One Step at a Time

I started to write a post on Sunday morning... I honestly had every intention of just writing about and sharing about our amazing Sabbath adventures. However, Sunday afternoon happened, and changed all my plans.

All? Okay, some.

I would tell you to buckle your seatbelts, but they don't use such things over here. In fact, I think I may have forgotten how to use one after all of this. In that case, just grab the nearest available object and hang on for dear life.

Why, you ask?

Because when God gets going and He starts changing a life, it can be spell-binding. Blinding. Weakening. Overpowering.

...amazing.

Whose life, you may wonder aloud to yourself?

....mine.

How's He doing that?

One step at a time.

Part 1--Into My Heart

You must understand this one thing fully: this missionary has not been to a church service in probably close to a month.

A month?

Very nearly, yes. 

Sickness took me out for a long time. But not today. I got up (or rather, was awakened by a trusty alarm clock with two feet who came into my room chattering something about breakfast and other interesting tidbits til I was fully awake), got ready, and ended up down at the chapel just on time. It felt strange to be ascending those stairs: I felt like a stranger as I took my seat on the side, on the floor. The night before I'd given the worship talk there, so I had been there before now, but I still felt awkward. The stares of hundreds of little children (and big children!) fixed on me, it seemed. 

And yet, I was strangely at peace. Strangely happy, and content--like I hadn't been since arriving in Thailand. God, what are You doing? I glanced heavenward, looking a little wry. You're starting to break those chains in earnest, aren't You?

Church went well. Long, but well. By the time we were finished, however, and I had scaled the concrete mountain back to the house, exhaustion had overtaken me. A mild headache throbbed in my temporal region, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

But sleep was not destined to be my refuge that afternoon. Not at all. God had much bigger, higher, and more beautiful ideas for me.

Plans had been made earlier in the week to have Sabbath lunch at Michael and Inge Ross's house, with all the "gullawa" families and their respective little ones, as a sort of farewell for Mark and Kim, a couple who has been here a few months and are leaving on Tuesday.  People bustled around, getting food ready to take over and carrying things out to the car. I sat in my room and took some ibuprofen, seriously considering just staying there. But then, destiny called.

"Heidi! We're ready to go!"

"Coming!" a almost-less-than-enthusiastic young lady replied. 

I grabbed my camera and headed for the door.

Am I glad I got up and went? Affirmative. Riding on the back of the station wagon with the wind in my hair, combined with the ibuprofen from earlier, seemed to banish the headache, and by the time we got to the Ross's, I felt pretty good. And when I saw the kitchen, I felt even better.

What a feast! Unlike any Thai food I've had since coming here... I could go on and on about it. Now that you're dying to know, we had spaghetti. No, I'm not kidding. Spaghetti....and garlic bread and hummus and carrots and peas and tapioca pudding and coconut ice cream popsicles... I confess I think I ate too much. Not that I didn't normally eat that much at home, but it's certainly more than I've eaten for awhile! American food like that was like a window to home from the middle of the Thai jungles, and oh, how I loved it.

The Steck clan packed up a little while before 2:00 pm, and headed back for the house. Several of us were wanting/needing to go on the branch Sabbath school outing, which would take us back up into the mountains to a little village, to visit and have studies with a newly-baptized couple there. (If you haven't seen my other post on going to this same village once before, it's called Over the River, Through the Woods.) When we got home, we already had a crowd waiting and ready to go.

I had no intention of really going at first. But all my fifth graders...the 5th graders I hardly have seen and hardly know and who hardly know me at all... were going. And when Jaw Nyew Aye asked me if I was going too, I said yes. Call it fate if you will. I call it GOD.

I got in the car, and decided that rather than sit in the backseat like a normal person, I would sit in the open window with my camera around my neck and hang onto the rack on the top of the car and let the wind make a mess of my hair and take pictures along the way, like a normal Heidi. I got situated in the window, snapping a couple of pictures, and then everyone was ready to go.

However, as the Adam's truck, full of my students, began to pull out, the kids noticed that their English teacher was sitting in the window and that she had every intention of riding that way! Talk about shock. I saw a mouth fall wide open when Eh Paw Shee saw me sitting there; the boys all stared at me, nudging one another and talking about "Tharamoo" with these looks of amazement and amusement. We headed out after a prayer.

As we pulled out of the driveway, we passed a little group of students, including one of my seventh grade boys. As our car passed, I smiled at all of them: and his mouth came open, his eyes got wide, and he stared after his crazy English teacher with a look of shock, and a smile that was irrepresible.

(On a side note, on our way back from the branch Sabbath school, a bunch of my 5th grade girls wanted to have Sharon take their pictures with me. After having seen me in a crazy moment, am I not so scary anymore? Maybe... But I think God is working in my life, personally. And praise God for that.)

I say with all the conviction I can muster: You have not experienced Thailand until you have ridden on the outside of a large moving vehicle for an extended amount of time. The things you see! The things you, hear, smell, feel... It's incredible. I rode for about an hour that way, wrapped up in the beauty surrounding me and feeling it as if it were a divine hug of love from my Father in Heaven. Revel in the beauty, My child. Soak it in: and realize that you're in the process of being freed. I brought you here not to break you, but to make you.

