Christmas in Thailand

I knew it would be different. Really different. I wasn’t going to be home with my friends and family in the US. I wasn’t going to be putting out all the decorations with my family and decorating the tree - - - which actually isn’t my favorite thing to do, but disliking it has even become a tradition. I wasn’t home to go shopping for all my cousins and wrap the presents – which IS my favorite thing to do. I wasn’t able to watch the Hallmark channel with my mom for the entire month of December to see all the corny Christmas movies that steal my heart and make me want to live a life with an extra side of corny. I wasn’t spending time with my friends decorating cookies. I wasn’t exchanging gifts with people back home. I wasn’t helping my mom make Christmas dinner. I wasn’t home to play in the snow and then complain about the icy roads. I wasn’t waking up on Christmas morning with my family in the house I’ve lived in for most of my life.

I thought about this a lot. I tried not to think about it. I didn’t want to be depressed. But I still knew what I was missing. However, my and my roommates mission was to live it up. We knew it wouldn’t be the same, but it didn’t mean it had to be bad or sad. I was realizing that even though everything about the Christmas season seemed different . . . the main reason for the season wasn’t/isn’t/won’t ever be any different. This is comforting. Jesus came to earth to save us whether I am in Colorado Springs or Chiang Mai on the 25th of December. The reason for the season is the same.

So, we made a “bucket list” of things that we wanted to do for the Christmas Season.

We put up a loaned Christmas tree in our house and when we realized that it only had 2 of the 3 legs necessary to hold it up, we fashioned plastic ice cream containers, a ceramic clown, and a lot of packing tape to make do. Instead of ornaments, we put bows and gift tags and a hand made paper angel.
Since the weather is still mostly in the 80’s here, we spent an evening with the air conditioner on, watching a Christmas movie, cuddled up in blankets and sipping on peppermint hot chocolate. We also spent time making cookies. I didn’t go to CCR (my home church in CO) on the Sunday before Christmas to see the children’s play, but I went to Abundant Grace and watched a lot of my previous students in the Christmas program. Even though most of the program was in Thai, the kid playing Jesus that took the cross and kept accidentally swinging it around and beating his followers over the head makes anyone laugh – no matter the language they speak. Most of my 4th grade students were part of a hip hop Christmas dance and one of my sweet boys got up and did some break dancing (a lot like he used to do in the middle of class).

Instead of spending the Sunday before Christmas with my friends and family in the US, I spent the evening at the children’s home here that is near and dear to my heart. We played with some of the kids while other kids helped make dinner. We went Thai style on straw mats outside with no utensils eating buffalo and sheep on a stick, rice and fruit. We got eaten alive by mosquitoes, watched the bats fly over head with a little bit of fear, and were worried we would catch lice that some of the kids were being treated for. However, it was one of my all time favorite days in Thailand. We went shopping for eachother at the Sunday night market and had bags of tooth brushes, soap, food, etc. to hand out to the beggars that came up to us.

We had a work Christmas party with Spaghetti and Thai cuisine.
We spent Christmas Eve with our awesome friends, Daniel and Noelle and their foster (hope to be adopted) son Makham. We spent the day playing games, playing with Makham, eating, watching “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” making Christmas Hats, taking a walk, sipping on hot chocolate and watching “My Sister’s Keeper” (which I balled all the way through). It was such a fun and relaxing day.
Christmas Day, I woke up to the smell of Blueberry Muffins (thanks to mom and dad who brought them and thanks to Sarah for making them) =) and opened the “stockings” (actually the Christmas hats we made turned upside down) with my roommates.
Then I actually got to skype with my family and see them all. This was the first time I had seen Jessica since I left in June. LOVED, LOVED, LOVED seeing all of them and that made my Christmas special (since my family is so special – you can translate “special” however you’d like, hehe).

We prepared a Christmas lunch for our Thai teacher friend Khru Ooy and our fellow English (well, Scottish) teacher friend Gordon (or Gordito as we lovingly like to call him). Gordon brought us all scarves for Christmas, so we took a pic with them (below). The 6 of us sat around our small table and used our ironing board to place all the prepared food on (have to be resourceful ;). We at chicken and vegetables and sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce and laughed and translated (Scottish isn’t really a language of it’s own, but trust me – sometimes there is need for translation between the Scottish accent, English and Thai). We read the Christmas story and sang Christmas carols around the table and ate Apple Crumble for dessert.
I spent the afternoon and evening with my C&MA family eating a full Christmas dinner, playing games, having a Christmas program and doing a gift exchange. It was a blessing to be around so many families.

