readers?

Hello all!
So, after months of neglect, I've wondered (to myself) if anyone reads this anymore.

If you do, then email me and tell me, because otherwise.....

September Musings

Hey everybody!
I hope your summer has gone wonderfully -- I've thouroughly enjoyed my time at home and on holidays during the last couple of months. It took a bit, but I'm glad that I'm home. I'll give you the quick rundown -- we camped a lot, I re-met my family, I spent lots of time being cold and roasting marshmallow, we laughed a lot, my heart caught up with the rest of my body. (i think.)

So, September promises new adventures and crazy happenings for me -- I'll be attending university and moving in with my brother, which might be an adventure all to itself. I think it will be a good one. I still can't believe that I'll be stuck at school for 4 full years to get my teaching degree, but I'm trusting that God wants me here.
I've also started to help out on the worship bands at my church, which has been wonderful! It's neat to see how God is the same around the world.

It's been amazing to see how God continues to remain the same, even though I am always changing. It's amazing to see that he still works without me -- I love hearing how he's still changing lives at school in Thailand, and it's neat to see how he's worked in the lives of my family and in the lives of my friends.

I hope your summer has been equally as good. Email me sometime and tell me some of your stories. :)

a lapse

I am almost shuddering at the amount of time that has passed since I was last on here updating this. I could list off a plethera of reasons, but I won't bore you.
That said, I still don't have anything remarkable to share. (maybe the reason that I haven't typed anything of significance in 3 weeks...)

Life goes on here -- it's very strange to have things continue on as they were before. It's very strange to realize that things continue on in Thailand without me. I guess that's inevitable.

well...

travel speed experiments

Alright - again, I have nothing specatular or amazingly wonderful to say except that I'm getting married.
OK. that's a lie.
It's not even close. Just thought I should throw in a shock statement for kicks and giggles.
I WENT to a wedding last weekend though. A big huge congratulations, a big round of applause and one more toonie to Kenn and Cora.

Since coming home, I've discovered a profound truth of life and travel. YOUR HEART DOES NOT MOVE AT THE SAME SPEED AS THE REST OF YOUR BODY. You may think that you are prepared to move back home, and you may even be excited about it. No matter how much you tell yourself this, it sometimes is not the case. I think that when you travel, your heart takes a few months to catch up with the rest of your body. You may be physically in Canada, but your heart is somewhere over the ocean. You're pretty sure that it departed Thailand, but apparently it forgot to arrive with your luggage on the other side. Right now, you're pretty sure that your heart's in a paddle boat, slowly making its way across the ocean, and it may take a while to catch up with you. Until then, you're closer to the Thai side of the ocean, and that's where all your thoughts are....
oh well.

Anyway, even though that may be true, I'm doing well. I've been working as a babysitter for my cousins for the past two weeks, and it's a good way to ease into society. (except for the potty training part, and the tantrum part...) It's been good to get to know my family again, and learn what everyone has changed to be like now. I've semi-moved out of home; I'm home on the weekends and occasionally during the week, driving my brother's old truck. Strange to get into a groove again.

Anyway, nothing earth shattering has happened here.
I should carry on. Have a marvellous week. Hope to hear from you soon!
r

for the lack of anything better...

As many of you have figured out, I'm not in Thailand anymore!! Wow. How strange is that? The strange part is not that I'm home, but more that I'm not going back. I've been sitting in front of my computer/university calendar trying to figure out courses and pre-req's, and all of the ins and outs of applying to university. I'm mostly just bored and decided to update this blog for lack of anything better to do....

The last 2 weeks have been really good (wow - 2 weeks already!!). I arrived here last Monday, and on Wednesday, the older brother of one of my students came to vist. Rit, who is 9, came to visit for a little over a week. It was really neat to show him things he doesn't usually see. We shot a .22, and a bow, visited my uncle & aunt's sheep (thx uncle sam!!), played on the playground, watched Steven's baseball game, visted the library, learned how to ride a bike, and did a whole shwack of other things. It was good! He left on Thursday night, and now I feel like I have nothing to do. Good, and yet, strange! (I guess it's a small pre-taste of parenting.)