We arrived at the village, and I clambered out of the car. A few thunderheads approached on the distant horizon as I rounded the front of the station wagon.

It didn't take me long to notice him: wandering around in the dirt, in puddles of nasty water, barely big enough to be walking--a tiny brown puppy. A few of the students stopped to pet him, but they all filed back towards the hut where we would have our study. I couldn't take my eyes off the little pup, however, and when Maria stopped to show the puppy to Jabez, her adopted little boy, I stopped too. And after Maria had picked him up and looked at him, she handed him to me.

The man who owned the place began to talk to Maria. She smiled and almost laughed. "He wants me to take him home." He said that the puppy was part of a litter of three, two of which had died just the day before. The mother was also dead. "He's a month old," Maria told me, translating. "And he says he eats rice."

The puppy fell asleep in my hands after chewing on my thumb for awhile. Worship finished, it started to pour down rain, and everyone ran for the cars. I was one of the last, with my camera...and a little puppy, still clutched in one hand.

I jumped in the car and Harvey looked at me. "What is this?" I grinned.

I have a plastic tub in my room with a blanket in the bottom. Tucked into that blanket is a tiny brown puppy that we've started calling "Camo;" namely because he blends in with the floor so well he's nigh been stepped on a few times, and because a better name hasn't been forthwith in coming. He's sleeping.

What can I say? I've never had a dog before, especially not one that was mine. But you see, there's a problem. It seems I'm destined to fall in love with something everywhere I go that makes it hard to leave when the time comes. I'm only here for five more months. And I have a puppy.

What is God doing?

I'm not entirely sure...

But one thing I know.

He's using a little handful of puppy to teach me something about how He loves me, and how I ought to love others. 

Because, see, He found me wandering in the dirt and slime of this world. And He picked me up and held me close....and in a way, like this little puppy, I snuggled down into God's heart, and He hasn't let me go since. 

Have I made mistakes? Absolutely. Has Camo made mistakes? If you call walking right off the porch and falling a good five feet down onto concrete a mistake, or having accidents all over the place a mistake, then absolutely. But I haven't given up on him... And my Father hasn't given up on me.

Oh, the things we learn about love...

...when something like that snuggles into your hands, and right down into your heart.

I call him "little one" at this point. It's pretty easy to see why.

Food! He's eating rice and pumpkin right there.... He's had that and rice milk, tofu pieces, and yes, he loves papaya. 

Although he's technically mine (namely because I'm the one who took off with him), he's really everyone's puppy. We all love him.

Being kept awake at night was something I didn't reckon for when I put his plastic tub/bed in my room, but hey--it must be something like having a baby in the room that's yours. It's a good experience...although I found myself wishing I could get more sleep, and asking myself, "Now, remind me of why I did this again?"

Looking at that is all the reminder I need.

SABBATH

Koo Koo Paw! Sweet little girl, and my goodness, what a personality!

I believe she was sharing Inge's tapioca pudding here. Boy, that stuff was good!

"Go, Koo Koo Paw; go!" The other baby is Timothy.

When you're little like that, the best option sometimes is to just look up and pucker your lips.

Koo Koo Paw: "Look at that!"

Timothy: "Hmph."

"Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord..."

"Um, excuse me?"

Jabez, Maria's little boy, decided to join in the fun.

Miss Sharon. :)

Everything is fascinating.

Jaw Nyew Aye saw my camera; hence, the face.

Off we go! Hanging out the window to take pictures was a challenge, but amazing.

Stopped just outside of Mae Salit, waiting to head up the mountains.

You have not lived til you experience something like this.

Kids; singing, making faces at me, staring at me, you name it.

On our way back, we stopped at a lookout. On side of the valley looked like this...

...and the other side looked like this.

My 5th grade girls who wanted pictures with me.

A 5th grade girl, and the cook, Daygwemo.

Me, "little one," and Eh Paw Shee.

Another 5th grade girl. Thankfully, the boys aren't asking for pictures with me....yet. 

Hannah, Maria, and Jabez.

I'll admit I was jealous of these guys: they got to ride on top of the pickup.

Words fail. We had Harvey stop the car in the middle of the road so Brenda and I could run to the edge of the trees and take pictures.

There is nothing like a Thai sunset. Nothing.

No, I'm not kidding. We saw so many cows on that road, strung across it, lying in the middle of it, and meandering along the edge of it, that I lost track of them all. 

Part 2-- When Dreams Breathe

A story in pictures will suffice for this, I think. We got a bunch done on Sunday morning, and headed into Mae Sot for lunch at a restaurant, after which we headed up into the mountains again. What for?

Well, take a look...

We drove up into the mountains and stopped here. Can you read the sign and tell me where we went?

The most reliable source of running water in this country: waterfalls.

Did Brenda call this a trumpet flower? I don't remember...

Look again. He was as big as my thumbnail: and I assure you, it is a spider.

Standing on a bridge, taking pictures. I had the puppy in my Karen bag, fast asleep by now. That water looked so inviting. The water-lover in me screamed to be allowed to immerse itself in the falls, but common sense prevailed...for the moment.