At 10:00 Christmas night, things finally calmed down for us roommates to finish unwrapping gifts. My mom sent a package from the states and it arrived promptly on Christmas day (which was fantastic because then I wasn’t tempted to open it early). She sent some awesome gifts along with Christmas movies from home.

The day after Christmas, we slept in and then while eating chocolate chip pumpkin oatmeal muffins (compliments of Amy’s fam for sending the ingredients) and sipping on coffee, we thought it would be funny to look like Who’s (from the Grinch). Please keep in mind while looking at this picture, this is a fresh out bed picture. We received some fun Christmas movies and dedicated the day after Christmas to a Christmas Movie Marathon.
So, Christmas this year was different. Very different. I still missed out on my normal traditions at home . . . but this is one that I will never forget. I am blessed. I hope you had a Christmas filled with friends, family, laughter, and the reminder of God’s love for you.

Sweet Wishes

So I know this month is about celebrating Christ's birth - and not mine. My birthday was months ago . . . BUT I was cleaning out some cluttered piles today and came acrosss a birthday card made out of construction paper from one of my 4th graders. It made me smile and melted my heart, so I'm sharing it.

He drew a sky, a field and a house with no roof. He wrote:

"HaPPy BirthdaY Miss Britt May God Bless you I'm sorry some time I do not Good I Thank you for you Teaching me I Love you Thank you somuch."

This was from a student who had a hard time in class but had such a loving spirit and we built a foundation of trust and learning. Every time I see this student, he gives me the biggest smile, bows his head and wai's (traditional Thai greeting) and then follows it up with a hug. Love it.

Sweet memories.

Pure. Raw. Truth

I keep going back to a journal entry that I wrote about a month ago. I was a bit discouraged and it had been too long since I’d last journaled. I skipped dinner with my roommates and went upstairs and sat on my bed for hours just hungry to hear from God – feeling like I had been doing all the talking and not any of the listening of what He was saying to me and all of a sudden I had to hear Him, I couldn’t wait until we’d eaten dinner. I needed to reflect.

I was listening to a Seventh Day Slumber song called “Back in Time.” The song plays in the youtube window below. It’s just been on my heart lately – to continue to strive to be someone of Pure. Raw. Truth. I took the words from the song line by line and wrote what I was feeling (lyrics in bold, thoughts not bolded).



(Note that the journal entry is my thoughts written to God.)

“Those lyrics ring so true. Truth. Raw truth. I’m not perfect and You know that and You don’t want me to act like I am. You call me to seek You. You. Not me. You. Truth of who I am is found in who You are. At times, I feel broken and helpless. I don’t need any more of me. I need less and less of me and more and more of You. Perfect You. You – the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit who loves me more than I can fathom and hope for.

‘Carry me away. Back in time to when I met you.’ I had such a passion for You when I first realized what it meant to have a relationship with you. I had a raw, real hope.

‘Take all this guilt and shame that buried me.’ I get caught up in my own mind thinking that I have to have it all together and then I look at my imperfections now and in the past and I let myself get buried in the guilt of not being the idea of the perfect person that I have in my mind that I’m supposed to be.

‘And bury me in you.’ Being buried in Christ – protected, cradled, safe, and valued. Why do I let myself get buried in lies instead of pure truth?

‘I want to be dead but still alive.’ Christ calls us to die to ourselves. I want to get over myself and fix my eyes on the only One who truly can make me feel alive.

‘I want to breathe hope instead of choking.’ The complications in life are often caused by us – me getting in the way of Christ working in me. I want what comes out of my mouth to be glorifying and not self-gratifying mumbo jumbo (yes, I used the phrase mumbo jumbo). I want to speak and breathe truth and hope from the Word.

‘I want to feel the fire deep inside.’ What’s my true motivation? I feel like my most recent lack in motivation (at times) indicates a lack of passion and fire that can only be ignited by You. Help me get that fire back.

‘Burn through me, carry me away.’ I can’t be filled with You and carry myself nor can I be filled with me and be carried by You. Well, I can try. But that’s not what’s most glorifying to You. What’s most glorifying is to be filled with You and trust You to carry me.

‘How fake could I be? You see through me. You see right through me.’ You know me better than I know myself. There is no point in acting like I have it all together – You see through that. I need to focus on Truth. Pure. Raw. Truth. I long for that in my relationship with You.

‘Would you sing to me? And take me back to when I met you.’ I need to hear You. Not what I want for you to say. Just You. Just pure, raw, truth.

