look up

So a nice ride on the motosye and walk on Nam Kem beach were on the agenda tonight...taking advantage of another blessed let up of our beloved rainy season.

We jumped off the bike, walked a ways out onto the inlet...the water was calmer than I had ever seen it tonight and I just felt a wonderful peace standing in the middle of the ocean, sinking into the sand, feeling the waves crash against my calves, the mountains rise with such grace into the clouds. And again I just think to myself..."Is this really my life? Am I really living this?"

I've said it before and I will say it again...I have been truly, undeniably, incomparably blessed by my God through these people, this place, this summer.

But in the same second that I praise my Almighty God for such gifts...
I question and I cry out...I hear and feel the hurt of my friends and staff members. The evil just seems to be encroaching from every angle, every outlet of my existence here in Nam Kem, and awaiting me in Tallahasee.

And I quickly forget my serene existence and focus in on the cloud-filled sky...

I start to scrutinize God's choice of ambience.
The looming rain clouds over the ocean was killing one of my last chances for a Thai sunset.

And isn't that just the perfect picture of humanity at it's finest...
the moment God throws us a curve ball or takes a hope or a plan out of vision...
We forget about the comfortable life, the blessed existence that He has given us.
The noise in our heads overwhelms our senses: questioning and blaming and reevaluating.
And we can't seem to hear the gentle creek of the fishing boats as the waves roll in, or feel the wind cooling our burning cheeks....

And then we often do what I did tonight...
jump on the bike, rev up the engine and high tale it back to square one discouraged and saddened by the loss of OUR envisioned evening.

But friends, family, dear ones....
I urge you to look up.

As I boarded our ride back to our humble abode, I glanced up for a last time, hoping to complain yet again of our poor luck and bad weather...when I noticed a brilliant pink overtaking the sky.

We fled for the shore once more and were surprised to see what seemed to be the heavens opening.

Despite the clouds, almost in defiance of them...
rays of sun shot up and out,
reflecting off the water, through the cumulus ...creating THE most beautiful sunset I have witnessed in Nam Kem.

It was absolutely breath taking.

And I thought...well isn't that just like God:
to take this absolutely morose looking evening and my poor attitude and just shine through it.

This is my prayer for you, for those hurting, for those living and doubting and searching...

look up.

and be patient.

I know it sounds horribly corny, and grossly over-used...

but He really has hand-placed those clouds there, He planned for them to be there...and they will make that future, that sunset ,more brilliant, more dynamic, more GLORIFIED than you could have ever dreamed for with your best laid plans of a clear summer's night.

Trust His way and His time...hold tight to His promises and know that He is God.

For those of you feeling discouraged...read through 2 Samuel 22. It's impossible to swallow David's words of praise without being reminded of just how Awesome our God is.

You are in my prayers

and in His hands

always.

Quick-ee!

So our internet's been kinda crazy lately (apparently our modem is finally fed up with our 24/7 use of it)...so if I haven't written or called you...sorry! Im trying to get this out quickly, just in case I lose it again soon. I do find it a tremendous blessing that unlike other mission trips around the world...one of my biggest worries is a lack wireless internet. Oischka!

Prayer PLEASE:

Pastor Jason's father (who I mentioned before as battling hip infection of some sort) died in a massive heart attack yesterday (June 29) in the wee hours of the morning.
We praise the Lord that only 4 years ago, he had accepted Christ and was baptized by his son...so we are confident that he has left to meet his maker with great joy and lack of suffering.
However...please pray earnestly for the family left behind. Pastor Jason and Poh Lai were called in the middle of the night for an emergency rush back to Singapore for a 3 night memorial service and just comfort and organization of family issues. Please pray for their comfort and their strength.
*Especially pray for Pastor Jason for courage and composure as he delivers at the memorial....to the many unsaved family members and friends of his father. Pray that the Holy Spirit would move greatly and use this tragedy for His glory, so that all may know Him....through the peace and joy that will surely show in Jason and Poh Lai and in his father's life testimony.

Also pray for smooth sailing here at the CDC as we adjust to the absence of our leaders and another USA mission group arrives next weekend.

As always: thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

May the Lord be glorified as you live in the joy that He provides daily!

Collage of my ASC kids!

Praises

So I feel convicted that I've presented a few of my blogs with more complaints and prayer requests than praises.
I think I was trying to prove to everyone that I wasn't just on a vacation, watching Thai sunsets and playing with litle kids everyday (though those perks many never lose their luster)...that I was learning and growing and this place and this experience was teaching me things and challenging me in new and crazy ways that I hadn't even anticipated.