These trees will never cease to amaze me. Never.

I wish you could see what a cloud of yellow butterflies, reflecting the sunlight through almost-transparent wings, fluttering around you in a myriad of wings and motion, looks like. In person.

Miss Hannah. :)

Poor Sharon: forgot her crutches for the day's activities. She's been having to battle a sprained knee lately. Good thing she had her knee brace with her.

Hannah and I are sitting on vines. Yes, they're vines, even though I didn't think so at first. Incredible!

View from my perch on the vines.

Yes, he's everyone's puppy.

Now that your jaw is lying on the floor, let me explain. Hannah and I stuck our feet in the water, discussing the potential of actually just getting in. The urge was getting too great for me, and Hannah wavered. I was told that they've brought students here before and that the kids slide down the waterfall. I was also told the pool was incredibly deep, so there was no chance of my hitting the bottom. I had no intentions of sliding down that waterfall... but I had to take a peek at it from up top, you know.

Tempting myself and fate.

Hannah, down below, told me to just go. I held up my shoes by way of response. She told me to throw them. You can't see it well, but the look on my face in this picture is one of complete puzzlement. I wonder if Hannah is speaking to me in Karen again...

Well, now that I'm up here, I may as well get a little closer and a little more wet.

Okay, or alot.

Exhilaration unlike any I'd felt before. For me, this really was a dream come true. Ever since I was little, I wanted to slide down a waterfall... I imagine God must've been smiling while He watched. 

Oh boy, here it comes...

I resurfaced, eyes wide and mouth unable to speak proper English. Such a thing as I ever knew existed!

This is my "that-was-so-awesome-I-am-so-doing-that-again-and-Hannah-you-should-do-it-too" look.

Thankfully I didn't have to drag her up there, even though she was hesitant.

Harvey took some pictures, and he also took videos, which for the sake of slow internet I am not going to attempt to post. But they really show what it was like... You all missed out.

Inching forward....

There she goes!

 

As a side note, we got Brenda to come up and do it as well, but Harvey shot video of it. Guess you'll all have to wait to see those til I get home--but let me tell you, it was amazing fun. We did it a few times, then decided to head out and run up to one more waterfall by the road.

Thailand may not have alot of wildlife, but they sure make up for it with insects. It's a spider!

Speaking of spiders...

Will someone please tell me that I'm justified in thinking that that is huge? It's not the biggest one I've seen, though. On our way up to the branch Sabbath school the day before, I was sitting in the window and happened to look up at a tree top and saw a spider web there: and a spider sitting in the middle of it, with a leg circumference big enough to circle my head! *shudder*

It doesn't look like a very tall waterfall from the road, but believe me, if someone tried to slide down that, that would be the end of them.

Up top I rather expected to find a pool of water. I found instead shallow water running over and around one flat rock, smooth like tile. Oh, it was beautiful...and shame on me for not getting a picture of it. We had Harvey bring my camera up, as you will see evidenced in the coming photos, but I forgot to get a picture of the top there where I'm standing in this one.

Hannah and I, looking less wet and a little wind-blown after having ridden on the back of the station wagon for 15-20 minutes or more, up winding roads and through hair-pin curves and over potholes so big you almost needed a bridge to cross them--well, almost.

We had to climb a little higher than I originally intended, just for curiosity's sake. And this is what we found.... :)

My partner in adventure (can't exactly say crime, as we weren't really being naughty).

Just beautiful... and way too tempting to stay out of, especially after having been wet already.

At the edge, contemplating a plunge.

"Hannah, will you hold my camera a moment?"

Ever sat in a waterfall?

Ever sat in it like that?

I sat up, looked at Hannah and went, "What are you doing over there? Get over here!" She handed the camera to Harvey, who served at photographer for the rest of the time we were up there.

"Honest, Hannah, you have to try it..."

 Notice that I was sitting where most of the water was flowing. I was telling Hannah that she needed to switch places with me so she could really feel the water...

She did, I guess. 

Anyone have an appropriate caption for this?

We were laughing so hard... SO hard. Oh wow...

Okay, time to go dunk in the pool. We're already soaked to the skin..

 We crossed the pool, which was about chest deep, and rocky on the bottom, and stood in the other waterfall. This one felt like a back massage...a really really poundingly hard one.

Hannah: "Oh wow. That was amazing."

 Heidi: "I wanna get out and jump back in."

Hannah: "Um...isn't it a little shallow for that?"

Nope. Not at all.

 "Hannah! Come find me!"

There was a rock ledge there that I was sitting on, and Hannah sat there too. For a moment.

 Hannah: "Eee there's water in my ears!"

Heidi: "Really now."

Imagine our surprise when Brenda showed up. But oh, you should have seen her face! I wish I could've taken a picture of her when she saw Hannah and I swimming around in the pool there. Priceless. But she came in too...

...and that was a scream. Literally.

Hannah says, "Mom, you've got to come sit under the waterfall..."

Brenda says, "What are you doing to your poor mother?!"