It's curious - how I feel about being home right now. Everyone expects you to be jubilant that you're home, but really, I don't feel that. It's a strange mix - I'm happy to be home, yet it's frustrating to be home. I'm sad that I'm away from Thailand because I love it so much, and yet, I'm glad that I'm here. I want to be there, I want to be here. It's unfortunate that I can't always have what I want. It's good to know that God will always give me what I need, and what is best for me, even though I don't want it right now, or see how it's good. Until I see it, he'll remain the same. How wonderful! It's good to know that it doesn't all rest on me, especially with jet-lag and culture shock hanging around my head!

Have a wonderful week! I'm going to go make some coffee and decide what my major's going to be.

r

Songkran

This past week was Songkran. It's the Thai New Year's festival, and it's one of the only national holidays that almost EVERYONE gets off. It's also celebrated in a strange way -- a HUGE COUNTRY WIDE WATERFIGHT. For at least 3 days during the week (this year, it was from wednesday to friday), everyone grabs their water guns, and sets up buckets with hoses and dumps water on everyone else. Everyone who's not standing on the side of the road is in the pack of a pickup truck, ready for the fight with huge tubs of water, guns and jasmine powder. You may think that I am exaggerating. I'm not.
Colleen and I took a walk down to the market on Thursday, and we ended up joining a family who had a bucket set up outside of their business. It was so neat to play with them, and have the little girls giggle when Colleen and I poured water on their heads. We splashed everyone - Colleen and I would stand in the center of the road with our water guns and spray the people on the non-aircon busses through the windows. HILARIOUS. It was a fun way to start Songkran for me - I missed the festivities last year, and this was a great way to ease into it.

On Friday, our Pastor invited us to come on the pickup truck he was renting. There ended up being 9 of us on the back of this really old rickety truck, driving around splashing and getting splashed. It was hilarious. It took us 20 minutes to empty the first round of water, and then our driving took us back to the river to fill up. (for those of you who don't know the river, it's DISTGUSTING) But, the water was free, and we couldn't argue with the driver, so we filled up and were on our way again. Pretty soon, we were slowing down to stop to splash a group, and the guys onthe side of the road started pointing and shouting, and we looked down, only to see that our wheel was rolling away and we had broked our back axel!!!! We all jumped out, and the thai guys started dumping water on our now smoking pickup. They decided that the truck being in the center of the road was a bad idea, so they all tried to come and lift it up. Problem: we just filled up with water! SO, there went out water, and once the truck was empty, they stopped a bunch of motorcyclists and asked them to help get our truck out of the way. It's a hilarious thing to see 35 Thai guys picking up the back end of a truck and rolling it off the center of the road.
We waited an hour for a new truck, but finally one appeared, and we filled up with water yet again and proceeded to be driven to one of the main party streets in our area. It was completely nuts and totally hilarious! Music playing, people dancing, and almost everyone is drinking. There were so many people crammed onto the street and into trucks and on motorbikes that it took us almost 2 hours to go 3 or 4 blocks. Fortunately or unfortunately, we were the ONLY white foreigners in the area, so all of the crazy drunk dancing splashing Thai people paid special attention to us. We were so wet, and covered with Jasmine powder by the end, it was crazy. But it was a good time.

Songkran is one of those things that sounds like a joke, but it's not. I sit here and wonder - 'how is it possible that I never heard about this??'. I have no idea how this crazy, silly event has escaped the notice of us North Americans. Consider yourself lucky. You are no longer in the dark :)

Laos (not LAEOHS - Lah-oh)

So, school ended on the 25th, and I updated this on the 26th, and then I was absent for a good amount of time. Let me fill you in on that time.
The week following school was me organizing and sorting, cleaning and prepping for next year's kindergarten teachers. I mostly finished.... (heh heh)

