Bathrooms

It's hard to believe I've already been here over two weeks. To be honest, I'm exhausted. My first week of teaching is officially over! My students are really sweet so far and funny. Today I had my first accident, maybe not the kind your thinking of but a motorbike accident. My hands and legs are covered in what they call road rash. They burn but I was pretty lucky. Of course I never drive very fast but for some reason it made me think of the bathrooms around town. Maybe because that is where I clean myself up. Some our downright disgusting so I chose not to picture those. Here are a few fun photos.

 

Notice that they even have a separate handicap bathroom!

I've conceited that I'm in survival mode. It's okay. I just have to remind myself that it takes awhile to adjust. I also pictured bathrooms because anyone traveling in another country knows you have to always be prepared!

Right now my mind is so tired of processing things and Lao. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm understanding or misunderstanding because they talk so fast. I just nod my head and smile!

Ants in My Pants!

This is my fifth day in Laos but it seems like it has been so much longer! Sometimes I feel like these ants below. I'm racing around just trying to survive but it's okay. It will get better! I'm just still tired but so thankful to have the next two days to relax before my schedule begins. Whoever coined the phrase "there's ants in my pants" must have visited Laos. 

My room won't be put together for another week but that is okay. I really love the family I am with. They are so kind to me. The one thing that probably frustrated me the most the first day I was here was that we had no towels to dry our hands on. I bought some but was frustrated with the quality  and then my roommate went out and bought some that work much better. I'm pretty sure they are scarfs but they actually dry! Towels here are horrible! I am so glad I brought two with me. That is one thing that hasn't changed but a lot has.

There are skyscrapers. I went with Camille to a conference for one of her jobs yesterday and the hotel it was at had six floors and it was gorgeous! Here is a picture of us at the hotel. Below wasn't even the lunch it was just a snack. The city has grown but I feel I'm getting my barrings. 

        

I also feel that the Father has been teaching me so much and stretching me to trust in His faithfulness. He is my provider and strength. He has provided one of my housemates to work on Lao with me while I teach her English. I was a little bummed at first that in most of my classes I am just teaching writing but I have one pronunciation class and will get to work on sounds with my housemates. I also have a thing with numbers if you haven't already noticed. 

The number 9 was present in my life in 3 series before I left. I was at training 9 days, on vacation 9 days and then I left for Laos 9 days later.

One site says- The number 9 is the number of judgement. It also means fruit of spirit or the divine completeness from the father. Nine is the ultimate which contains the forces of all other numbers. In the Word the number 9 stands for a complete cycle of growth. The nine generations from Adam to Noah (ninth from Adam) and Noah to Abraham (ninth from Noah) represents the stages of development and growth. Abram was ninety and nine years when he received covenant from his dad and his new name Abraham. Therefore symbolically his name reduces to number 9 indicating the period of time in which the spiritual cycle is completed. Also the addition of H to Abram’s carries a vibration 9. 

I believe this might be his way of encouraging me about the potential for his family to grow in Laos. It is also after 7 years that Nebuchadnezzar turned to his father with a loving heart. I've been gone 7 years and been keeping those I love in my thoughts.

The other number is 4. It has always been my favorite and at every restaurant I've eaten at since I've come I've always been number 4. I don't believe that is a coincidence! One site says-Number 4 is the number of stability, order and completion of justice. Number 4 is the number of the earth and mankind.Number 4 is the number of the square.Number 4 symbolizes building a strong foundation.There are four cardinal points:North – South – East – West. There are four winds.There are four phases of the moon.There are four seasons.In the West we have four elements: earth – air – fire – water.  Number 4 – A Perfect Number. The four-leaf clover is believed to bring luck to the finder,especially if it is found unexpectedly. Each of the four leaves symbolizes  special:hope – faith – love – Luck

The Pythagoreans believed the number four, the Tetrad, was a perfect number.They taught that the Tetrad symbolized God.In Pythagorean philosophy there are four parts to the soul:mind – opinion – science – sense. It also has many meanings in the word but perhaps my favorite is this- The fact, therefore, of the living creatures being four (and no other number) marks them as connected with Creation, and as a symbolical representation that its hope of deliverance from the curse is bound up with the blood-shedding of the coming Redeemer.

I don't know if you all connect the dots but good things for Laos I believe are in store here for me and others! He is my foundation, his judgement will someday come, but it is in his timing that He will I believe and hope graciously use me to grow His family! 

Counting the Costs

I leave in less than a week. And as I continue to sift through my stuff and rid myself of that which is untakable sadness overcomes me. I forget what it is like to lose everything earthly in pursuit of heavenly things. It's harder than I remember. I forget how nice it is to have financial security and a steady job. But my honorable father didn't call me to these things. He called me to be an ambassador in a familiar unfamiliar place. He took me in as his child and I want to share that honor bestowed upon me with others.