We all laughed so hard at the facial expressions that came out of that exploit. I haven't laughed so hard in ages.

I wanna jump again!

 Hannah stood up there and shook her head. "Heidi, I have never done things like this before, ever." I grinned. Welcome to the world of having Heidi around.

Oh yes; c'mon in, Brenda!

Everybody, all at once!

 View from up top.

We clambered back down the rock face and found Sharon, puppy asleep in lap, enjoying the beauty of the falls on a rock. Her knee wouldn't allow her to climb up with us, but depend on it: we'll get her up there eventually.

Beauty

Call me crazy. But tonight I've been reveling in beauty.

Sheer beauty. Like no one on this earth can fully capture. Not even my highly-powered and efficient Nikon D7000. And I tried.

Standing outside, the chirp, whistle, hum and sing-song melody of a thousand and one insects ringing in perfect harmony through the still night, I just stood. The camera held idly in my hands, I stared up. No use--I'd tried to capture it, and the screen came out dark. I just wanted to revel in what I saw.

What did I see?

A night sky filled with millions upon millions of twinkling stars, glittering jewels of the highest purity and unattainability scattered on black velvet; blinking like pinpricks of light shining through a dense canvass of deep blue.

A half moon, glowing with such ferocity as to lighten the landscape, illuminate the stars, my upturned face, the driveway, and the banana trees: a pendulum suspend in the heavens casting its rich glow to the earth's sleeping face.

Tree trunks standing out like dark sentinels, silhouetted by the resplendent moon. Banana leaves, blades of grass, vines, branches--everything green now a shimmering silver, a deepening shadow. Light so bright I walked down the center of a silent highway, flashlight off and unused, eyes cast heavenward.

That's what I saw.

And then, as I stood still, listening, soaking in, revelling... To my right, a streak of fire across the heavens: a shooting star. A long tail streamed out behind the brief ray of light, and then it was gone. Still, you could see the trail it made in the sky--a misty trail, as if the star had shot right through Earth's atmosphere and the fire of the comet's tail left a trail of steam. Another moment, and the trail vanished as well.


It's a silent, still night in Thailand's distant mountains.

But a beautiful one.

I'm still reveling in the beauty.

My question, though, is this: I revel in the night sky, moon's soft glow, and shooting stars... Do I revel in the beauty that is the God I serve? The beauty that is the sacrifice Almighty King of All made for me? The perfect beauty in His person, His love, His face?

Do I revel in the beauty that is being able to be the love of God to a lost world? The loveliness that is His promise to be my hands, my feet, my lips, voice, heart, eyes, mouth, and soul in this land benighted with the shadows of evil? The beauty in being an emissary of the Ruler of the Universe, the Star-kindler?

Do I revel in the beauty that is being made perfect in His time? The beauty in being freed from a prison of fears, doubts, discouragements, and darkness? The beauty in being taught lessons by the Master Teacher, of waiting, of loving, of serving, of trusting? The beauty that is Christianity in it's entirety?

My eyes fill with the sight of a lustrous moon, shimmering stars, a lit landscape...

...while my heart fills with the wonder of a God whose breath gave existence to it all...

...and the fact that that same God--the Star-kindler: He whose eyes set the stars to glowing--has called me, made me promises, loved me, died for me, and wants me. More than anyone, more than anything.

That is real beauty.

Real Showers of Blessing

I'm not sure what pulled me out of my room. The rain outside? Perhaps, but I'd already been out--taking garbage out and whatnot.

I'll have you know, that hasn't been normal.

I looked at the rain, listened to the wind. I filled my water bottle up, picked up a mirror that fell out of a window due to the extreme winds, and grabbed the guitar, sitting on the bench outside my room and playing random chords. I got into a song, "Gather the Roses" by Derrol and Cindy Sawyer. Sharon sang along with me while the winds picked up, growing more fierce by the moment. Sharon got up to retrieve the orchid from the porch, and I popped into my room to grab my camera. Weather such as this needed documentation.

I videoed the rain, Sharon standing beside me, talking about thunderstorms and tornadoes and the like. We noticed a sarong or something out in the rain, on the ground: "It must've blown off the line under the house." Sharon went out to pick it up.

But she stayed out there. I took some pictures of her standing there, hands under the waterfall pouring off the eaves. She mentioned how great it would be to just stand in the rain and let it soak her.

I grinned. "I've wanted to do that more than once. Just go stand in the rain and get wet."

Sharon let the water beat on her hands. "I'd be soaked in seconds." She looked up at the clouds. "But I might just do it anyway."

I laughed.

Then, she turned and said, "And you know, you could come join me instead of shooting me."

That's a novel idea. The camera clunked onto the floor and footsteps died away, headed towards the door.

I maneuvered down the slippery steps and as I got to my shoes at the bottom, wind and water such as I'd never been in the middle of before blasted me with considerable force. I walked only maybe 10 yards to dry ground, where Sharon was, and I already dripped.

Sharon laughed when she saw me and we stood, hands under the incessant pour from the eaves. "You could take a shower in this."