But I fear that in the midst of that effort, I might have misled my readers to believed that it has been ALL stretching and ALL work...and I dont emphasize nearly enough just what a tremendous blessing these people, this place, and my God has been to me in these 3 weeks. My biggest frustration has actually been that I dont have ENOUGH to give, that I dont have the skills or the language or the time or the resources to make an outstanding difference here like my prideful self wishes desperately to make. Instead...I just continue taking, just continue soaking it all in, continue to have fun and enjoy the beauty that I miss at home, and play with the children that Im too busy "teaching" back in the States.
Im learning so much...about life, about my future, about the universal human condition, and God's hand in...EVERYTHING.

This week has been FULL of reassurment and blessings that I would just like to praise God for:

- We started a women's bible study for the ministry team about "Discerning the Voice of God"...and that's just been fantastic- sharing testimonies and learning more about our loving shephard Christ together day by day.

- I got permission to start my dance class on Saturday, and it went fantastically. Im teaching them how to praise God the best way I personally know how to. The girls and boys were running up to me Sunday showing me what they learned and asking to be taught more...excited about next week! Tee hee. I've got little Thai kids doing pierettes across the kids room floor.

-I think Im finally starting to gain familiarity, authority and lasting friendships with the kids...their recognizing me for more than my whiteness, calling me by name and begging for playtime...Im in heaven.

- An American team arrived yesterday...which means not only new fellowship with some really cool people, but American breakfast, community adventures, and English worship/ devotionals!

So thank you for your prayers everybody...they are working miracles here!
Check out this link for some more pictures of my ASC and youth kids!

http://fsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2258691&l=d7c8d&id=5251386

Many love and blessings!

Pronounced Claim of His Majesty

After nearly a weeks worth of rain (welcome to Monsoon season), the sun has finally decided to tend to its daylight duties, and so I take advantage of break in the day and ride down to my personal pagoda on the beach to write and read...and rest.



I sit in the middle of the official tsunami memorial...










...a Thai park filled with Buddhist-inspired gardens, architecture and monuments....and my favorite sitting spot.




Everything seems so quiet, so peaceful...still and tranquil.

But then I allow my senses to open and my perspective to broaden just so...and I peer over the rock barrier and watch the waves of the channel clash from afar. As my eyes weave closer, I see the whirlpools churning in the distance and trace in vain a clear line of foam...as the surge races to to the shore.

I journey from my comfort zone, crawl down to rest atop the rock wall, only but a couple feet from the present shore line. I feel the mist, the spray from the crescending mountain tops, hear the climaxing roar of the mighty orchestra.

It's powerful and poetic...
the true meaning of majesty.

Not the kind of majesty that is sung to bounce off the walls to a congregation staring to nowhere, but the kind of majesty that is pronounced through the walls to a world in desperate need.

The kind of majesty that grows and builds,
it flies and leaps upwards to meet its fellow cerulean body,
gallops, sprints, glides, rolls outward, through, forward to FIGHT its blockade of earth and rock.

The kind of majesty that cannot be contained, that reaches beyond any fathomed heights and widths, that destroys its obstacles and replenishes its path, that fits and bends and leaks into every pore of dry sand, every rocky crevice of shore.

A majesty that does NOT promote quiet, does NOT promote stagnation and security,
but instead REJOICES in the POWER
of change and flexibility, of spreading and stretching, of engulfing the shores every morning with its energy and tireless churning and recedes to reveal gifts of plenty and a beautiful peace, a piece of land, pieces of sand and shell and rock and all that the undercurrent could offer...with the everlasting promise of return and rebirth.

Romans 1 speaks of how, from the beginning of time, since the creation of man and nature and all the lies therein, God made it undeniably evident that He existed, that He was almighty creator, majestic God of gods. That everything that we needed to know about God: his eternal power, his divine nature and Godhead...had already been given to us.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse

You can see God in these waters, in His seas and oceans...

No matter how many Buddhist altars, royal shrines, rock gardens, and man-made, modern monuments...the sea, our GOD can NOT be quieted,can NOT be contained, can NOT be ignored.
Our God's unchanging, everchanging, kingdom surrounds it all...it COMMANDS attention, beckoning His people, His creation, His beloved to greater things, to farther nations, to a higher, more powerful, more complex ruling MAJESTY.

