Last weekend was Santisuk's family camp. The term family camp conjures up images of parents and children playing games and worshipping together. However, because there are very few families where every member is a believer, I learned that this family camp is really about being a church family. Our church was joined by the teams from the other Santisuk locations in Thailand and a team of missionaries from the Philippines. There was question as to whether or not we should even go because of all the flooding. Some didn't go for fear that Bangkok would flood while we were gone. Others believed that instead of going on a retreat, we should be going to help out those who have been affected. But the leaders really believed that God was saying go. So go we did! It was a lot of fun. I got to make better friends among the people at my own church, but also friends with people from other location and from the Philippines! The theme for the weekend was "One heart." You see, Santisuk's pastor and his family are currently in the US, taking a refresher year before jumping back into ministry here. The church is now led by a group of people who, obviously, have different ideas about how ministry should work. The intent of this weekend was to bring us all together and remind ourselves that we are all united in one purpose and share one heart. I think the most powerful time at camp was Saturday night. The speaker, from a Santisuk location about an hour away, called everyone to a time of foot-washing. If you know Thai culture at all, the foot is the lowest part of the body, both literally and metaphorically. In Thailand, it is an insult to show the bottom of your foot to someone. You must point your feet away from all statues of Buddha. So you get a little bit of my thoughts, right? It started with the leaders of the church getting down first to wash feet. People were hesitant to go up. After you got your feet washed, you were supposed to get down and then someone else would come to get their feet washed by you. I was moving to watch people humble themselves to both wash feet and to let their own feet be washed. Everyone participated. That was a big encouragement for me, but what surprised me is that after everyone had done it, the foot-washing continued. People began reaching out to others, asking if they could wash their feet. I think that brought a lot of healing to the community. There were tears and hugs and prayers and kind words spoken. Personally, my feet were washed 4 times and I also washed 4 people's feet, including the feet of my former co-leader. If you know anything about that relationship, it'll suffice to say it was strained. It was an incredible night of healing for many.
We returned home to more worry about flooding. Not surprisingly, God protected us and our area for the whole weekend. On Tuesday, I received word that within 60 hours, Latphrao (our street) would have water. We didn't know which part of the road (the road is reallllly long), but we were to be prepared. Then by the end of the day, the Thai government declared a national holiday from the 27-31. That meant we had to end our session a day early. My students got away with not taking their final! But I'm sure they would have done well. I just really wanted them to do it so that they could see how much they improved. Yesterday was my longest day by far. It was the last day, and as usual, I arrived a few minutes before 7 to start class. I had been sick the night before (Oh yea, I forgot to mention that.. I've been sick twice from eating food at the mall.. and they say not to eat from vendors!) so I really did not want to teach my 10am class, but I taught it. At 3, I went with my last class to get ice cream from the Swensens at the mall. They treated me, and then a couple of the girls took me down stairs to the big fair in the middle. We played a few games and I won two, so I got a free tote bag! Yay! I will now use it for my teaching stuff. :) Then we watched a mime show and then I went back to school because grades were due and I still had to correct the essays they turned in. I finally turned in my grade sheets and left for home a little after 5:30. That was like 10.5 hours of work. I was exhausted. I took a short nap, and then went to dinner with friends and hung out for a while. Now I'm here. :)
Other information that didn't go with the flow of the story above: Lisa (SES director) informed me that the school board would be meeting Friday to discuss salary for foreign hires. She told me that it would not compete with other places, but to pray about it. The contract would be from January to June. She told me later that she received information that flooding here would be low risk. It would be only about knee deep, more of an inconvenience than anything. She also said that if the risk were to become greater, like having to shut off electricity, we would be allowed to leave Bangkok for a while (normally as missionaries, we are supposed to stick around here). She told me that she and another long term missionary would go together if that were the case and I would be more than welcome to join them. But we'll see if it comes to that. For now, I'm stocked on water (my student brought me a whole case of water bottles, which was really sweet considering EVERYWHERE is sold out of water, even grocery stores and 7-11s) and now have a fridge full of food (for probably the first time since I've been here) that was mostly just given to me. Praise the Lord for being taken care of!
Anyway, I'm thoroughly enjoying this day off. I slept late and woke up leisurely and took a long shower and ate breakfast and read my Bible and wrote in my prayer journal and even found time to write a blog. ;) Later, I'll be going to hang out with friends and watch movies. Maybe we'll even order pizza. :)
Much love,
Tracy
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