I stepped forward and let the stream beat on the top of my head for a few seconds before stepping back out into the downpour. Sharon followed."Hey, we should walk to the end of the driveway and back!"

The rest, as they say, is history.

When we walked back up to the porch, Thara Mark (one of the short-term missionaries who's been here working with his wife, Kim, for the past few months) stood there, talking to Harvey. He sported a knee-length, shiny blue poncho with a hood. He looked at Sharon and I, with no sort of protection from the elements, and asked, "Out for a shower?" We just laughed.

In dry clothes once again, I wrung my soaking shirt out through the open window on the side of the house. I grinned as I watched the water being squeezed from my clothing. Funny I didn't do something like this before. The rain still dripped from the eaves. Too bad no one at home got to experience this.

I hung my clothes up to dry and then entered my dark little room again. I sat on my bed...and did nothing. I realized that I really didn't want to be sitting in here--alone. Or in here at all. I got up to fill my water bottle up again. And returned. And sat. In the dark. In the silence. Alone.

Why?

That's a really good question.

I'm finding I don't want to be "stuck" in here anymore. I mean that. It's probably the first time I've felt that way since getting here. I recall going to YD and hiding in my room for months... Yes, it took months. It was January before I started really coming out. I got there in September. You do the math.

I got here in September. It's nearing the end of October. Only almost two months.

I call that improvement.

Never would have guessed that a thunderstorm would break a chain and made the prison walls to tremble, would you?

That's what you call a real shower of blessing.

 

The after results of our brief and highly saturating expedition to the end of the driveway and back.

Out of the Blue

It sorta happened out of the blue. And sorta not.

I'd tried before...and failed, in my estimation. It just didn't work. Wouldn't work. And that was that.

What am I talking about?

....Art.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've scribbled on paper. Pencil, markers, colored pencils, crayons, coloring books...Ah, someone say bliss. I loved art--loved drawing. And I always dreamed of being able to draw really big things. Things that would "wow" those who saw it. I wanted to be an artist.

My scribbles grew more recognizable as the years passed. I was happy with some, and not happy with others. People started noticing, but I shrugged it off. I wasn't as good as I wanted to be.

The time came when I went to draw a person and cringed at the end result. Think maybe I'll stay with stick people... But that wasn't satisfying. I tried again and again over the years to draw a really good person, but even by the time I was 19, the best I could do with a person was drawing them from the back and not doing a face. But I wanted to draw faces. I wanted to draw people.

Some time ago, I started trying to draw people--faces. And the first try wasn't the best. But I was surprised at how much like a person it looked. I tried again and again (this was while I was working as an intern at Young Disciple Ministries this last year), but never was satisfied. I finally got a face that looked semi-good, but I couldn't do it a second time. I gave up. Drawing people just wasn't my talent.

I came to Thailand expecting to have little time for artistic pursuits. But since getting sick, and the long recovery period following it, I've found that to be untrue. I decided to draw myself one day, for some strange reason, and found a very, very rough-looking version of myself staring back at me. True, it didn't much look like me. I wasn't in the picture. But it was a person--a better one than I'd ever come up with. I decided to try again.

Perhaps you've seen what's come of my attempts, on Google + and on Facebook. Perhaps not. In any case, I'm going to share some with you. Really, I didn't imagine for the world that recovering from dengue would take so long: but I heard someone say the other day that after they had it the first time, they couldn't walk for a month. At least I didn't get it that bad. At any rate, my time stuck in my room, too exhausted to do much else, has shown me something pretty important. Something I don't think I'd realized or really thought about before.

Talents. God's given them to each of us. Why does He give us talents?

To glorify Him.

Not ourselves, in the possessing and expressing of the talent, but Him in the giving and shaping of that talent.

True, we need to develop it; we need to cultivate it and better it, or it will go away. But God ultimately blesses as we try.

My question has been: what on earth am I going to do for God with this talent?

The answer isn't obvious to me. But God knows.

And I doubt if I would've discovered that without being sick. Or taking so long to recover. Or trying.

The Lord works in strange ways, is all I can say.

How about you?

What talents has He blessed you with? What are you doing with them? Are you using them for the Lord? When the end comes, and all of our work is tried, will He say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"? Will you be found to possess more and greater capacity with the talents given you than when they were first bestowed?

I can only hope and pray that those blessed words will ring in my ears someday....soon, at that.

Talents. They show up in interesting places.

Sometimes, out of the blue.

 What you see here is the progression... The earliest try is at the top and the rest are in order to the most recent at the bottom.

Safer than the Known

"I said to the man at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may walk safely through the unknown.' He told me, 'Go out in the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God. It shall be better than the light, and safer than the known.' "

As David Asscherick says, words have rarely been truer.

Or more frightening.

If you think about it in all honesty, walking into the darkness isn't easy. There's scary things in the darkness. Things that move, chase, have voices. It is, after all, the darkness.

But if you think walking out into the darkness to take God's hand is scary, try walking into the darkness and then not taking hold of that hand.

I assure you, that is not just terrifying. That is the substance of terror itself. 

I speak not just from what my vivid and very active imagination can see... Unfortunately, I speak from experience.