His kingdom was not meant to be quiet and peaceful like that of Buddha,
but rather His Kingdom was meant to be loud, meant to be revolutionary and (gasp!) offensive.
It was meant to be something you could not just sit and be comfortable with, sit and work inward on, sit in a crowd, on a pew and sing on Sundays.
NO!
His sea, His Kingdom, His followers, His church were meant to defy the boundaries, to crash against the rocks, to challenge the shoreline, to step outside the doors and tear down the walls, to do far greater and more spectacular and mightier things through HIS winds, and HIS waters, and HIS WORD....for the sake of HIS lands, HIS people.

I am NOT ASHAMED of the gospel for it is THE POWER of God through salvation for everyone who believes - Romans 1:16
-----------------------------------

Upon arrival to this village (about 2.5 years ago), the various Christian groups (including Calvary Chapel, CDC, and several others) declared CLAIM to this village as Christ's own.

With all due respect however, I must interject...

God had already laid claim to the village as His own long before the missionaries of this village were even born.
He commanded power and attention from this village and the Christian community with the tsunami... And now I believe this village is ripe for the planting- the hurt, the pain, the questions, the children...their all searching for answers. And finally there is someone besides the Buddhist monks to answer them.

Is it worth losing the lives, losing the souls of 3/4 of a lost village, so that the quarter remaining may know true, everlasting life?
Does it take a catastrophe to WAKE US UP, to push us that extra inch off the cliff into the unknown?
We should be running and diving off that cliff! We have the power behind us!- "If God be for us, who can be against us?"- Romans 8:31

I want to encourage you- whoever and wherever you are...to JOIN THE REVOLUTION. To take hold of this mighty power that God has issued you to change, to save lives with-
that same mighty power that He controls the oceans, the clouds, the lightening, the wind with!

--------------------------------------------------

This same park, which to the lazy eye and ignorant spirit exalts men and a man-made religion, and institution...
is in a crazy (assuredly unplanned) way memorializing the God that conquered that human nature through salvation, that conquered evil at its finest, that conquered the death, destruction, and sorrow that consumed this village two and half years ago.

It preserves that power.
It is a memorial to the all consuming, unbridled, mightiness of God, of Jehovah spoken of in the Old Testament.

For me, above all, It is a reminder, a horrific shout for attention, of the thousands of souls lost forever in its wake,

and a missional statement, to reach and work and smile and love the ones mercifully left behind.

It is a pronounced CLAIM of His majesty above ALL.
Psalm 145:
4One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.
5On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
6They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.
7They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

I challenge you to commit to that joy, that love, that mission, HIS mission in your life (as I work to do the same)...to NOT become stagnant and comfortable and quiet, to never stop running, never stop growing and stretching and pushing on those barriers (no matter how rocky)...to lay CLAIM to your neighboorhood, your school, your household
and pronounce the claim of His Majesty, our King.

Joyful, tired, blessed, trialed, holy, human revolution for the Kingdom of God!

Painted hands, dirty knees, frizzy hair...my sweaty self is a sight to behold when I finally resign to our bedroom at the setting of the sun and the subsequent ending of activities.
I gaze scoffingly at my books piled high on my dresser and laugh outloud at my latent theory that Thailand would finally provide me the free time I craved to catch up on all the novels my friends had assigned throughout the year.

Funny stuff there....free time? in Thailand? doing full time ministry?

What was I thinking?

I've got everything BUT free time. Daily schedule consists of wakeup, run, devotion, staff meeting, english class, craft prep, curriculum planning, lunch, ASC, english class, dinner, late night something or others, and bedtime chat with family.

I am always always on call, always running slightly behind and curiously ahead, always cutting out some shape or cleaning up some mess, thinking up a field trip or writing up a worksheet...
And Im just the 2 month wannabe. The real work lies in the hands of all those other crazy people below that run EVERYTHING and ANYTHING under the CDC sun.

And I feel like a wimp...by the time 4 o clock rolls around and my peak craft time has started, Im spent! Something about the heat, the food, the work, the language...and just the out-of-shapeness screams for a nap.

And Im loving it!

Im learning more, working harder, being stretched farther than I ever have in such a short period of time...and Im still absolutely EXCITED to wake up in the mornings (though Im sure my sluggish movement doesnt suggest such to my roomie).

Im EXCITED to run to the pier and talk to God with the sunrise, to meet with the staff and pray in a language I may never fully understand, to laugh at my pharang-ness and try to keep up with the sugared-up teenagers, to work through and with our entrepreneaurs English trials, to figure out exactly how much red, blue, and white will make a recognizable shade of purple paint, to cut and paste and rewrite colored-over names 7 times.

God's been answering my prayers and showing me my purpose, revealing little tidbits of his will for my life, and leading me towards his divine plan...while at the same time blowing my mind with questions and second guesses, challenging my abilities/ commitment and pushing my limits- demanding that this life, my life is claimed, is bought and sold out, is taken captive by Jesus Christ.

