Still Alive

That's right folks, I'm still alive! 

I'm so sorry for my absence in the blog-o-sphere, especially after leaving you with such a cliff-hanger in the last entry!

I'm obviously pretty busy at the moment, so despite the heaps of things I'd love to say, this will be a quick-and-to-the-point update!

1) My visa run was eventful, but ultimately safe and successful. I loved getting to see northern Thailand - it is lush jungles and breath-taking mountains. The culture is colorful, the food is unique and the lifestyle is less civilized. There were ample opportunities for things to go wrong - let this be my due diligence of letting any future single, young, female world travelers know that I wouldn't recommend a solo visa run in Southeast Asia - but I acted on faith, and the Lord carried me through! I really felt as if I was wrapped in prayer by others the entire time, and God taught me that when I am obedient to Him that I should not be afraid to take larger and larger steps of faith; not knowingly walking into situations that are unsafe, but willingly going where I am uncomfortable and trusting that He's bigger. I'm grateful that God provided the resources for me to see a completely different part of Thailand unlike the crazy city I live in, and for me to take care of my visa without spending a fortune and spending days in an immigration office!

2) I've reached the "adjustment phase" where Thailand has lost its novelty, and I'm ready for familiar things again. The impenetrable crowds of people that seem to be everywhere I need to be, the process of navigating streets, weaving in and out of those crowds while trying to keep one hand on my purse and one hand out to steady myself combined with the smells and the heat and the humidity...it's hard. At first everything was new and interesting and felt like a new cultural experience (evidently that's the first stage of adjusting to a new culture), but now it just feels like a challenge to go for a walk. I'm saying this just to ask you to pray. I didn't expect for homesickness to come over 2 months into living here. Bur, "this too shall pass." Supposedly the next stage is assigning value to the things that you prefer in your home culture and the things that you prefer about the foreign culture in which you live, meaning that by the time I get back I'll be missing things about Thailand.

3) Tomorrow is the last day of the first week of a 3 week English course for 1st through 9th graders here at the BSC. I am teaching everyday, each grade, twice a week. Hence my business. I've been preparing lesson plans and collecting supplies for about a month, and I realized on the first day that the way I was planning to do things isn't really going to work! So, I've been throwing things together each night/early morning and rolling with the punches during the day, but it's all going surprisingly well. It's chaotic and less organized than I would like, but the students are learning about God's love for them - they're taking it in and processing it - and they seem to be having a bit of fun in the process. Please cover it in prayer with me!  

4) In preparing for "Mini Course" (aforementioned 3 week class), I was asked to do a seminar about discipline for the Thai teachers. At the time I did not fully realize that discipline, self-discipline or otherwise, had no place in Thai culture. It's been an uphill battle in trying to instill a value of discipline in the teachers, or a respect for it in the children, one that I honestly have surrendered as being the Lord's and not mine. I mention it only because of what God is teaching me through all of it.

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:7-11

God has convicted me of the ways that I rear up against His discipline toward me. First, when I sense Him at work in me, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel at the time, it is proof that I am His child and that He cares what is going on with me. Second, it is my choice whether or not I allow myself to be "trained by it" - if I would submit myself to the discomfort of the undesirable parts of me being uprooted, then I would begin to bear the fruit that I long for and cease to endure the same trials again and again. 

"The love of God is unconditional, but His favor and blessing are not."

 -Dutch Sheets, Intercessory Prayer

If I would accept the instruction that He gives me, however sorrowful it may seem, then later the joy would drive me forward in a pursuit of pleasing Him. Recognizing the responsibility that the Scriptures put on me, and ceasing to use God's sovereignty as an excuse to take the pressure off, would take half the fight out of the battle in the struggle between my flesh and my spirit. 

Well, that's how I'm doing and what I'm up to! I really am doing well, and seeing beauty in the chaos. My strength is waning, and I am glad - that I may ever more depend upon His strength and not my own.