I was called--chosen, sent, commissioned. Brought to a foreign land. And I've spent my time here so far trying to walk in the darkness without holding that hand. You've seen some of the struggles and triumphs. You've watched me almost give up, watched me endeavor to give thanks, learn to just wait... And for almost a couple of weeks now, I've been silent. Why? Well, to start things off, I got sick. Sick like you wouldn't believe--courtesy of some mosquito that bit me awhile back. I've been too exhausted, too blah to even think, let alone write. But as I came out on this side of the sickness--just some exhaustion dogging my heels--the darkness got deeper.

And I failed to grasp that hand.

I failed in more than one way.

I have to admit, I asked myself in despair, "What kind of missionary am I, anyway?"

Well, a learning one. And most tellingly, a human one. Isn't that a surprise?

Is the darkness behind me? Probably not.

Are the trials over? Absolutely not.

And why is that? If I'm in the mission field, and God is supposed to be working for me and in me and through me, why on earth am I having such a hard time? Why get sick, why get stung by a scorpion (while in bed and sick, no less), why have all of these incredibly dark moments that have stained the pages of my journal, stained my pillow with tears and torn my heart in pieces? If God is for me, WHY is so much against me?

Because I'm this close to freedom.

Freedom?

Yes. Freedom. I've been chained in a dark prison cell all my life. And all my life, God has been trying to get me out. While I was at Young Disciple, working as an intern, He began the serious work of unlocking my fetters. I was beginning to experience the freedom that comes from God's liberation. From no chains... And then I came to Thailand.

I remember once asking the Lord, "Why did you bring me over here if I was only going to be locked up even tighter and more than I was before? Why undo all the work You've done?"

Ever made an investment? That's all God's doing. He could see that this experience would likely be the final push to getting me out of my prison and crushing those stone walls to powder. He knows what good it can do me--If I'll learn. If I'll let Him work.

But even if I behaved perfectly... The devil isn't happy. He's angry, actually. He knows that he's on the verge of losing another inmate to his prison and he's fighting tooth and nail (and scorpion stinger) to keep me chained to that wall. He knows what kind of dynamite the Lord and I can be once I'm no longer chained, a prisoner. He actually trembles behind closed doors at the thought of me being an unchained force, standing against his kingdom with the Lord at my side. And so, he's fighting HARD to keep me chained.

Makes sense? Does to me.

So, why is it so hard for me? Why am I having such a rough time?

Because I'm almost there. I'm almost free.

God hasn't given up on me. I've failed Him countless times, and He hasn't stopped loving me. He hasn't let me go. And He won't.

By the same token, He hasn't given up on you either. In fact, He's been working on you, calling to your heart. Maybe He's been using my struggles. I know He's calling you now. With tears in His voice. Heaven wouldn't be the same without you, and looking at eternity with you missing, for Him, is like looking at the rest of life without someone He loves very very dearly. Like life would look if you'd just lost the person you love most on earth. Only He'd have to lose you forever. Don't make the almighty God stay in pain for all eternity, just because you aren't in Heaven. You'll be dead--you'll be gone. But He'll be acutely aware of your absence. And Heaven will, for God, never be what it could've been in enjoyment if you had accepted Him, His love, and ended up there with Him for all the eternal ages of time.

Interesting thought, isn't it?

For me too.

I don't want to stay chained in this world anymore than I want God to have to miss me forever.

So, the trials are not over.

But that's because the chains are near coming off.

The darkness--this wilderness--isn't over yet.

But that's okay. I have a hand to hold while I walk through it...

It is "better than the light, and safer than the known."

Almost

I fell asleep last night, knowing that after all this sickness business and whatnot, that I was well enough to teach the next day. I was tempted to worry, but received a heavenly reminder: One day at a time, daughter. Only worry about sleeping right now.

I took the suggestion, and went to sleep, letting the morrow worry about itself.

If I had known what the morrow would hold, I would've worried. Blissful ignorance: I'm so glad we don't know everything. It'd be enough to depress anyone. If I knew everything, I'd know EVERYTHING. That's not a position I want to put myself in.

I woke up this morning... And right away, the devil hit me. Hard. "Why are you still waiting? There's nothing to wait for. It's gone--forever. You fool, give up. You're waiting for the wind. There's no Promised Land in sight for you."

I fought it. "That's not true! God bid me wait...He didn't say no, nor to stop waiting. I know He's leading."

"Did God truly say...?"

The same lie as in the garden. And I believed him.

Like a slow, steady, squeezing serpent, I felt pain welling up in me, from down in the deepest recesses of my heart. Something terrible, deadly, sickening... It made my legs weak, tied my stomach in knots, made me breathe faster, take deeper breaths. A lump rose in my throat the longer I thought and considered. And the view, which before had seemed so clear, dimmed, darkened, faded. It wasn't long til I sat in complete darkness.

But it didn't stop me at first. I prayed...talked to the Lord...not realizing, however, that every word was tending downward, revealing the path of discouragement I was on. I tried to ignore it. Rearranged my things, made my bed, ate breakfast, got ready for teaching: anything to make myself forget the pain that was slowly swallowing me. I've been called a warrior princess more than once: I'm tough enough to just make it go away, right?

