Just Wait...

Four days ago, I set out down the concrete steps towards the chapel, a plastic folder in my hand, and a waterbottle in my Karen bag, slung over my shoulder. Where was I headed?

...CLASS. (Not to mention commencing one of the greatest lesson-learning episodes in my life.)

Never have I been so terrified. Limbs shaking, mind racing, and stomach wrenching, I stepped into that classroom full of 23 5th-graders, nodded at Thara Ehganyaw as he relinquished them to my care for forty minutes, and then I was standing in front of them. I was there. Now was the time.

I said good morning. In one roof-raising chorus, they answered, "Good morning Teacha."

No turning back.

But wait! I'm not a teacher! I can't do this! Wait! 

God always has different ideas than I do. Almost without exception.

I'm not a teacher. But He is...and He's not only been teaching the kids through me for four days now, but He's been teaching me a few things too. While I've been teaching lessons to over 60 kids every day, God's been teaching me lots of lessons in trusting Him, what true love really is, how to depend on Him entirely...and one more thing.

Wait.

Yes, that's all. Just wait.

Wait....

I sat on my bed, behind my plastic-mat walls, and I cried. I'll admit it; I sobbed harder than I have in...well, maybe forever. Sean Nebblett sang "Promise" into my earbuds, but it brought little consolation. Shattered, scared, unsure, hurt, afraid, I cowered and sobbed in silence. After all, you can't have other people hearing you. They might ask if you're alright and you'd be compelled to tell the truth.

I wasn't okay. And that was the truth. But I didn't want anyone to know.

Messages from my mom and dad popped onto the screen as I poured my frustration into their ears (or eyes, since they read it, not heard it). "It'll be okay." "Trust the Lord, Heidi." "You'll be alright; just let Him work in you and you'll make it." "It's not as scary as it seems--give Him a chance to prove Himself through your pain and fear." For a time, nothing made any impression on me. I felt like God had brought me to the other side of the world and then forsaken me. Left me. Entirely. Alone.

Faithless? Absolutely.

Painful? Assuredly.

But defining in the end? ...Believe it or not, yes.

I'd read a book a couple of days before; David Asscherick's God in Pain. If you haven't read it, you need to. It's packed full of amazing thoughts and ideas and concepts that we all too easily lose sight of. I read it that afternoon, and one thought leaped off the page, grabbed my face as it were and screamed for my attention.

The children of Israel had been led to the Red Sea; to the desert. They were in hard places--trying, painful places. Hundreds of thousands of people in a desert? No water... little food... Trial? Very much so.

Red Sea in front, mountains to either side, and an angry army behind... Hundreds of thousands of fugitive slaves, fleeing from an evil king, and being led by a simple, stammering shepherd from Moab. Trial? Again, very much so.

But in each of those cases, God had led. God led them there. Not to break them, but to make them. He led them there because they were on their way to the Promised Land--to Canaan. Their path wasn't easy, but they would get there in time.... God's time, not their own.

And David Asscherick said, poignantly put, "Hurry up and wait."

I felt God asking me to wait. Just be patient. You'll get where I'm taking you in My time; after all, I know best.

True enough. I was impressed that God was speaking, and I vowed to wait.

And then, this crushing fear; this terrifyingly real pain. "God, what had happened?"

The only answer I heard came in a still, small voice. Wait. 

"Lord, it hurts! I'm scared! What am I waiting for?"

Just be patient.... Wait a little longer, Child...the time will come in time...

A song was born out of that trial. "Path to Canaan," inspired by my own experience and by what I had read in God in Pain, was sung to me the other morning on Skype by my sister, who had just finished putting music to the words I'd penned. I almost cried. Not only did the combination of lyrics and melody touch my heart, but Michael Card's words in his song "Underneath the Door" became true... "Wounds are part of who we are, and there is nothing left to chance--and pain's the pen that writes the songs and they call us forth to dance."

It's true. I've been called forth to dance...and to wait.

So, wait I will.

What am I waiting for? God's timing. God's leading. God's guiding. For I am assured that He was leading yesterday and the day before that. Therefore, I can also be assured that He will be leading tomorrow. I know He's leading. So I can wait in perfect trust, knowing that whatever comes, He will be guiding my every step. If I want Him to. And I assure you, I want Him to. Life without Him would be like it was a few days ago: bleak, empty; a vast wilderness of barren land. And I'd have to traverse it alone.

God did the unthinkable. He took a cowering Heidi and through His grace made her a conquering hero. I'm back on my feet; not only that, but I'm stronger than I was before. More grounded in the Lord. Maybe that's the reason painful, trying things happen to us---so that we'll become stronger in the end.