On Thursday night, Colleen and I got into a taxi and headed for the train station... except that she forgot the train tickets on the coffee table in the living room. (OOPS!) We did a u-turn and managed to retrieve the tickets and make the train anyway. We spent the night on the train and arrived at one of the northern border cities around 8am. (that's a total guess.) That day we spent in transit; jumping through all the hoops that crossing the border entails. Eventually we made it to Laos' capital city - Vientiene.
We spent Friday night in Vientiene, wandering around the city and seeing the sights. We found an imitation 'Arch de triumph', which aparently has colored water fountians that go off at 9 and 5. (we missed that.)
Saturday was spent on a bus. A harrowing, nailbiting bus trip that took us from Vientiene to LuangPrabang, which is a city up in the mountians. The trip itself was INSANE - curving around, down, up and back through the mountians. The actual distance between Vientiene and LuangPrabang is 260km. It took us 10 HOURS. By the time we arrived in LuangPrabang, it was starting to get dark!
We spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday bumming around Luang Prabang in the rain! It's so insane. This is supposed to be HOT season, and we were freezing our butts off. It was probably between 16 and 18 degrees the whole time, with drizzling rain. When you're coming from 38 degree temperatures, you'll understand why we wore our sweaters the whole time. There was one day that we went to a coffee shop for breakfast, and ended up staying for lunch t0o because it was raining and we were reading. LuangPrabang is a very beautiful place. It's right on the river, and the pace is so slow there, it's almost a stop. LuangPrabang makes me feel like life in Thailand is rushed. Because of the rain, we didn't end up renting bikes or going hiking or anything, but I enjoyed the quiet and the time to read. I think Colleen was a bit bored, but we made it through all right.

We had decided to leave LP on Wednesday, and mercifully, God stopped the rain for us. Our chosen mode of transportation was a speed boat. Also an insane mode of transportation. The speedboat is the fastest way out of Laos. You can fly, take a bus back to Vientiene, take a bus to Thailand (21 hours later...), or you can take a speed boat. I wish I could describe accurately how small it was, and how painful it was to sit in that thing for 7 hours. It was basically sitting on the floor of a boat with your knees to your chin with someone right next to your elbow the WHOLE time. It was interesting. The highlights of the trip being when the boat broke down as we were stopped for lunch, and the started taking a hammer to the engine and pulling parts off. Luckily, we changed boats, and God took us safely to the land of smiles again. After reaching the border, we took a 5 hour minibus ride to ChiangMai.
We stayed in Chiang Mai with some friends who used to live in Nonthaburi with us. They're living there with their 3 kids, going to Thai language school. Staying with them was definately a breath of fresh air - it was good to talk with them, and laugh and enjoy the time together. We stayed with them and hung out in ChiangMai for a few days, and took the night train back to BKK just in time for church on Sunday.

The last couple of weeks have been a lot of travelling, but lots of fun. I'm glad that we went! Now I mostly have fun stuff to do - get clothes made, pack, clean, watch movies, be VERY VERY HOT, and get ready to come home! I look forward to being back on the "home" side of the ocean, but I'm sad to leave too. It's so good to know that God has worked out all the details for me to be here, and that he'll work out all the details for me to be there too!
have a wonderful week!
r

setlao na ka

School is done! That is incredible! The week was incredibly fast - I feel like I might have possibly blinked twice and gotten a couple of hours sleep. (which isn't true, because I went to bed at 8:30 on Wednesday night...) Anyway, that's what it felt like. Thrown in there were a few birthdays, a couple of field trips, report cards, and a large end of the year party.

I managed to clean out my classroom with Deona on Friday after everyone left, and we thought about the year and how much the kids changed over time. I vividly remember setting UP my classroom, and putting up everything that I was taking down - writing names on books, dividing the kids into groups and putting together the calendar. It was crazy to take it all down. Last year was different. I took it all down, but I shoved it all in a big bag to keep for the next year.

How fast a year goes! A year is so long and so short all at the same time. A year is enough time to get involved in someone's life, and to change it. A year is enough time to learn many things, and change in many ways, and a year is definately enough time to change the world.

There are 3 or 4 students that totally stick out in my mind right now, although ALL of them were awesome and important. The first was Nat, who was one of the only students who seemed to realize that after today, there was no more K3, and no more Miss Rachel. She just sat on my lap and burried her head in my shoulder and said my name over and over. It was cute. She has changed incredibly to become one of the most sensitive caring students. She used to be really rough, but she has surprised me and become more and more gentle. She still is fairly tomboyish, and she goes and does absolutely everything the boys do, but I haven't seen her throw a punch since August, and everytime she accidentally hurts someone else, she bursts into tears. She has become so, so interested in Christianity and in the bible, and in God, it's amazing. She always has the best questions, and she seems to really understand. She tells me that she asked God for a white heart, and I believe her.
Month was the second student who sticks out in my mind - I gave him my Children's Bible on Friday, and he was SO EXITED!! It was awesome to see his eyes get wide! He asked me three times, "But why you give to me Miss Rachel??" "Because you like to listen to it so much." Then the wide eyes again. He tried to carry it around with him while he was trying to eat icecream. He almost dropped the icecream a few times before he plopped himself down on the floor to look at his new treasure. If Jesus returned today, I believe with all my heart that Month and Nat would be rising on the clouds too. It's such an awesome thing to see childlike faith.