AWESOME STUFF.

So thank you everyone for your prayers and your comments of encouragement (they mean more to me than I have the words or time to write).
Though Im struggling with energy level...God's given me peace and help with a couple of my previous concerns:

• Language barrier- though still overwhelmingly there...is becoming less of a focus as I learn how to work around it and use God's universal language of hugs and smiles to build relationships


• Mommy sent me a giant box containing some of my favorite foods (American food after 2 weeks straight of Thai food only)- thanks so very much!


• A Singapore team arrived Wednesday, containing all English speaking 20-year-old- somethings, and some good girlfriends to perk me up again...not to mention 15 extra sets of hands, new adventures (clamming!), and English worship service to go along with them!


• Steve's Mom (though hospitalized for internal bleeding caused by the needlepoint test), was succesfully operated on, recieved results that her liver spot was benign, and is due out of the recovery wing by Monday (praise God!- thanks again for prayers!).

The blessings just seem to be overflowing here (hand in hand with the trials that like to follow in any ministry's footsteps). I am just...so very very thankful to be in such a beautiful place, with such a busy schedule, such a wonderful staff, and such faithful friends and family praying for me in my travels.

I must return to the massive ping-pong/ badminton tournament that's being held as I type...but I love you all and I pray that God will open the doors and tug on the hearts that need be, so that you may experience this joyful, tired, blessed, trialed, holy, human revolution for the kingdom of God.

Scars of Thailand

Dirt brown feet from the Sunday floor, bruised ankles from a barefoot game of soccer, scraped calf from climbing the kids' tree, small welts from my arch enemy (code name MOSQUITO), sore back from countless piggy back rides, moon shaped stick on earings attached to my lobes from the teenage girls and sticky hair from the humid salt air of Coral beach...

so this is what it feels like to be one of the happiest and most blessed women on the planet! :)

Our God is good!

The past couple of days (as predicted) were jam-packed: filled with activities, wanna-be-stresses, and unprecedented joy!

Yesterday began with an errand run for us two American girls into Khao Lok. Hop and a skip later, add on a couple hours, and a quick jot out to see a secret beach and you've got my Saturday morning.

11:30- We're back at the CDC, loading up the truck full of free food. 150 kids meals to be exact (God bless our Burmese cooks)...all given away to the kids of Nam Kem in 2 hours flat!

1:30- Youth group met in much the same manner as that of Faith or Harbor's: complete with crazy youth pastor (P'Lek), hilarious/ pointless games of ping pong relays, followed by markered mustache punishment, and some good ol' gospel presentation!

5:30- ASC orientation- got to meet the kids I'll be working with for the rest of my stay, as well as their parents...cant wait to hold those little munchkins!
A couple more hours of swinging and running...interupted by a couple games of sapak and random ballet lessons from yours truly...then out for dinner with some kids.

We went to the noodle shop for a starter (parked outside the 711...it's basically the McDonalds of Thailand), followed by a stroll through the night market, which landed me with a tasty treat of some type of fried bannana sugar concoction made by the Muslims.

Then sleep! Yay!

Woke up this morning with a head stopped up FULL of allergies (Thank you Mom for making me pack the Benedryll). Sunday school pickup was at 9:30 ( I dont know how these people do this 24/7, 365 days a year!)...again I stuck with the younger youth...I think Im really starting to make a connection with several of the girls (even despite the language barrier), so just some time alone, playing with them and building up our budding relationships has been a super-awesome-God-blessed thing for me.

Later we had adult worship, followed by a truck ride to the beach for one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen for quite a while (see above).

Sorry to make this such a cut and dry post...I think if I ellaborated on it...I could very well make this last a couple hundred pages long, and Im sure Im not nearly as interesting as I think I am half the time.

Bottom line: God's doing some awesome things here in Thailand.

Despite still missing our leaders and launching a few programs in such chaotic midst...things are running relatively smoothy (prayers are working-keep em coming!). And despite my language barrier, I AM able to connect with the students via play, mime, my little Thai combined with their little English, and some shared smiles. Its just been an awesome weekend that reassured me that this is where Im supposed to be- Im here with purpose, Im here for His glory.

All good stuff. All praises.

Our God is an awesome God.

More to come tomorrow (first day of ASC- prayers needed for organization, leadership, and open/obedient chillins!).

Love you all!

PS- Check out that photo link (posted under the blog: My Coke Can Says Land of Smiles) again...Ill continue to post more and more pictures day by day!