So this is a picture of me in my Phylis halloween outfit- a bunch of us decided to dress up as characters from the TV show The Office. It was pretty funny to see everyone dressed up as such kooky characters. I sure am thankful to have friends here who like to be silly and have fun.
One of those friends and I get to do a 10K (about 6 miles) race tomorrow here in Bangkok! I'm so excited! We've been training and are fired up to get to run through one of the prettiest parts of Bangkok- the old part, right by the palace, the river, and lots of beautiful government buildings. This is a picture of Kamyee and me.
She is a delight. She has a husband named Steve and a beautiful little girl named Noelle and has become one of the people I'm most thankful for this year. We run together most Saturday mornings and she comes to Nightlight with me sometimes on Friday nights. God is just so kind to me in giving me folks like Kamyee.
A couple of weeks ago our school had international night. This is where the kids get to dress up in costumes from their home countries and do songs or dances to teach us about their cultures. One of my favories was getting to see my Indian students dance for us. These little guys to my right are 2 super bright and just delightful kids. I'm so thankful to get to be their teacher and to walk with them as they are figuring out how the world works and what believe is true.
One more big upcoming event is my birthday! Hooray!! I'm turning the big 3-0 this year and am feeling pretty good about it. I am confident that I am living in God's absolute best for me here, so that feels good. It would NOT feel good to be turning 30 in Thailand if I were not confident of that, you know? So how kind of God to cement that in my mind- that his abundant life is available to me here and now, and that loving others on behalf of Jesus will ALWAYS be the best and most satisfying thing I can do with my life.
So here's the killer line-up God has prepared for me for this big-deal milestone of my 30th birthday celebration: James Galway, a world-renowned flute player, is playing with the Bangkok Symphony-Orchestera on my birthday! I play the flute, so it seemed like such a cool and personal gift that I would get to go out for an elegant evening with 7 of my girlfriends to listen to beautiful music on my big day. Then this next weekend, I'm going to a ball with a friend of mine named Julio I met salsa dancing. I got a beautiful red dress made in order to go to the marine corps ball. I'm excited! I guess it's a big deal diplomatic sort of affair. More than excitement about the actual dance is the message God is speaking to me through it- that I am beautiful and desirable even as I pass this milestone in life that many believe makes a woman less attractive. But God seems to be screaming to me that this is NOT true- that I am beautiful to him and to others. He sure is kind to me.
I haven't written as much this year in the ol' blog, perhaps because life here is becoming more normal. I still have eyes to see stuff around me as different- things like roosters that hang out by the motorcycle taxi drivers who are waiting for customers...or seeing people sell golf balls on the side of the road...or seeing an elephant on the same road as a prostitue and a missionary and a sunburned tourist. So I still see those things and shake my head at the wonder of being here in this land that seems so strange to me, but I guess I've become more used to seeing this stuff so it doesn't shock me so much anymore.
But I've been doing some thinking about what my time has been like here this year as compared to last year, and this is what I'm coming up with. Last year was about learning to love different people in a broad sense- the IDEA of loving the downtrodden, the privileged, the men I see in strip clubs. This year has been about coming to love them personally. I have befriended a man who has visited the bars as a customer. I was disgusted to find this out initially, but sensed what God was asking me to do was to love him in the middle of his messyness- to not run away and ditch him, leaving him to figure out for himself why he is loney and dissatisfied, but to point him to Jesus and tell him about how he can be loved perfectly by the God who came to earth 2000 years ago and continues to pursue his heart today. I'm learning to love my button-pushing students in whole new beautiful ways- to see them as the complex and intelligent beings that they are and to engage them and treat them with respect accordingly. I'm getting to take flowers to prostitutes on their birthdays. So yeah- those have been some of the biggies I've been learning about recently. I feel like I've graduated from kindergarten in the "school of how to love" and have been promoted to first grade, getting to apply these ideas that I started to learn last year. So those have been some of them major movements in my heart.
For those of you who are praying folks, you can pray with me as I continue to sort out what to do next year. I'm sensing that God is inviting me to stay another year here, which is disappointing in one sense...I was excited to come back to Colorado and engage life and relationship with the folks I love there...but I've got a good thing going on here, too, and unless God invites me to something else vocation-wise, this seems like a good place to stay. So feel free to offer thoughts or counsel to this end- I would love to hear what you have to say. That's all for now- thanks for reading!
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