The last one I'll tell you about today is Mind. Mind comes from a very troubled home, and he resisted coming to school every day so much that sometimes Kru Nok would lock him in the classroom to keep him from running outside to the parking lot. At first Mind was incredibly frustrating because he didn't understand anything, he never spoke and he was very very angry all the time. As time went on though, I began to see that he was just looking for love and attention. So Deona and I started to give him positive attention, read to him in tutoring and give him hugs. And then he started to stand really close to me, and the before I knew it, he would resist coming to school, but only out of the precident he had set. He would resist with a smile. And although the frown would return and stayed plastered on his face for most of the day, he became fairly obedient and he could do a good amount of his work with help, and he would come over and sit on my lap voluntarily. By the end of most school days, he was like my second set of skin. He would stand so close to my desk while I was working that it was less of a pain to have him sit ON my lap than to stand so close to my elbow. Kru Jane liked to call him my shadow.

On Friday during our party, Mind huddled himself in a corner. I thought maybe he was sick, but he shook his head. I thought he was tired, but he shook his head. I thought maybe he was hungry or shy but to those too, he shook his head. Finally I asked him if he was sad. And he nodded. I read to him what I wrote in his yearbook - that God would take care of him and that God was with him all the time, even if he was happy or sad or angry or scared. I told him that his teacher next year would love God very much, just like me, and I told him that his teacher next year would be very kind. To the first few things he just sat and looked at me. But for the last two, he shook his head and scowled. I think he felt abandoned. The poor kid! He says he hates his dad, and he doesn't love his mom, and now the only place where he feels safe is about to be shaken up, and he couldn't deal with it. I think that was the hardest goodbye I've ever had to make. Eventually his nanny showed up, and he went home, but I think his heart was broke. I just pray that God will be very close to him and transform him from the inside. As of now, I can't do anything else to help him - I can't change his parents, I can't change his feelings, I can't even make him feel loved at school. But I can pray, and that's more important. If you think of Mind, pray for him too.

Like I said before, a year is enough time to change the world. I have been with them for a year, and that is enough time for God to change how they act, how they think, and how they will live. How incredible!! Hopefully, the lives of these kids will be different because they spent a year with me, because I'm trying my best to follow God. God doesn't need me, but he lets me have the privilege to be used. I feel so honored to have been a part of these lives for this long. What a great blessing these two years have been!

r

(by the way - setlao means done and na ka is polite)

another week

...
And all of a sudden, it's been a week and there is only a week left. I feel like I should sit down and write something profoundly interesting and fascinating about my week this week, but I don't really have much to say.
Things have been CRAZY BUSY around here - testing takes up a lot of time. Report cards take up a lot of time, prep for the week when you don't have any books takes up a lot of time. I kinda feel like I've been going insane, but it's a good insane...
My favorite moment of the week was definately Nat and Seven having a spat after school yesterday. I walked into my classroom after hearing about 6 people yell "Miss Rachel, Nat hit Seven." (I thought they said Nat kiss Seven, which isn't all that unusual so I wasn't worried.)
But when I got into my class, Seven was standing there bawling, and Nat had a tissue and was roughly wiping away all the tears that were sqeezing out of his eyes.
Then Seven goes, "miss rachel, nat do this..." and he starts to demonstrate. I asked if Nat had said sorry, and Nat starts to bawl, saying over and over, "I say sorry already!!" So now there are two crying kids - one is crying because he got hurt, and the other is crying because she was the one who did the hurting. It all worked out in the end, and Nat gave Seven some of her prize to alay his bitterness towards her.

I hope your weeks have been going well -- I can't believe that mine here are numbering 4... The year has gone so fast! See you in 4 weeks!