‘I hear You calling me.’ I feel like I’ve been suffocating because I haven’t been breathing You in nearly as much as I should. I know you are calling me back to Yourself.

‘I feel so far from home.’ Following my own map gets me so lost. Even though Your path doesn’t seem clear to me right now, it doesn’t matter because if I’m with You, You’re in the driver’s seat. Not me. You.

‘You can see through my past. You’ve never let me go.’ You know every thing I’ve done . . . even if it was 20 years ago or one minute ago. Past is past. Nothing can change what’s back there. It doesn’t matter how hard we as humans try or how bad we wish it could be rewritten. It can’t. But the good news is that we have the opportunity to change the future. I often forget that I can’t just want to change things and leave it at that. I always come back to the truth that good intentions not acted on are worthless. That’s one (of many) of my biggest down falls – not always following through with my intentions. People can’t read my mind. Even if I verbalize my intentions but don’t act on them, I lose credibility. As I have heard before ‘people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’

I want to be back to having child-like faith. Back to being so excited to serve in any capacity. Back to seeing things with fresh, new lenses. I can’t go back because that’s the past. The good news is that my God is a God of hope and forgiveness and renewal and fresh starts. He just needs me to say the word and get out of His way so He can work through me. God, this is me saying the word. Change me. Keep me accountable to what that means. There is nothing like You. There is nothing better than You. Please continue to remind me of that.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

May my attitude be the same as Paul's:

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Prayer Request

We are facing another huge obstacle in our ministry. Not impossible, but huge in our human eyes. The obstacle is finances and it’s threatening the immediate future of the school project.

“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.’" Mark 10:27

We’re in a tricky situation. We have to have a building rented, a full staff and money on reserve to even apply for a school license. However, without a license, we can’t have students and don’t receive the tuition fees. At the beginning of the school year (May-August), we were receiving some tuition reimbursement and weren’t renting a building at that time and the Thai staff was being paid by our partnering ministry. Now, the partnering ministry is no longer supporting the Thai staff, we are paying for the building rent and we aren’t receiving any tuition reimbursements. Our expenses have greatly increased at a very pivotal time in our ministry.

We have been unable to pay the bills that have come due this week. We are stuck. If we are unable to pay the bills and unable to continue toward obtaining our license, our project will have to shut down. This breaks my heart because there are so many children and their families in this community that the school could reach for the Lord’s purpose.

I come to you as a person not fond of asking for donations. However, I don’t want to sit back and know that I didn’t do everything in my power to get the word out about the reality of the situation.

Please join us in praying for the future of Hope International Schools. Please pray for God’s guidance and clear direction.

If you are interested in giving to the ministry of H.I.S. please visit http://www.hopeinternationalschools.org/.

Thank you for partnering with us!

Trusting Him,

Brittany

Thanksgiving

I had 2 Thanksgivings! We went to Joel and Marvel's (the founders of Hope International Schools) and they hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for all the English and Thai teachers. I also celebrated with my C&MA family here. Here are some fun pics of the celebrations along with us making caramel apples . . . yum! My favorite parts were making green bean cassarole and watching the Thai teachers eat all the traditional Thanksgiving food that they've never tried before. They ate everything but one of my favorite comments from my co-teacher was "I miss chiles" haha. Guess they aren't used to non-spicy food.

Today

Today was an interesting day and a reminder of why I love Thailand so much – you truly don’t know what will be coming at you each day.

Weather
Today is/was Sunday. We woke up and it wasn’t hot. Crazy! It was about 70-75 degrees all day and overcast and it reminded me of a fall day in Colorado. I wore longsleeves! I enjoyed drinking warm coffee and didn’t have to sit in front of a fan while doing so. Honestly, the “cold” was comforting and made me smile and thankful to feel a little more at home today.

Church
We went to church like we do every Sunday. However, I will never ever get sick of seeing one of my orphaned students that I had last term. Usually we look for each other in the service and give each other many waves throughout the morning once we’ve spotted each other. Then, as soon as the service is over, we find each other and give each other the biggest, rib breaking hug we can muster. We talk a little bit but she doesn’t speak much English and I speak survival Thai, so we let our hugging and smiling do most of the talking. She says “God love you,” I smile while my heart melts and I say it back and we go our separate ways. This is a routine that I never want to take for granted. Here's a picture of the two of us that was taken back in the summer time at school. Buddhist Wake
One of our best Thai teacher friends had to help her family with a 3 day wake and Buddhist funeral for her uncle this weekend. Today was the 3rd day of the wake and she was working hard to prepare for the funeral tomorrow. We offered to help her and drove to her family’s house in the Thai country side where there are chicken farms and rice plantations of plenty. We weren’t too inconspicuous considering we are all fair skinned and have “Foreigner” practically tattooed on our foreheads. However, we were excited to have the opportunity to help out our friend who has been such a huge blessing to us and would “give us the shirt off her back.” We did a few things like put stickers on pens that were to be given away as mementoes, put fresh sticky rice into individual bags for the feast, and help (or at least attempt to) a teenage monk fold banana leaves for traditional flower boats. I soaked up the experience. It was very different. However, it was an awesome time to get a front row seat to traditional Thai life.

