Proud Teacher :)

I should really go to bed, and I was almost there, until I found out a friend was hurting and had to make a phone call. Anyway, that brings me to where I am right now...wide awake at 12:39am! The good thing is, it is Friday night, which means IT'S THE WEEKEND! The downside is: I am eating breakfast with a bunch of peoples in the next room at 7:30--an amazing farong birthday breakfast, to be exact. I'm quite excited about the bacon and eggs (a nice follow-up to the pizza, cake and ice cream tonight), but 7:30 is going to come rather early, I imagine. In most cases, in my current circumstances, I would follow up that nice breakfast with an even nicer nap, finishing off my sleep cycle (after all, you can hop right back into REM and pick up where you left off, and if I'm lucky that's the sleep cycle I'll wake up to, but that's another story), HOWEVER I will be going with some friends on a shopping trip up to the Burmese border today. I am not really in need of much, although I might look for some more Christmas presents, but it's more just for the fun of it all. We're leaving precisely at 9:00am (in Thailand that means like 9:15 or 9:30, usually). So, no nap for me until later.

Great news, though! I have just moved into a new place! My other place was great; I really did enjoy it. It was very much a Thai style place: one room plus a bathroom with a squattie potty, cold shower, and a kitchen outside. I seriously enjoyed it there, and my neighbors were wonderful, but the ministry director decided to bless me with an invitation to stay up in the manager's cottage for the remainder of my time, and I am quite excited about it. I've been staying in the girls' house for the last 6 weeks while someone was away, and she just returned on Wednesday, so I've been transitioning myself over there slowly but surely. I slept there last night for the first time, and I absolutely loved it. First of all, the place is huge! Well, depends on your definition of huge, but it is definitely more than enough space for me and my stuff. I have a separate bedroom, a desk, a table with chairs, a refrigerator inside, a nice little corner cabinet with a coffee maker, tea, a hot water maker, and all sorts of random goodies, a water cooler, a wash machine (although I am thankful that I learned to hand wash my clothes at my last place), my own rice cooker (essential), an outdoor kitchen with a tw0-burner stove... oh and the best part: a mosquito net above my bed! I can see why people like having canopies over their beds. It creates quite the atmosphere, complete with frogs and crickets and tokays (huge geckos that make a sound that sounds like their name: Too-kay) singing outside and not a highway around. Oh, and quite possibly even cooler : a mosquito racket (I might bring one home. They electrocute mosquitoes. Pretty handy.) with a light attached to it (the first one like that I've seen)! I don't mean to brag or anything, but I pretty much have it all over there! haha j/k. But seriously, it is going to be so nice to have my own little abode where I can invite people over for dinner and not worry about intruding on my neighbors' space. And, I even have a place for people to sit that isn't the floor! I bought a mat for the floor of my last place, but farongs* usually prefer sitting on chairs if they (we) can help it. I'll post some pictures some time if I figure out how to do that on here.

One (or two) more strand of thought, and I'm finished. Really. First: I was so proud of my student yesterday I was just about in tears. I had to stop myself from crying, actually. About 2, maybe 3 months ago now, I made a deal with my student Garin. I told him that when he learned his numbers 1-60 really well and could tell them all to me without my help, we would bai teaw (go out for fun) on the bicycles. A bit of motivation to put his mind to it. At that point, he had trouble getting to ten. Well, yesterday I got to be the proud teacher who saw my student count to 60 all by himself, and I got to tell people (in front of him, of course) what a smart boy he is and that he was going to get rewarded for his hard work! Today, we got to follow up on that deal. Aside from his music class with Baa (Aunt) Susie, we got to ride our bikes down to the market and he got to pick out a cool toy airplane. Man, that's what teaching is all about right there. Actually helping someone learn and getting to rejoice with them in their accomplishments. It's funny, because I was feeling quite discouraged at the beginning of this week, getting back into the groove of things after break. I found myself getting irritated WAY too easily, and it was really frustrating on my part. But, the Lord is faithful and He changed my attitude and brought good out of this week. I'm so thankful that I get to be a part of the learning process in this 7-year-old boy's life. He's not the smartest or the best behaved and he's probably not going to be an engineer when he grows up, but I have learned so much about loving another person through that boy. Not only has God been teaching me how to show him love, but Garin has taught me so much about love with God's extravagant love shining through him. As we were riding our bikes back, I was thinking about what would happen if he was in danger. I know that I would throw myself in harm's way to prevent anything from happening to him. But, you know what else I realized? He would do the exact same for me. Now that's an extraordinary boy.