My "Month" Moment

Today I had the most wonderful "Month" moment -- let me share my exciting story with you.
This past week, we talked about Jesus' death and resurrection, and so yesterday we started to memorize John 3:16. One of my students, Month, pipes up from his position laying on the floor, and goes, "Miss Rachel, why have John 3:16?" So i told him it was so that I could find it in my bible. He goes, "Miss Rachel, you have bible?" I told him I did. "And, I see your bible?" So I told Month that I would bring my bible for him to see after school.
I completely forgot. Month however, did not forget. He didn't ask me once during the day, but the moment that school was done and i told them that they could all go home, he comes up to me and says, "miss rachel, I see your bible???" So I ran upstairs to my bedroom and found my bible and brought it outside for him to look at.
We sat outside on the steps for a while, and he asked me to find John 3:16, and read it to him, so I did. And then he asked if the other stories in our classroom (children's) bible were in there. So i showed him one (amazingly enough, he can pick out names like Jesus, Peter, Adam...) But then I had to go tutor. I told him that in half an hour, he could come back and we could read more bible stories from my big bible.
I totally thought he'd get distracted and forget.
BUT, he didn't. He appeared at my classroom door in precisely 25 minutes, asking me if I was done, and if we could read more bible stories. Our conversation went something like this:
"miss rachel, your bible have many stories?"
"yes"
"miss rachel, we read story of adam and eve?"
"ok" and we read adam and eve (the short version)
"miss rachel, your big bible have many word!"
"yes it does"
"miss rachel, the samall bible is more fun"
"do you want to go get it?"
"yeah" (month runs to the classroom and finds our picture bible, and then finds a story for me to read. it's the one where Peter and John heal the beggar in the temple)
Month looked really hard into the distance when i read that Peter made the man well, and he made this very thai noise - a raising of the voice that kinda sounds like "uhh??" (those of you who have lived here will understand)
"But Peter is not Jesus, and Peter make the man better??"
"yeah"
"how? why?"
"because Peter believed in Jesus. Jesus was not there anymore, but Jesus is not dead. where does Jesus live now?"
"up there" (points up)
"month, do you think that Jesus can help even if he is up in heaven?"
"no"
"i think he can"
"uhh? miss rachel, i go to get my water" (and he runs across the playground and brings his water back)
"miss rachel, jesus is God's son?"
"yes"
"and Jesus is God?"
"yes"
"uuhh?"
"is it hard to understand?"
"yes"
"month, it is hard for miss rachel to understand too."

and then, all of a sudden, his dad showed up and he went running home. If you think about Month, pray for him. I don't think he's attending GES next year, but he's definately thinking!! His thought processes are amazing for a 6 year old. He asked more questions, but i really can't remember all of them, and even if I could, I would bore you with the details.
I want to give him a kid's bible before the end of the year so he can read it for himself.
Praise God for small miracles! This is the first time I've actually seen a student actively interested in devotions or the bible. Lots of them are interested, but Month is really thinking! If you think of him, pray for him, and pray that this seed would not be stolen away from him, but that it would grow to bear fruit. That's kinda hard when he's only 6 years old and there are so many family pressures, but God can do anything.
WOW!!
(ps - my apologies to all of you who are reading this exact thing for the second time because I sent it as an email.)

This Crazy Country

I got in a taxi today, and paid 53 baht (split 4 ways) to get to the train station, and then we got out and went to the subway, and paid 15 baht to go 12 stations to the sky train interchange, and then we got out and got on the sky train, and went 2 stops and went to the mall. (My apologies for the run-on sentence. I teach English, really.)
WHAT A CRAZY COUNTRY I LIVE IN!!!
I always said that I never wanted to live in a city, and now I've figured out how to get around when I don't even speak the language. Last time I checked, I didn't have the opportunity to do any of that for a reasonable price in Edmonton.

One of my students has recently come up with the FUNNIEST phrase ever. I laugh every time I hear it. His name is Beb, and he's had some trouble grasping the English language. He's started trying really hard since October, so he gets points for that. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer though. So Beb has decided that he can express quantity using, "Miss Rachel, it's really..." EXCEPT.... He NEVER ADDS ANYTHING ELSE. He looks at something and says, "Miss Rachel, is really..." (it's really WHAT, Beb?? Really big? Really beautiful? Really tall?) It's SO funny. I just die laughing every time he says it.

I've been trying to figure out how to get all my STUFF home at the end of the year. Somehow, I've accumulated a lot of stuff, and I've been wondering how it was going to work. I looked into a crate, but i didn't want to ship it alone (that's expensive), but it all wasn't going to fit in 2 suitcases. But then Kari said that she would take a suitcase home for me (thanks Kari!!), and then I got a package from home that had my new EVA membership card in it. (EVA is my airline, and I've recently accumulated enough points to be upgraded in card class) I happened to be flipping through the membership book, and found out that because I'm a "silver member", I get 3 pieces of luggage!!! And then, I checked on the internet, and found out that I had enough points to upgrade a class all the way to Vancouver!! I felt so taken care of! It's really...!