Are the trials over? I assure you not. The devil's writhing in an agony of rage that none of us can imagine. He almost had me down. I almost gave up. I almost retreated back within myself and became once more what I was years ago. But that's the key word...almost. He wasn't the conqueror in the end: GOD was. God is. And He will be again. "Though the trials come, I know they're for the trying of my faith. And these trials lead to patience, and God's spirit says to me that I don't need to fight this battle, 'cuz I'm never alone." "He's always there, by His still and gentle presence I can feel His love surround me as I call upon His name. He said He'd always be there even to the end of the world... and that's the reason that our precious Savior came." "How can I fear? Jesus is near; He ever watches over me. Worries all cease, He gives me peace... How can I fear with Jesus?" Indeed. How can I? Let come what may! Through Christ, I cannot be defeated.

Just today in class, I ran out of things to teach. This has been a common occurrence during my teaching experience thus far, but today was really bad. I hadn't come up with enough things the night before and I was drawing a blank. Lord, what do I teach these kids? I have twenty minutes left of class and nothing more to say! What do I do? Give me an idea! I don't know what to do!

In a flash, He told me what to do. No, no thunder, no lightning; no loud voice. Not even a whisper. It was more like a hand guided mine to the left side of the chalkboard and began to make me write. As I wrote, it still didn't make sense. Um, Lord? They already know all these vocabulary words. What are You doing?

Wait. Be patient. Watch.

I did. And what the Lord came up with for those kids to do ended up being something that they enjoyed, understood(which is always a plus around here!), and also reinforced those vocabulary words even more. I used it for two class periods. I may use it again. It was a valuable idea.

But I had to ask for it. And I had to move forward, not understanding what I was being impressed to do. Step into the waters. Three years ago, three months ago--dare I say even three weeks ago?--I would've panicked: I would have faced those kids that can hardly understand me in the first place and just stared at them. But because of the fiery furnace I've been put through in the last week, I've begun learning how to trust...how to lean on God alone...how to wait....

I haven't been the most patient individual. But God is finally breaking through to me. I can wait. I can be patient. It really is okay to wait for something. And not only that, but I can trust Him with everything... all my fears, my pain, my hopes and dreams, the "desires of my heart"... And with every moment as well. I'm living day-to-day, moment-by-moment... Taking it one step at a time. In all seriousness, that's the only way to survive around here. If I were to look at six months of this, I would be overwhelmed instantly. But when I simply look at the next day, I can say, "Lord, just get me through tomorrow. Just work through me tomorrow." And He does. He gets me through each day, one at a time. Why didn't I ever learn that before? To just put one foot in front of the other. To just take things one day at a time. It makes life so much easier to bear. Learning to wait isn't such a bad thing, after all.

He's asked me to wait. To be patient. And really, He won't ask me to do anything that's not for my best good.

So I'm waiting. In some cases, I don't know how long I'll wait... but I know that I'll wait for as long as it takes. Oh, it doesn't mean that at times I won't get impatient for the end and cry out for termination of waiting. I am human. But by His grace, I can trust through the trial, love in spite of the load, and rejoice in the rain. Sing in the storm. Pray with power. Serve others, do good where I am, be a light where I can... Spend my waiting time well. It may be days, or months--it may be years, even... But the King has bid me to wait on Him...and until He says otherwise, I'm waiting.

Waiting takes an infinite amount of trust. It really does.

But God's waited for me. And if waiting takes trust, then God must trust me. He has every reason not to--I betray Him constantly. He trusts me... The Almighty Infinite God of the universes trusts Heidi Reinecke, even with all she's done to Him...  There's only one logical conclusion to that.

...I can trust Him.

And I can wait. He's waited years for me to get it... Surely I can wait for His time, His guiding.

The path to Canaan isn't an easy one... But it will be worth it in the end.

Path to Canaan

Verse 1:

I waited years, too long it seemed,

to travel to the Promised Land.

And now the Lord had bid me walk;

"Your deliverance has come."

And so I ran ahead of God,

to make the journey shorter.

For God Himself had led me here;

I was doing as He'd bidden.

But then I didn't see the borders

of the Promised Land in view: 

and I was halted in my tracks

by a whisper from the Lord.

"Slow your steps, my anxious child;

one foot at a time. 

I've brought you on this journey;

but your plans are not Mine."

Chorus:

Wait a little longer, Child;

the time will come in time.

Your bliss will be more beautiful

if you let Me be your Guide.

