The insect repellant I brought worked pretty well where I remembered to put it.  Thankfully the bite on my chin faded before morning.  Kru Muey was good to let me share her net with her, but if I had ours it might not come down part way and tangle me in its edges during the night.

I would bring a better pillow too.  Everyone else had one.  The clothes and jacket I have here aren’t fluffy like the ones I’ve used in the States as pillows.  These clothes made a rather hard pillow, about like the ones the others were sleeping on.   

Another thing would be my bathroom sandals.  The other teachers were kind enough to let me use theirs to walk over the rickety boardwalk out the back to the bathrooms.  A personal water heater would be next on the list.  What? There isn’t such a thing?  Well I guess not, at least not for bathrooms with no electric outlets and not to make enough warm water for a shower.  The showers there consisted of scooping water out of a barrel and throwing it over yourself.  The Thai girls insisted that the water wasn’t cold though, so I guess that is one more thing I have to get used to. 

Now I don’t know whether earplugs should be on my list or not.  Usually, once I’ve heard a certain noise, it doesn’t wake me up anymore.  The sounds of the roosters and the fighting cats outside weren’t much of a problem.  The bell jingling was different.  It came along with the door gate rattling at one o’clock in the morning.  I thought maybe a priest had come in to do some praying to the Buddha that was stored at the other end of the building, and the bell ringing was part of it.  I didn’t want to open my eyes and find out.  The bell rang for awhile the first time and then in short bursts occasionally after that.  The next morning, when I met a dog on my way to the bathroom, I realized I was wrong.  The dog had a bell tied around its neck.  It had rattled the gate trying to get inside the door.  Maybe it was chasing one of the cats that kept sneaking in.  Then it must have had a major itch to scratch which got its bell ringing so much.  If I get this opportunity again, I will keep my eyes open for dogs with bells on so the sound won’t wake me up so easily.

The tent that Pong and Daniel brought to sleep in looked like a great idea.  They had plenty of room to set it up in the places we slept in.  It also kept out light, mosquitos, cats, bird droppings, and some noise.  Daniel said he didn’t even hear the bell ringing.  That could also have been because he couldn’t hear it over Pong’s snoring.  I’m not sure the possibility of sleeping in a wat again is worth the investment in a tent.  Besides, the swallow type birds that were roosting in the ceiling over our sleeping area began clearing out when we got there.  They didn’t come around again while we were there, so a tent for protection from their mess wouldn’t be worth it.

The Thai people with me seemed well prepared and not surprised at the accommodations, except maybe for the bell ringing.  This tells me that it could likely happen again, especially if I want to go to another one of these contests.  The displays I saw the next day were amazing and it was great to be a part of the accomplishments of the students.  So, we’ll see what happens next year.

:J