I hope your week was just as good!

The Most Amazing Thing

The best part of my year happened this week:
I was sitting in my classroom in the half hour before class starts and usually, I teach ESL (which is for kids who are struggling in the classroom.) But on Friday, I didn't have to teach it and so I was sitting at my desk doing work. When I left the classroom, Por's mom asked me if I had a second because she wanted to show me something. (Usually when she says that, she'll run to her car and grab some fruit for me, or some pictures of Christmas program, or something....) But this time she pulls out her camera and turns it on. I kinda stood there confused for a bit, because it just looked like a picture of Por looking at a book. But then she told me to listen and she held her camera up to my ear, and he was reading it!
The best part is not that Por can read, because I know that already. He reads books for me in tutoring every now and then, and he sounds out words in class all the time. But the exciting part was that he had enough confidence to read a book for his MOM!!! And she was absolutely THRILLED!! It was SO cool to see her SO excited that she waited at my classroom door for me to be done teaching. It completely made my day and quite possibly my year.

The other cool thing that happened this week was Overnight Camp. The kids tented in the playground on Friday night, and stayed for most of the day on Saturday. It's always interesting when you have 90 kids camping in the playground - for instance: everyone had a hard time falling asleep, and it took until 1:30 to get them all in their tents. (for some reason, they don't understand that if you keep your tent CLOSED, there won't be mosquitos inside!) Another: at 2:00am, one of the kids puked in his tent, and Colleen had to clean it up, so when I came outside for my supervision shift at 2:30, all the kids were walking around again, and the teachers were moving tents and rinsing things off... (ah, the joys of pizza parties and pillow fights before bed.)
The cool part though, was just seeing the kids in another atmosphere. We do our best to make overnight camp feel like SummerCamp, and it's really neat to see everyone being that transparent. It's interesting to see how they react to no sleep, and encouraging to see the staff all pull together and work hard to make it work. Colleen and I led a group of grade 5 boys, and it was awesome to spend time with them and other kids and get to know them better. Erin and Deona and I had a crazy time leading a "Fun with Baking" activity center. (hmmm - we only have 30 minutes, a limited budget and one oven. HOW will this be fun??) But we ended up making cookies and having contests, and I had fun. (don't know about them) We ended, once again, with a water fight and ice cream, which was great! And so, despite the 4 hours of sleep I had, it was a really fun weekend.
And although I was sick for the first 5 days, it was a really good week! I hope yours was equally as good!

Exciting Times

You probably cannot imagine how many times I sit down to write something on here, and the computers are SO SLOW that I get frustrated and give up. I think it's happened twice in the last week.

Every Tuesday morning we have staff meeting, and for the first 10-15 minutes, someone shares a short devotional. To be honest, I usually have trouble concentrating at 7:30 in the morning, and I usually let the stuff that's said pass in one ear and out the other. HOWEVER, in the recent past, there have been two that have sparked some thought. (thx Josh and Erin!) I thought I would share a little bit of their wisdom and my thoughts. If you don't like mini-sermons, maybe don't read the following paragraphs.
I'm not sure why I like quotes so much, but I think it has something to do with other people using better words than me. In Josh's devo, (which, incidently, I was late for, because sometimes I also have trouble getting up early in the morning) he challenged us to notice the small things that we enjoy, and stop taking things for granted. For instance, I live in a country where I can go visit beaches and islands that most people have as screen savers or desktop backgrounds on their computer.
He shared a couple of quotes that have really stuck with me. One is this: "The way you live your life is the way you live your days." And I've thought about this a lot. Your life is just a big group of days and minutes and moments, and if you take for granted the moments and minutes and think your days are incredibly boring, then guess what your life adds up to. Yup, boredom.
I've started to think that it's all about your perpective. Josh shared a scene from the movie the Matrix, where it is said about Neo, "If he's the one, these are exciting times!" And if you think about it, these are exciting times. We are changing the world, one moment at a time.