Even a warrior cannot use his sword in complete darkness.

I sat on my bed, computer on my drawn-up knees. The pain had grown to mammoth proportions and my sword was swinging at what I knew not. I couldn't see anything--and at last it broke me. I gave up fighting the pain and it rose higher in me, brimming my eyes with tears and sending them down my cheeks. I sent a quick message home: "I can't do this anymore. It hurts too much. I just can't take it anymore."

The reply? "Yes, you can. Through Christ, you can do anything. Listen to Him."

"How can I listen when He's not saying anything!"

"He speaks in silence... Be still... Surrender to the Lord, give the feelings, emotions to Him."

I leaned my head back against the wall and my heart screamed. God, if You're paying any attention right now, DO SOMETHING!

Immediately, another chat window popped up. I looked at it, startled--and then dropped my head back again. Lord, that's not an answer to prayer. That's a worsening of the situation. Was that an answer gone wrong?

Silence.

For over an hour, I floundered in the deep end. I could see no light, I could feel no peace, no comfort. Every argument for the Lord presented to me was questioned, doubted. The darkness was only growing deeper. Despair, doubt, and discouragement were building up the breaking, cracking walls of my prison, and I almost didn't care. Almost.

The words flashed onto my screen. "It's a choice. CHOOSE. You can choose, even around feeling."

"I can't. I just can't."

"Christ can help you. He promised to be with you, and He will never go back on that promise."

Again, at my shoulder, demonic agencies. "Did God truly say...?"

At last, with 15 minutes left before teaching, almost all the voices were silent. Almost. One still pointed me up, and up, and up. Talents...God's given you five...He trusts you...Make Him proud...He'll love you unconditionally...Find your strength in the Bible...

I looked at my Bible. Still wracked by a crippling, suffocating pain, I reached for it and flipped it open. My eyes wandered over the thin pages as I flipped them to and fro. Lord, what do I read? If I need to be seeking strength, and not just reading for reading's sake, to say I did, then what do I read? 

I didn't get an answer. I sighed, and the pages fell open. A whole chapter underlined in yellow caught my attention. I looked closer. What is this? And why did I underline it? It's 'in the middle of nowhere'.

I began to read--Isaiah 24. I didn't remember underlining it, and as I read, I wondered why I had. Cities laid desolate, voices of laughter turned to sorrow, mirth ceasing, destruction reigning... Exactly how I've felt, I thought.

But then, verse 15 jumped off the page and bit the end of my nose. I stared at it a little. "Wherefore, glorify ye the Lord in the fires..."

In the fires. Glorify the Lord.

Seriously?

Apparently.

I thought about that and looked at the clock. Only a few minutes left. But in a moment, the glasses I'd been wearing had been torn from my face and a little light flickered in the distance. I thought back to my prayer from earlier--for God to do something--and realized that the immediate response I'd received...the one I had scorned...really had done some good. Real good: good that was directly linked to my pain, my doubt. The pain began to recede like a very gradually approaching low tide...and then I noticed that it was time for class. I jumped up, filled my waterbottle, and dashed down the hill... And as I went, the darkness began to lift. In the fires...In the fires...Glorify the Lord...

It was my first day teaching after having been sick. The first class went well, the other two not so well, but really, when it was all said and done, I'd been carried through by the Lord and it was okay. I made it to the house again, exhausted and worn out. I dropped onto my bed...and found an email from a dear friend. She was telling me all about what she'd been doing lately, and this and that, and then had to go, sent me a hug and bid me farewell. And then, she tagged a few quotes on the bottom.

Now, I have a bad habit of skimming quotes. Especially long ones. But something made me read the first on very carefully, and what astonishment filled my heart! Here, read what I did...

“I have seen the tender love God has for His people, and it is very great. I saw angels over the saints with their wings spread about them. Each saint had an attending angel. If the saints wept through discouragement, or were in danger, the angels that ever attended them would fly quickly upward to carry the tidings, and the angels in the city would cease to sing. Then Jesus would commission another angel to descend to encourage, watch over, and try to keep them from going out of the narrow path; but if they did not take heed to the watchful care of these angels, and would not be comforted by them, but continued to go astray, the angels would look sad and weep. They would bear the tidings upward, and all the angels in the city would weep, and then with a loud voice say, “Amen.” But if the saints fixed their eyes upon the prize before them, and glorified God by praising Him, then the angels would bear the glad tidings to the city, and the angels in the city would touch their golden harps and sing with a loud voice, “Alleluia!” and the heavenly arches would ring with their lovely songs.” (CET 97.1)

Tears, a very different kind from those I’d shed earlier, filled my eyes. All of this had just taken place. My angel flew to the city to tell of the discouragement. My discouragement ceased the songs in Heaven. Jesus told an angel to come and guard me, to encourage me, to keep me in the right Way. I sat in darkness… I couldn’t see where to go… I was falling farther and farther…But God, in His mercy, had pulled me back from certain ruin. Through the encouragement of my parents, friends, and siblings, my little Bible, and assuredly my angel, I’d been brought back. But something hit me hard.