They're are many challenges I face like how I don't begin to get a salary from my support until I've been teaching a month. I think that its there way of combatting the fact that my support is one month shy of fully funded so I have to dip into savings just to survive. But they are the ones with little faith. I know he will provide all I need and hopefully more. I'm in a season of sadness- goodbyes to comfort, goodbyes to friends, goodbyes to stability and goodbyes to a culture where I was raised only to enter another which I love.

I'm in a season of sadness but it won't last. I'm looking forward to the joy that meets me as I arrive at Camilles door. The joy of reuniting with friends and  former coworkers. The joy of meeting with my team and getting to know them.

I fear expectations,  getting stuck in airports, not having money and misunderstandings in communication because of cultural differences. I hate it but I also know when push comes to shove my Lao friends will help me out. I hate that I'll have to rely on them but I know my father has it under control. He makes all things beautiful in his time!

I'm excited at the end of this month to enter Laos. I enter on the 28th and will be staying with a host family. Things will have changed but it will be good to adjust. I know at first it will be a struggle but it will grow on me just as it did in the past. I can't wait for all the new adventures that await! Thanks to those who make all this possible!

Provisions

I've been randomly reading books of the Bible and I have been in Leviticus. It has been interesting to see how many cultural aspects are similar to Laos. Today I read Leviticus 25 and it talked about harvesting for 6 years and not on the 7th but trusting in God's provision. I feel that this is what my last year has been and in a funny way it's 7 years since I've been there. It was a super rough year working at a job way below my pay grade but humbling. I realized how much I feel that teaching is a calling for me. I paid medical debt off making very little which was a miracle in itself and I was encouraged as well as got to encourage others.

I'm asking the father that he might give me a year of jubilee and renewal as I go back. There are still lots of unknowns but I have a place to live, friends that I work with and a loving Father. Please be lifting up that he would provide above and beyond what I need. I am at 35% support right now and need to be at 70% by the end of next week. I feel it will take a miracle but I serve a father of miracles. Please join me in uplifting that all $45,000 will come in before I leave in August or at least the majority of it. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and walking beside me during this journey. I couldn't do it without you!

Leprosy

I've been reading Philip Yancey's Where is God When it Hurts?  The thing that has stood out the most to me lately is his talk about leprosy. I also have been reading in Leviticus and the past two days have been on the same topic. It talks about pain and how it serves us, without it we would have a huge void. It tells us when to slow down and when to stop. We utilize it every day.  We take it for-granted especially when we go through something that is hard. God allows pain in our lives so that we can connect more closely with one another and Him.

The worst part about being a leper would not have been the loss of arms or ligaments. It was the inability to feel many sensations and express oneself. Till reading this book I hadn't realize what frustration it must be to be a leper. They can't express themselves in any way.  They don't feel the pain but they must still feel that emotional sadness. The inability to connect with others. "Like muscles, our senses can atrophy."

We live in a society where I feel many people walk around as emotional lepers afraid or unable to communicate their feelings. We isolate ourselves, we justify consumerism and the collection of junk to feed our voids when relationship is the only true thing that satisfies. Technology connects but also destructs. We lose our reason, we worship ourselves instead of our creator forgetting the sacrifices He has made. We live in a dangerous age and my prayer is that the Lord spares us and we turn our hearts towards Him and away from this world. May I seek each day to bring a little bit of heaven to earth. Without pain there is no pleasure. Imagine not being able to experience both.

Philip Yancey quotes George Wald "We somehow hope to live full emotional lives when we have carefully expunged the sources of the deepest human emotions. When you have no experience of pain, it is rather hard to experience joy."

The Good in the Bad

I have a family I met 3 years ago when I was teaching the mother English. They have become good friends. She is married and has 2 kids one in the 8th grade and one in the 5th. Her 8th grader and I have also become good friends. She is a kind-hearted child and a kindred spirit. Inadvertently looking back over the past 2 years I have kind of discipled her. She is more talented than I will ever be. She is in band, choir and now color guard. Her confidence and kindness for such a child blows me away.

 For years she has played the keyboard. Last Monday night for her band recital they brought out a grand piano. She had never touched one but played beautifully in front of a live audience. My job was to tape it for the family. I wanted to portrait the magnitude in the video so as she began to play I stood up and walked down the aisle to the walkways. As I stood up the camera lid fell off my lap. I recorded the whole thing teary eyed from amazement but when it was over my heart sank.

