Week at a Glance

This week in Thailand...

...We agreed to help out a friend, which entailed teaching for an English camp at a nearby school to about 140 students. It was nice to have a change of pace to break up a sometimes monotonous routine. The school was hospitable and the day was smooth. In fact they took such good care of us they even dug a bee stinger out of my foot when I happened to get stung. During the day we met a man who was there living and working at the school for several months. As we tried to explain to him what we did and why, he asked us, "Are you guys like modern day nuns?" The half-funny half-sad thing was he was serious. He didn't really understand how we would think there was such a thing as the Lord's call on our lives, much less obey it.

...We had our weekly Monday night dinner with a special meal and boxed birthday cake (all the way from the States) for one of my dear roommate's birthdays. My boss's wife works hard every week to make us delicious American dinners, which we greatly appreciate.

...One morning as I walked into my stuffy classroom I was greeted by a humongous creepy spider. *Just for the record I am one of those girls who would ask her dad to kill crunchy bugs that happened to interrupt her life. Thank you dad!* I tried to be brave, because sometimes I can be, but this spider was too much for me. So I did what any good teacher would do...I asked the fifth grade boy to help me kill the spider. And by "help" what I mean is that I watched him chase it around the room, stomp on it several times, and when it refused to die...catch it with his hands. Only later did I wonder if it might be poisonous or dangerous.

...One afternoon our school cook, Phii Joy, brought me a bowl after school. As I gave her a curious look she told me that she had made som tam (spicy papaya salad, one of our favorites) exactly the way we English teachers liked it. What a thoughtful lady. She also made guidteaw for lunch on Friday. Rice noodles in broth with pork, garlic, dried chili peppers, and a random assortment of sauces. Oddly enough it is becoming quite the comfort food, which was great Friday because we were all struggling a bit with various levels of sickness.

...As I visited with one of my student's mothers after school, she shared with me about her husband's and her ministry here in Thailand. It was really neat to hear about. As she was talking she shared that there were still several things up in the air and things that they didn't really know how they were going to work out. She said she had been encouraged on Friday when her child brought home our craft project from Moses and the Red Sea on which their little hands had written "God will make a way." Even though her child didn't understand the words it was an encouragement to her to remember that God does provide.

...I spent three hours in a hospital waiting room which was gloomy and too small for the number of people. I had driven my dear friend Khruu Ooy to the hospital after she had suddenly gotten quite ill at school. I have to admit that I felt quite a bit of accomplishment that I knew how to get to the faraway hospital (unfortunately I'd been there before) and then back home after I had dropped her off at her husband's house in the city. For those of you who know my sense of direction and the moat area in the city of Chiang Mai you will understand the feat that this was. For a little while I didn't feel like a foreigner or outsider (odd considering I was sitting in a room in which no one shared my skin, hair, or eye color.)

...Last night my roommate suggested we put Nutella on cereal. It is our usual practice when lesson planning at night after the time we have to ceased to be genuinely productive to think of what snack we can make to get us going. Pretty much anything with Nutella is always an option (for those of you who don't know Nutella is a chocolaty hazelnut mixture with a consistency sort of close to peanut butter.) I have to confess one time we actually ate Tim Tams (a chocolate wafer cookie thing from Australia) with Nutella on top only several minutes later followed by a piece of chocolate candy with Nutella on it. Anyway this time we decided on cereal minus the Nutella. I have to say cereal is one of my favorite things in the world. Thanks to the sweet friends who brought cereal for us all the way from the States!

...Today, the first Saturday in a long time that we haven't had anything to do, we broke out our scrub brushes, soap, and laundry buckets (which thankfully haven't seen much use since our generous landlady gave us a washing machine) to clean our house. This is an endeavor that always produces a lot of sweat, but the results are worth it. In an effort to keep our kitchen clean we are having dinner tonight delivered for about $3.13 per person.

So there it is...a glimpse of this thing I call my life. Never quite predictable, not always easy, but with, oh, so much to laugh about and be thankful for.