I almost made all of Heaven weep. I almost gave up.  I almost made an angel look sad and weep. Thousands of them, even. I almost made Jesus weep over me. Oh, He cried with me when I shed tears in pain and despair. He felt that pain right along with me. But I almost made Him cry because He had lost me. Goodness knows, He’s already shed far too many tears over my lost, wayward soul, sins and shortcomings already…

Really. That’s a hard thing to understand. I almost silenced all Heaven with its sorrow over my wayward despair.

Almost.

That’s the key word here. Almost.

Day did dawn. God did part the darkness. The angel beside me, with me, kept my feet on the path, although I’d fallen down in the middle of the road, abused by the enemy of souls and tormented with that age-old question, “Did God truly say…?” All of that, even though I almost completely failed. Almost.

But not quite.

The devil almost won.

But not quite.

I almost gave up.

But not quite.

As that sank into my soul, combined with Isaiah 24:15, the walls of my prison began to crumble again. They cracked, shook, quivered. The chains fixed to the wall trembled, clanged, and the shackles ‘round my wrists began to rattle again. The entire prison shook with the tread of the Almighty, and Despair, Doubt, and Discouragement fled with cursing and cries of anguish, of defeat. No, the walls didn’t fall down and turn to dust…Not yet. A prison that’s taken 12 years to build doesn’t come down in a day.

But God’s been working on tearing it down for awhile. And someday it will come down for good. “Not one stone will be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.” Soon. I’m closer to freedom than ever before.

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing had happened to you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:12, 13).

I almost silenced Heaven with sorrow today.

Almost.

God, however, is greater than my human weaknesses. After all, “His strength is made perfect in weakness.”

So, to pick back up. To let God continue the work He began in me so long ago. To let Him carry me. To continue learning to trust Him—to really trust Him. To live in entire, obsessive eucharisteo. To wait…and to fight… With all that’s in me. To vanquish the darkness, and through Christ, be victorious.

And really, how hard should that be?

Christ’s already won.

Which means that though he wins a thousand battles, Satan’s ultimate victory can only be described by one word…

ALMOST.

Praise the Lord for an “almost” with such promise… such hope. 

Welcome to Sunshine Orchards Learning Center! One of the kindergarten classes.

Another kindergarten class? Not sure... Hannah took these.

Still another kindergarten class. We have 3 of them, I think.

KG boys and girls.

Either first, second, or fourth grade. Probably fourth, now that I look at it carefully. That's Thara Blet Jaw's wife teaching.

Sharon teaching the third graders. 

Some of my sixth grade boys...

"Alright, now, I'm going to point and I will say, and all of you repeat after me...Understand?" Reviewing vocabulary words with grade 7.

Eighth graders in Bible class with Thara Ekganyaw.

Some of my fifth grade boys. The one with the pink pen is Jon Yoo Ay (not how his name is spelled, but phonetically, so you all can actually pronounce it right).

Thara Timothy teaching the fifth graders.

A wider angle view of my seventh grade classroom and students. This class makes me laugh probably more than either of the other two. 

I look like I'm writing down what I had written already, but I assure you, that is mere pretense. I was coming up with things completely on the fly in that picture.

All that writing? It's a conversation between three people, and I was having them look for their vocabulary words in the conversation. I had them look for contractions before that. They did really well...and we had some laughs along the way.

Finding vocabulary words.

This was a terribly amusing moment. I'd tried to convey that the word "big" was in the conversation twice, and Maw Soe Thay (again, phonetically spelled and the one standing there at the board that I'm looking at) circled one "big" and then circled "city," which was the next word on the list, but not what I'd asked him to do. I gave him the look, and he grinned at me and said, "OK?" I had to nod...What can you do?

This is my "Come on guys, I need someone to come find something....NOW" look.

Still finding vocabulary words. I have to say that this class is the one I look forward to the most. Of course, it varies from day to day, but they're always enthusiastic, LOUD, and they give me a good ending to the day. One of the boys, Tee Nee Too (phonetic spelling), one morning when I had barely got in the door looked at me and said, "I'm sorry." I went, "What?" He repeated: "I'm sorry," with this huge grin. I looked askance: "What are you sorry for?" He just laughed. Or then there was Maw Soe Thay, who, when I asked the class to make a word using our vocab word "exciting," piped up with "I saw a monster." Never a dull moment...

Sixth grade boys.

My sixth grade class.

Sixth graders again.

Happy birthday to Sharon! We had tapioca-covered-soaked-drenched raisin bread. Yes, you should be jealous: it was really good.

Blow, Sharon, blow!

Inside our house, as long as my forearm and about half as big around, he sat on our wall near the clock for this shot.

And I must share our recent happiness! REFRIGERATOR! Do not take those appliances for granted: you seriously appreciate them when food goes bad or you have to fish Ziploc containers from out of the bottom of the water tank. This also means that we can make ice cream... I'm told that frozen Thailand bananas in the ice cream maker turn into some sort of heavenly substance like ice cream. Praise the Lord for extra blessings! (And we'll hope that we have no substantial power outages...)