Erin shared some stuff on joy and desires, and the part that stuck out to me was a section of C.S.Lewis' Mere Christianity, where he talks about this earth being just a dim shadow; a poor reflection of the real thing in heaven. On earth we have desires for things, and often those desires are unfulfillable because we long for the real thing. We can desire relationships, or a good job, or stabilty, or (whatever else). And most of our desires will never be filled on earth. If earth is a poor reflection of heaven, then why do I expect all of my desires to be filled here? It's very easy to live like earth is IT. But it's not. Why do I expect it to be? "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Ps73:24-26) If earth really has nothing I desire (which, I confess, is not true in my life most of the time), then why do I care so much about it??

You may not see the connection of these two things, but in my mind, they are tied together. If I'm not looking for life to be completely fulfilling on earth, if I'm finding my joy in God, if I'm living like every moment counts, then these are EXCITING TIMES. AND THAT, is enough to give me more joy. I hope you see it too.

OK, so a year later

ANNND, it's been FOREVER since I sat here and typed anything in here.
I also shouldn't be sitting in here right now. I'm currently escaping "GES INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION EXPO 2005" It is SO HOT outside, and there are SO MANY PEOPLE. It's basically just a big publicity stunt to get people to come and see the school and possibly enroll.
Let me update you a little of what's gone on in my life in the last 3 weeks.
The second week I was back at GES, one of my students stabbed another in the head with a pencil crayon. That was a wonderful event, especially because the mom absolutely went balistic. It was insane, and caused more stress in my life than I ever thought that I could handle. After we thought that the smoke was starting to clear a little, two policemen show up at our school and take us down to the policestation. So myself, the thai teacher, the principal - Conrad, Sue (owner/principal), and another guy all headed down to the police station. The issue had changed and we were unaware of that, so we all spent some time in a full-on arguement, and finally the powers that be all agreed to a meeting of GES and the parents. Unfortunately, the EXPO has completely distracted Sue from this process of making amends with the parents, so the alledged meeting still hasn't happened. If you think about it, pray for resolution.

Also in the last few weeks, we all have spent a good amount of time considering the options for next year, and whether or not we will be at GES for another school term. After much prayer and discussion, I have decided that I will be moving back to Canada next year. In fact, I've been accepted to the UofA in the Faculty of Arts. After completing all my pre-req's for the Faculty of Education, I plan to be a teacher!!

It's hard to believe that a year has gone by since I decided to come back to Thailand for a second year. WOW. The time has flown, and it's been incredible.

Well, I should probably head back to EXPO. I hope you have wonderful day!

r

Tsunami Stories

Alright -- so, it's been over a week since I sat here and wrote anything, and chances are low that I'll actually get anything substantial written down in the next 15 minutes.
I just wanted to take a few sentences and tell you about some of the crazy escapes we had from the tsunami. You might enjoy (?) some of these stories. They just show how much God was taking care of our staff!
Brian and Jordan (gr 6 and k2 respectively) got off of Phi-Phi 30 minutes before the wave hit and demolished the island. They have pictures of the wave coming into Krabi.
Kari (gr3) and her friends got off of Phi-phi with less time to spare than the guys, but they also were safe. They were going to stay another day and go sea-kyaking, but changed their minds at the last minute and took the ferry back instead.
Ken, Melissa and Brianna (teach at NCA across the street) ran with the waves on their heels off of the beach on Koh Lanta. They said that they have some crazy pictures, but I haven't seen any. They are fine.
Deona (k3) and her family were on a boat between Phuket and Phi-phi when the first wave hit. The boat dropped them off at a random island and they were told to run up the mountian (which they did). They stayed up in the hills for 4 hours until the boat came back and they were taken back to the mainland.
Erin (gr5) was flying back from Korea when it happened, and then got on a plane to fly to Phuket. The airport ground staff told her that there was an earthquake in India and that 7 people had died. When she got there, she spent a night in a school (because there was no room for them in the inn) (ha!), and then met up with Jordan, Brian, Kari and Adam. I think she heard about the real situation from Jordan's dad, who phoned her on my cell phone.
Jeannie (gr1) and her family left the beach on the 25th.
Josh, Sarah, Katie and Aaron (JrHigh English, ESL, gr6 and JrHigh Math) were in Malaysia at the time, and didn't hear about the quake for a couple of days.
AAAANNNNDDD - the rest of us were either in Canada/the States for Christmas, or in Laos with Conrad and Becky.

Alright, I've sufficiently used up my 15 minutes. I need to head to class, but I hope you are as encouraged by our narrow escapes as we were.