 I thought I the lid had rolled down, down, down way down the stage below, It dropped had dropped at least 20 feet. I sat there anxiously the rest of the concert. The mom did not say anything because she didn't want to make me feel worse and could tell how nervous I was. All that was going through my head is okay it's just money I'll buy them a new one but hopefully they won't have to wait to long and the screen won't get scratched. This is like an $800 camera guys so not anything cheap. When it was over the 5th grader plunged through the aisles searching. Every muscle in my body clinched. When she held up the lid I began to cry and sing "God is so good." tears of joy and laughter coated my face as she laughed too. 

The 8th grader had been having sharp pains in her side, that Wednesday she was admitted to the hospital. For a year a cyst had been growing on her ovaries and it was 6 inches in diameter! Over the past few days the mother, daughter and I would sing that same song. We changed it to crying is good, crying is so good, crying is so good sometimes you just gotta cry. And ice cream is so good ice cream so good ice cream is so good it is yummy in my tummy and also sang God is so good. This has been a trying year but our Father makes each year a little harder and a little better. The things he has brought me through this year amaze and scare me. I don't know what depths lay next but I know He is faithful and good even when I don't see it. 

The 8th grader had surgery, is doing well and still healing. Last night I sat with her for 2 hours while visitors talked with her parents about it. I am thankful that He made me an intuitive person because her eyes became tearful and voice a bit whimpery and nervous so we talked about other things. This was a good reminder to me of how easily it is to get blinded like a non-believer by the pain of this world. We need to be distracted sometimes to see the good things around us. There have been times when I am so tuned into the pain of this world that I forget He has carried it all, there is a bigger picture. I am thankful for community that helps to lift me up when I hit rock bottom. I ask the Father for that in Laos and that for you all that He would put people in your life that distract you with his goodness and remind you that he is faithful and good. I am thankful that He used me in this 8th graders life as a reminder to myself to. He works in mysterious ways. What a wonderful, intriguing Father He is. Sometimes we are the ones blessing but sometimes we are the ones being blessed, and sometimes it is both. Last night was one of these moments for me.

End of an Era

Today I speak at a Hmong Fellowship which is a bit nerve racking but I'm asking my Father for His provisions. I talked with one of my good friends in Laos a few weeks ago and she lifted me up. She asked our dad that I might meet with people who were blessed to be a blessing and able to give. I loved her simple words and I'm trying to live by them. I am thankful that I am not overwhelmed by the money but I am still nervous as I am only at 25% of what I need. I'm lifting up what I can do differently.

Tomorrow ends an era in my life. I have worked for 13 months at a Thrift Store. It has been hard and humbling and I am glad to end this season but a little sad to leave behind the customers and coworkers that I've gotten to know. 

Tomorrow evening I am also speaking at an all girls group. I hope a lot of them come. Then I'm speaking again at a group I was a part of for years.  Please be asking that the Father points me in the right direction. He's always been faithful but sometimes my flesh takes over. May I have the courage to ask for money without fear. May I fear the Lord more than I fear what man thinks of me.

This has been a very full year. I have had my sororities 60th anniversary, Cru's 50th anniversary and now in August I'm heading to Laos. There are a lot of unknowns but He continues to build my trust.

Please be lifting up stamina and that I would be faithful and diligent with my time. I will be nannying 3 days a week leaving me more time to rest and support raise. I have hit some low lows this year but He sought me through. I used to think each year was harder because of choices I made but now I realize it's because of His grace and not what I do but what He has done so I can be more and more like Him.

Vision

Our Father continues to solidify my vision. I still have many needs but He is faithful to provide. I am at about 20% but continue to meet with others and ask him for his provision. I am reminded of Matthew 7:7 and I ask not only for finances but him to prepare hearts so that I might be able to have new brothers and sisters. I've been reading Ezra and the other day I asked our Father to help me trust in His provisions. The next  day I read  Ezra 7:21-23. It talks about doing our fathers work and giving Ezra whatever he needs to do that. I am not building a physical temple but an indwelling in people. I ask that others understand that and desire for new family members as much as I do.

I also have been thinking about the power of multiplication and how he has used me to multiply His kingdom on earth over the past few years all within the Lao people group. He is sending me and I am being faithful. I am unsure if I will be able to be there more than one year but who am I to limit what our Father can do. Please continue to uplift me in this transition phase.

Story from the Thrift

There are days when I wonder what the Father has done but I cannot deny that all things work together for his good. I've been overwhelmed and stuck in a job full of people who seem hopeless. I work at a thrift store and most of our customers come in with some really depressing stories. I often ask our daddy for help and advice on how to best show them love. It can be exhausting but I just see it as another step in preparing me for my journey overseas. I am thankful for some great co-workers who encourage and watch out for me and I for them. I find out in the next few weeks my placement in which city. I am hoping for Vientiane but am okay with where ever it might be knowing now is the time to go back.