Wait a little longer, everything will work out fine.

If you trust Me, wait in patience:

the time will come in time.

Verse 2:

And so the run became a walk,

I ceased to rush ahead.

But now the way grew weary, long;

it didn't go straight through.

It took us over hills and plains;

across the rolling sea.

At last I couldn't stand the silence;

"Lord, where are You taking me?"

Chorus:

Wait a little longer, Child;

The time will come in time.

Your bliss will be more beautiful

If you let Me be your Guide.

Wait a little longer, everything will work out fine;

If you trust Me, wait in patience:

The time will come in time.

Bridge:

When you're travelling to Canaan, 

you're impatient for the end;

surrender, let God lead you,

for He has your best in mind.

Verse 3:

"My Child, we're bound for Canaan, true;

but you must learn patience first.

My plans for how to travel

will make you happy in the end.

You cannot run to Canaan;

but one foot at a time,

I promise that we'll reach it,

if you wait a little longer."

Chorus:

So I’ll wait a little longer, Lord;

Your time will come in time.

The bliss will be more beautiful,

The ending more sublime.

I’ll let You take control from here,

It all will work out fine.

I’ll wait on You in patience…

And Your time will come in time.

Saw this little guy outside the back door a few days ago. I was throwing seeds at him, and he actually chased one. Feisty little critter!

English teacher in foreign country under stress and needing food.

I have no particular love for spiders, but I don't mind taking pictures of them. This one lives on our porch--he's a pretty good size, but NOTHING like the monster one I saw up by one of our lights last week. *shudder*

Another of my "little friend." 

The ever-present gecko.

Not sure what this is, but he was having some trouble flying underneath the house. He was a BIG bug--something about Thailand, I guess. They manufacture big bugs.

Shoes outside a classroom. It's a very different experience to have to leave my shoes outside the classroom and teach barefoot, let me tell you. Especially when there's a puddle of water on the floor in front of the chalkboard.

The path I walk every morning to teach.

There's home! 

This is the chapel. We have worships and chapel here every day, and church on Sabbath. And yes, they leave all their shoes outside. 

The steps leading up the hill to home.

A Stranger Sort of Normal

I had to chuckle to myself as I cracked the hard-boiled egg open in the compost bowl this morning. I didn't think I'd ever eat another egg again: and here I was, doing so to keep arsenic levels in my system down.

I look out the window and see laundry hanging on the front porch, done yesterday in a black bucket of water, scrubbed with a bar of soap and my hands. They'll be dry tomorrow. After the Philippines, I never expected to be washing things by hand again: and here I am, doing it a couple times a week and actually rather liking the whole process.

When I walk through the grass, I'm not on the lookout for ticks. I'm on the lookout for banded kraits or cobras. When I go to sleep, geckos start chirping, toads that sound alot like ducks start their choruses, and crickets sing. I sleep under a mosquito net, not a thick comforter. I shower with cold water, not hot water. I eat twice a day, not three times. I'm eating rice and vegetables--not enchiladas at a Mexican restaurant.

This definitely is a stranger sort of normal.

Because it is normal.

But still strange, even though I've been here for over a week now.

I was sitting in my little room yesterday, and one of the small girls found my hideaway. Little girls pop in and out of the house throughout the day, bringing us flowers and smiles. This particular one came in and sat by me while I was working on the rest of the Karen alphabet, and watched me intently. She noticed the Karen shirt I was wearing, and told me in broken English that she had a shirt like that too. It was back at the house: "For Sabbath," she told me. She watched me for awhile, and then crawled over to the edge of the plastic mat, reached under and grabbed some of her friends ankles. She disappeared out the "door," and then reappeared. At last, with a big smile, she told me goodbye. I waved, and off she went.

After worship last night, she found me. I was still sitting in the chapel; kids were everywhere, trying to get out the door. She came over, sat by me, and snuggled in close to me. I put an arm around her and sat there for a little while, feeling somehow comforted: perhaps being alone is only relative. It must have only been a few minutes I sat there with her, but at last I needed to head back to the house, so I kissed the top of her head, and she bounded off to say hello to someone else. And I walked out of the door.

Back up the hill, up concrete steps that looked somewhat like a waterfall due to the torrential rain that had begun during worship. Back up into the little pool of light cast on the ground by the porch light. Not the porch light of the home I've known for so long, but the porch light of a new home.

Yes, it is indeed a stranger sort of normal.

Stranger than life. Yet more real than reality.

