Meet the Gang

Meet the gang...the students and staff of the 2011-2012 school year! Wednesday we started off with twenty-six students which is more than double our beginning day of last school year. We are so thankful for our new students as well as two new Thai teachers. We even have a couple of students from summer school!



This year has seen some changes as we are short a few English teachers. I am now teaching Grades 3 and 4. I'm a bit sad to say goodbye to the little ones but I am excited for the different challenge of teaching the older kids. My new co-teacher Khruu Ning and I have nine students. Six boys and two girls. We have five students from last year, two from summer school, and two other new additions. About half the class understands me and the other half is completely lost...but such is the nature of what we do.



Khruu Nida and I are teaching Grade 4 and have three extremely quiet students. So quiet. None of the three of them understand or speak a word of English. But they are sweet and try very hard to do their best. The two girls are from the mountains and are sponsored to come to our school. They had to leave their families and move to Hang Dong. They are currently living with two very generous staff members of our school who virtually became single mothers overnight.


This school year has many challenges which we are already feeling as well as so many opportunities. Please pray that we would make huge strides toward meeting our three main goals for this year:

1) Share the Gospel

2) Provide Excellent Education

and through those things to...

3) Provide Hope and a Future

Home

"And wherever you are when you catch glimpses of heaven, you are home." ~ Ann Voskamp

Heaven can be seen in the beauty of majestic African mountains...

Or in the sweet face of a redeemed child...

It is in these moments even when you are a world away from the land of your birth, when you catch a glimpse of what heaven might be like and truly feel home.

Overview of Our Trip to South Africa

South Africa was absolutely beautiful, words and pictures do not do it justice. Even though it was a land of great beauty, like any land, it also holds much brokenness. During our time there we were able to see much of the beauty, the brokenness, and the ways God is bringing hope and light through His people.

The following pictures are just a few of the memories from the trip. I hope you enjoy seeing this land which actually felt much more like home than anywhere I've been recently.

This precious boy was one of the many kids in the hospital without family or friends. Just trying to survive. We were able to take some puzzles and toys and visit the hospital for awhile with a ministry that consistently visits the children and builds relationships with them, and shares about Christ's love.

This was one of the animals we saw on our drive through a game reserve. The weather was freezing!

This is from the sweet time we had at a Children's Village. They also have a school there for the children and they teach them in English. It was similar to what we are trying to do over here in Thailand.


These little girls are also at the Children's Village.

This is a gorgeous sunset at the game reserve.

I just think this picture is so funny. Please notice the man in the bright red cowboy hat with a white fuzzy rim.

This is the view from the Drakensburg mountains where we did some hiking and camping.

Another view of the moutains. The sky there was soooo blue. At night we could even see the stars!

This picture is from the beach near the airport right after our arrival into SA.

Forever Changed

I'll always remember, actually I probably won't vividly remember for too long in my mind. Yet my heart will remember. My heart will remember the way it falls in love with beautiful broken children who speak a heart language so different from my own. It will always remember why I agree with the statement that "Asia gets in your blood." That walking these dirt roads has forever changed my heart. That seeing two of my students walk by the gates of our school barefoot, with shaved heads, and draped in orange cloth breaks my heart a little more. As the procession of somber monks walk by clutching their neighbor's offerings and one of the little ones exuberantly calls out to me. As I watch three of my students pick a multitude of leaves from a nearby bush so that they can show me the way they can cut the leaf in two by cutting it with their hand. The way the one who really can't do it at all squeals "Teacher" when he finally makes a small cut in the leaf. The way the little boys look at me before and after every time they shoot the basketball just to make sure I'm watching. The way they don't really seem to care that I'm not the same color as them or that I don't always understand what they are saying.

I've seen their faces, I've listened to their stories, I've dried their tears, I've prayed for them, and I will never be the same. Because of the orphans and at-risk children who I've been blessed to teach or work with "I've exchanged the carefree for the pain of God. His heart is heavy with the pain of suffering for the people He created. The people for whom He died. Then sometimes, He gives us a glimpse into His pain. He peels back the corner of His heart to reveal to us His pain. For His people." (I'm sorry I don't know whose quote this is.)

I know that His heart hurts for the boys who become monks to "earn" merit. I know that He hates it when little girls are used. I know that He suffers when children are hurt by those who should be protecting them. I think that what my heart feels is just a twinge of what our Father God feels for these children, He just lets me have a glimpse of how He feels for them. That glimpse is enough to know my life can never, should never, be the same.

Shiny Green Paper

I have a sweet little girl yes I consider her, in a way, mine. She rides to school with us every morning because, well if she doesn't she can't always make it to school. Something to do with a father, who shall we say, "falls short in the parental realm". Anyway, she sticks with us. Last week she didn't have a ride home from school so we took her with us, stopping at a cafe run by a ministry down the road. She got a special treat from us and from one of the people working. She does really well holding her own among people she doesn't understand very well. Although now I do expect her to understand much more English (however, in new circumstances we'll talk with her in Thai to make sure she understands what is happening and why.)