Ok, that is all I have to share today. It is now WAY past my bedtime, and I'm starting to feel it. God bless and may you somehow be encouraged by my words today.

In Christ,

Stephanie

*Note: the word "farong" generally refers to anyone of European descent. Put simply: white folks. It is also the name of Guava in Thai. A fun little joke around here is "farong geen farong." (Farong is eating a farong) It usually gets both Thais and farongs alike laughing it up, especially when a farong is actually eating a farong (don't get morbid, here. I'm talking about the fruit!). Another note about farongs, while I'm on the subject: it is so weird to walk around tourist areas and see so many farongs around! When I was in Chiang Mai, I couldn't handle it; they were everywhere! As if I'm Thai myself. Haha. But seriously, it is strange, and I really dislike it, because I know that I am one, and when I am around so many others, I feel like I'm just another tourist. I hate feeling like a tourist. Sometimes, I just have to swallow my pride and be one, though. Ok I'm done. :)

Late Night Thoughts

You know, I feel pressure to come to a blog with something profound and life-changing, and if I don't have that, why post a blog? Well, I realize that the pressure I feel is self-imposed, so I thought I would face that head-on tonight with nothing profoundly life-changing to share.

Isn't that true with my relationship with God, too? I come to Him wanting to give/get something significant, but when it comes to my everyday worries and fears, I hesitate coming to Him because He has heard it all already. It's the same old stuff. Putting it in words makes it sound so... unspiritual. But, that is reality. I may be halfway across the world, serving God by teaching preschool to orphaned children, but it doesn't reduce the struggles and misgivings. It is interesting. I don't have the accountability like I do back home... the really close relationships asking the hard questions, the regular sermons, the amazing worship times... I feel like I am learning what it means to be a Christian, really. I was just talking with my friend here about this and we had a great discussion. We were talking about how we missed the great worship times and the solid friendships and the depth of teaching, but maybe that's not what it's all about. Of course, those are vital parts of most of our lives as Christians, but it is important to be certain of who you are in Christ even when those aren't readily available.

Lovers of Jesus come in all different shapes and sizes, yet there is one thing that is abundantly clear: we all share the same Love. (This seems completely out of place and I'm not sure where I was going with that, but I'll leave it anyway.)

I feel like I'm rambling, trying to make my thoughts sound spiritual when really they're just random. However, if you think about it, everything is spiritual, because Holy Spirit never leaves us; He is with us always. But that's beside the point (if I even had one).

I guess, I am just thankful that whatever I am going through, good or bad, God is with me and loving me no matter what. I don't have to have all the answers, and I'm not unlocking the secrets of the universe, because those are His secrets to reveal to me anyway. I just get to enjoy the journey that the Lord has me on. I often get so caught up in trying to figure out where the road leads that I forget to look at the beauty all around me. The beauty of life, though, is God leading me through it. If things would go how I imagine them in my head, my life would look so different, but I'm so thankful that I'm not in control of my life! Thinking about next year, when I go home, the following months, I really wonder where He is going to lead me, because I have NO FLIPPIN clue! That's the fun in it, though, isn't it? As much as I would love to know what God has in store, I am so thankful that I don't, and I just get to lean in to Him and let Him lead me along.

So, this blog may not have much coherency, but these are my thoughts as of this Thursday night in Thailand. May you be blessed. :)

Steph

Welcome!

Hello friends!

I have been wanting to create a blog outside of MySpace or Facebook for awhile now, but for some reason I just kept putting it off. This way, friends who don't have either of those can find out what is going on in my life, and I just like this idea better than posting things on MySpace like I've been doing. Actually, I'm thinking I will be deleting my account soon, as I've found Facebook to be a bit nicer as far as keeping in touch and posting pictures and privacy and what-not. :) Really, the only reason I've kept my MySpace account was for posting blogs, because I know that several of my friends check it regularly, and I want to keep them up-to-date. Well, now you can check this instead! I hope it's not too much trouble. Then again, that is the point, in a way. I only want those who will really go through the trouble to go to a different website to read my blogs anyway. Why bombard hundreds of people with blogs that they don't actually want to read anyway? (That is the trouble with Facebook. It's great, but I feel like I would be intruding on all these people's pages every time I post a blog.) So, this blog is for those of you who want to hear about what the Lord has been teaching me, what I've been doing here in Thailand, how you can be praying for me, etc. I'm not even sure how all of this works, but hopefully it will be a nice set up.

Enjoy!

Stephanie