How am I going to live in that reality? In this normal? Will I be a stranger? I guess you could say that though I'm in a new normal, and while it is a stranger sort of normal, I've been a stranger in that normal. If that makes sense at all.

School starts Monday. I'm a teacher.

This is a stranger sort of normal than any normal I've experienced.

But by God's grace, I won't be a stranger in it much longer.

Hannah and I took a walk on the new property last week, down by the river. It's a different sort of beauty when compared to the rugged Northwest beauty I've been accustomed to... but one has to admit it's breathtaking.

Right now the river is pretty high. I'm told that in the dry season (that we're just coming in to) you can walk across and not get wet above the waist. But it's a high, strong current right now. And very muddy.

Mountains in the distance. I believe those are Burmese mountains.

These leaves just don't look the same in pictures. They look like they got dipped in red paint, and then splattered with black, green, yellow and orange paint by some crazy artist. 

The steps leading up to one of the large buildings on the new property. It used to be a Buddhist meditation center--and plans are underway for it to become a clinic, and set of classrooms for medical missionary students. So different are the purposes it's been exposed to. 

I have to say, I love tropical flowers. I love any type of flower almost, but tropical ones have a sort of exotic loveliness that no others do.

An English to Karen dictionary, and notepad with vocabulary words on it for Monday.

Take as good of a look at that as you can. Those Karen characters are quite the acrobatic feat to write!

Miss Hannah.

Anyone have any guesses as to what I was doing when that happened?

Laundry! This is our laundry room...and sink...and shower...and refrigerator... We'll just call it the multi-purpose room. 

Laundry on the line. It'll be dry by Sunday, I think. 

There is no satisfaction like folding and putting away laundry that you washed yourself and let good Mother Nature dry. None. 

Something I Never Reckoned For...

That about says it.

This whole experience is something I never reckoned for.

I've been here in Thailand for over a week now. School starts in less a week from yesterday morning, for me. We had a teacher's meeting on the front porch this morning. I discovered that I'll be teaching from 9:45 to 11:15 Monday - Friday. As little as that seems, the prospect of standing up in front of a group of children that hardly know English, as their teacher, and know that I'm there to help them understand it better, when they hardly understand me in the first place, is a little daunting to say the least.

Add to that looking at the long months stretching out before me in seemingly endless recession. Thoughts of home, beloved friends and family that I left behind crowd my thoughts for a place and notice. The sleepless nights, intense stress levels, and emotions of being seemingly alone batter on the door of my heart, threatening to take over. It's enough to daunt anyone, really. And, to be the more honest, it's daunted me so badly in the last 48 hours that I nearly lost all courage.

The devil's sick and tired of my advances. He's rolled his sleeves up; it's time for action. What to do?

Roll my sleeves up and fold my hands. Find my battle station on my knees, or among the banana trees amid a surprisingly cool breeze, and pull out the prayer of faith to hack down the enemy. Cut him right in two. The Father hasn't sent me to this foreign land, to these precious children, in the face of these obstacles, because I'm a weak and helpless child.

He's sent me here because He knows I can conquer, through Him. He knows that anything I may meet with here I will be able to handle, through His strength. A few years ago, that wouldn'tve been the case. I haven't been in a real mission filed like this yet because I wasn't ready.

I've been sent because God saw I was ready.

I need to make my Father proud.

So, to war. This may be something I never reckoned for, but by God's grace and through His power, I'm going to become an opponent that the devil never reckoned for.

And I'm going to do it from my knees.

Are you with me?

Flashcards being used to help me learn the Karen alphabet. I strategically arranged them for the picture, but put them all upside down on accident, so I can't exactly tell you which ones are there. But by the time I was done, I knew them!

This is Koo Koo Paw. When we went into Mae Sot the other day, we took Michael and Inge Ross with us, and they've been taking care of Koo Koo Paw, so she came too. Quite the little character!

Now, before you have a heartattack imagining what it would be like to see numbers like that on a gas station sign in America, realize that that's 30 baht. So basically, the Thais are paying a dollar per gallon for gas. Want to move here?

A street in Mae Sot.

This is a better representation of what Mae Sot looks like. People everywhere. In order to get the full effect, I'd have to be out of the car, on the street taking pictures. But when it's normal and every day for everyone else there, I feel a little silly. After all, it's my normal now too.

Lunch in Mae Sot. Believe it or not, I couldn't finish all of that. It's more than what it looks like. On the right, on the white plate, is pineapple fried rice, with raisins and cashews and pineapple pieces in it. On the left, on the fluted-edged dish, is what's called a taro basket. It's a little edible basket woven out of taro, which looks and tastes alot like shredded hashbrowns to me, and inside is this tofu-vegetable-sweet-and-sour-sauce-drenched stuff. It's pretty good. Oh, and can't forget the coconut mango shake sitting on the top left. I guarantee I finished every last drop of that.