This is background on the girl who spent her early morning at the school picking flowers off a bush as a gift for her teachers. She and another sweet student came to the classroom while I was still getting things set up for the day. They told me to close my eyes and after a minute told me to open them. When I opened them they were standing there looking embarrassed and called out, "Just a minute!" as they ran back out the door. I smiled and continued with my work. They approached a couple minutes later with shy smiles and held out their offering. Some freshly picked flowers wrapped in shiny green paper (paper that I had the day before seen blowing around the schoolyard.) She proceeded to explain that they picked these beautiful flowers and she wasn't sure what to wrap them in but that she was so excited when she found the paper wrapped around a tree trunk. She also excitedly declared that she had cleaned off the bird poop too! I smiled at them and told them that they were so sweet and that the flowers were beautiful. And they were. Who can't help but feel loved with an offering like that. :)

Introducing...

Teaching summer school has been challenging and tiring yet so good. Let me tell you why. 1) There's Ahm...shows up at school around maybe 7:00 am (an hour and a half before school starts)... about ten to twenty minutes before we get there. I wonder how he gets through the fence and why his guardians don't care that the eight year old child wanders around a empty school early in the morning. I think he has long taken care of himself and decided when he would go where. 2) Then there's Tham...the kid who understand and finishes his work in about one minute. He's fun to talk to because it is easier to see his personality because he understands and is able to respond. He and our class clown Dhun became monks today for about one month to "make merit as usual." They are happy to be doing this for their families. 3) There's the third grade boy First who looks about three years old because he is soooo small. He is smart and animated and is quite vocal when he figures things out. "OHHhhhh!" 4) There's Bim who when he wants to earn a point can be perfect and about any other time prefers to sit with his legs tucked up on his chair and his hands drumming on his table. He's the boy with a bruise on his face and the tendency to throw punches yet who is about as sweet as they come. 5) There's Bami who "Is only five years old" as she likes to tell us when something is hard for her. She likes to have her big sister write her answers for her when I'm not looking. 6) There's Namtaan ("Sugar") who is super quiet and hardly ever says a word. 7) There's Oh Chawng who is just like his big brother quiet, diligent, and smart. 8) There's the five girls who get picked-up up and all try for about fifteen minutes to arrange themselves on one motorcycle. 9) There's Mai who comes and sits by me and chatters. As I'm cutting out a pile of game cards she picks up every piece of paper and runs to throw it in the trash can for me. Such a sweet heart. These are only a handful of the kids that have wiggled into my heart in the past two weeks, funny how they have such a way of doing that, isn't it?

Lessons From Life Lately...

- When you are used to 18 hour flights you will wonder if the plane is crashing when it starts descending after what feels like 15 minutes

- It is best not to get the giggles while smooshed in a public mini-bus with fifteen random Thai men for three hours

- You will find it funny that your current concern is whether or not you can reach the airplane sandwiches stashed in your bag which at this point is not really accessible

- Also, in said vehicle you will be the only ones eating (trying to quietly eat an apple is kinda a vain endeavor)

- Apple juice that squirts on the window does not wipe off discreetly

- The man falling asleep on your roommate will wake up when you and your roommate are laughing and accidentally elbow him

- Although you understand some Thai you will have absolutely have no idea what the driver is saying from all the way up front and you just hope someone knows where in the world you are trying to go

- When nearing Monkey Island on a kayak be prepared to hold tightly to all of your possessions and rapidly row in the opposite direction

- Bring sunblock that did NOT expire 5 years ago

- In the midst of an earthquake the jury is out on how best to respond

- When running a summer school in Thailand be prepared for students to come in days after school has started (a week and a half past the registration deadline) and ask to enroll. They will then, after you tell them it is full, proceed to the two other people on the campus and ask them if they can enroll.

- When faced with a classroom of students whose names are some variation of Bim, Bem, Bam, or Ban calling any of those names doesn't necessarily elicit a response

- Be prepared to respond graciously when you are trying to figure out a student's name and you try to spell it in English and he shows you he does indeed write his name F4

- You will feel silly when you replay in your mind the string of names you've just called, "Ahm, First, Nack, Bim, Bem, Bami, Bim, Film, Ging nung, Oh Chawng, Tham, Jem, Tey..."

- While you are so thankful your car has returned from the shop after over one month of repairs since the car accident, you are not so thrilled that everything that used to work in the car no longer does: including the all important gas gauge (see next lesson)

- When you've run out of gas in the middle of a busy road all you can do is sit and grade papers

- When you are in the midst of being rescued and both the driver seat and the passenger seat break in the space of thirty seconds it is okay to laugh hysterically on the side of the road

- When your roommate insists on climbing the mango tree in your "lawn" (a brick patio) it is your job to stand under the tree and catch the falling mangoes

- When you are still standing at the end of the day it is just one more reason to praise the Lord