Spicy Papaya Salad & Mangoes with Sticky Rice
Two of my all time favorite things to eat in Thailand and we had them both with our Thai friend after we left the wake. We ate Thai style where we had a bunch of plates in the middle and just picked at what we want (which is great since I “dissect” and pick at my food anyway).

Christmas Kringle
My 4 roommates and I decided to make a “Christmas Bucket List” of things we want to do this Holiday Season. We want to make the most of our time here. Along with our own personal traditions, we added some service projects to the list as well as Christmas Kringle. Basically it’s Secret Santa with a twist. The twist is each day, there’s a specific guildline on each gift (not to mention the fact that we could only spend $1 usd each day). Our roommate Misty is going home to the Philippines for the whole month of December so we decided to get it in before she leaves so this coming week is Christmas Kringle week! We went to the Sunday market tonight and all split up and went around finding our gifts for our secret person. Here is what the week looks like for exchanging:
Monday – Something Scented
Tuesday – Something Colorful
Wednesday – Something Soft
Thursday – Something Useful
Friday – Something Edible
Saturday – Something Thai
Grand Finale – no restriction on type, just restriction on cost and we won’t exchange until we’re all back together in January.

Today, God was continually reminding me of how blessed I am to be living here. Thank you to all who make it possible!!!

Dear Mom and Dad . . .

Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming to Thailand and visiting me!

Dad, thank you for all the work you did around the school while mom was traveling for work. Some of my fondest memories of the week when it was just the two of us is when we played basketball in the school parking lot. We played until our clothes were soaked with sweat and we could no longer breath. I love that you brought my softball glove so we could throw the ball around (even if we could only do it for 10 minutes before overheating, haha).

Proof that you worked, hehe.

Proof that WE worked. =)

Proof that we played.
Proof that you can't stay away from the Post Office even in Thailand.

I love that you both were willing to go to a festival where fire was being sent up into the air (and unsucessfully at times which resulted in screaming and ducking). Also, thank you for letting me hide behind the both of you as random people were setting off random fireworks and I was fearing for my life.

Thanks for not complaining that I exposed you to weird food. (even though dad didn't actually eat the squid on the stick, lol).
Thank you for allowing me to be your tour guide and indulging my wishes when I would come up with crazy ideas (like getting our feet cleaned by sucker fish or flying through the jungle like Tarzan).

At the Zoo.
Facial expressions at Fish Spa.
My feet at the fish spa . . . now you know why I'm making the face.
Orchid Garden
At the Elephant Camp
Visiting Doi Sakhet, Doi Pui, and the Bhubing Palace PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE notice the awesome baby pink capri pants my dad was asked to wear while touring the Palace Gardens. The fact that he actually liked them scares me a bit.
Jungle Flight
You know how you go to the Parade of Homes and and they make you wear those booties on your feet? Well, apparently the owners of Jungle Flight got an idea . . .
Night Market friends who sweet talked us into buying clothes. "Mr. Beal . . . doesn't your wife look beautiful in this?" lolOld Chiang Mai Cultural Dinner

"Getting our grub on" as dad said right as mom was taking this picture, thus my face.
Getting our coffe fill, talking, laughing and LOVING IT! Thank you mom for all the talks . . . you're the BESTEST!

I love that you can put actual faces and interactions with names that I give you (especially with my roommates and the people that I spend the most time with). (Please note not all important people in my life in Thailand are in the pics below! :-)

Am and Ooy

Roommates

Juday Family

C&MA Family

I love that you met the kids that I have fallen in love with and were able to hug them and see their smiles. I am so thankful I was able to share my life here with you.

I love you both more than I can ever express. I am so thankful for EVERYTHING. Thank you for the generous and loving people you are. Thank you for being such awesome examples for me. Thank you for inspiring me, encouraging me, and most of all - - - loving me. I miss you already!

All my love, your FeFe

p.s. videos will come when blogger decides I can post them =)