More food! This was lunch today. Or part of it, at any rate. That banana on my plate is full grown, and probably was as long as my pointer finger. The other little things on there are called (to spell it phonetically) longens (lawn-jens), and they taste alot like pears. Their texture is something like... I don't even know what. They have a semi-tough shell, which you pop open and then extract the fruit. Then you pull the seed out of the fruit and eat the rest. Those little black things are the seeds. Those are some heavy-duty seeds, let me tell you. Hannah and I could play David and Goliath with those things and probably inflict some mortal wounds.

More of lunch. Stir-fried potatoes. Oh, that's familiar!

Lunch still. This was super good. Over here, everything that goes on rice is called curry, but this was vegetables and TVP (I think) with a sort of brothy sauce over it. It wasn't very spicy, much to my disappointment, but it was super delicious on the rice.

Looks like a pretty bland picture until you realize that those funny shaped things on that hill are huts, and that they're the tiniest fraction of a Burmese refugee camp that houses around 40,000 people. Go ahead, take another look. 

Huts everywhere as far as you can see. We saw this on the way to Mae Sot. Apparently, the camp itself has it's own Adventist church and school, it's so big. It looks like crowded and unsatisfactory conditions, but when you consider what these people came from, it must be like heaven. In a small way, at least.

View from the front porch this afternoon. When the sunshine comes out here, and there's blue sky, there's no power on earth, not even a camera, that can fully express the beauty that wraps you up.

The driveway, lined by banana trees.

I took a lengthy walk in the banana orchard. These aren't ready yet, but will be soon. Bananas here are so common that you can't buy them in Mae Salit, the closest town to Sunshine Orchards. Everyone owns at least one banana tree, so who on Earth would want to buy any? Well, gullawa's, that's who. "Gullawa" is what the Karen people call white people, by the way.

Another thing Sunshine Orchards is known for is limes. There are SO many lime trees around here, and they produce year round! Tasty little things... but what do you do with thousands of them? Sell them in Mae Sot, I guess.

I discovered something amazing by accident while on a walk in the banana orchard. I was looking at these little leaves with all their many fronds, and being reminded of ferns from back home. I reached out to pick on and absently touched it...and it closed up on my finger! Every one I touched would fold in on itself, right in half. It's almost uncanny--they really look alive.

A small, small rainbow. It's on the left hand side of the picture right above the tallest tree poking above the horizon. A promise from the Lord, that no matter what comes, He will be there... and He will never send something my way that is greater than I can bear.

Home Sweet Home

Welcome to my bedroom! A mat on the floor with a couple of sheets, a tiny pillow, and my stuff organizedly piled in the corner. Oh, and the fan. 

The mosquito net its up in this picture, but at night it comes down and I tuck it underneath the mat to keep unwelcome guests out.

My room from the outside. Those, believe it or not, are plastic sleeping mats hanging from the ceiling. They really make nice walls.

Everyone wonders about the "facilities." This is the shower: complete with running water, a concrete tub full of water, and occasionally a gecko, snail, praying mantis or random flying beetle (all of which I have encountered while within those premises thus far).

The handled dipper on the ledge there is for dipping water out and pouring it all over yourself. You can either do it that way, or use the shower head. Both options come with cold water, so it's up to you whether you get it over all at once, or if you take the Thai water torture route. Really, it's your shower. It's up to you.

Need I say more? This is remarkably modern: in other words, it's not a bush or a hole in the ground behind a bush... and it's inside. 

View out one of the windows by the hammock. Out trusty station wagon.

And here's the kitchen. There's a double burner propane stove on the right, our water dispenser on the far left, assorted medicinal bottles on the left table, and several other things. You can't see them real well, but the feet of the table to the left are sitting in dishes of water. The reason for that is ant-proofing. 

Here's a Thai dishwasher! 

Out the back door. The scenery is gorgeous out here. I'll be getting some more pictures of that up as I can.

These little guys are everywhere except in my clothes and in my food. Good thing I like lizards.

The hallway/half of the livingroom, with my room down at the end. If you were standing where I was, the room with the kitchen, shower and bathroom in it would be behind you. The main door is around the corner to the left up ahead.

And, at last, the porch! That's the Adams truck in the background, I believe, and assorted boxes and whatnot that have yet to be put away.