what my hair was like before kim attacked it
Kim in action - not sure about this really.....
evidence of the damage
the end result
So there's the hair cut. Thankfully, nothing too outrageous really, but strangely enough, it did open new doors for a really good conversation with my new teacher (Khruu Jai) today at school on our various views of teaching the Bible and whether or not it is something we really need to take seriously or not, and if so, how seriously should we really take it? How we actually got onto the topic from me getting my haircut and subsequently looking 'younger' then i already looked, i'm still not really sure. But what does it matter anyway? it opened up a great door to talking about the Bible and our views on it. I was really encouraged to hear my teacher agreeing with me, that we need to take teaching the Bible seriously, as i was saying i am still not able to teach the Bible here, even to sunday school kids. I was saying to her that right now, i'm helping in a team that teaches kids the bible each sunday, but i'm not actually teaching the Bible at all. I'm happy to do the activity or even the odd magic trick, but when it comes to teaching the Bible, I'm scared that if i do it in Thai, i might something wrong. Actually, i know i'll accidentally say something wrong, just cos i don't yet have all the language. I was pleasantly surprised to have her totally agree with me that it's better to wait and be sure that we teach the Bible correctly then she went onto tell me about many stories that she's experienced or heard of when 'pastors' and other church leaders say it doesn't matter if they didn't know how to teach or understand what they were teaching. that 'anyone' could do it. She understood the importance of teaching the Bible correctly, so how could you take it so lightly and send 'anyone' in to do it? This conversation then led onto me being able to share with her what we're currently doing in Sunday School, in teaching the 'Big Picture' of the Bible, how God created the whole world perfect, but man rejected God and sinned, with the 'rest' of the bible showing us God's plan to bring his people back to himself ultimately through Jesus, so eventually, we will be in a new creation with God where everything is perfect again. I actually surprised even myself that i was able to explain that in thai, and i think my teacher as well :) haha But having said that, there's still a loooong way to go before i'll be teaching the kids myself. I'm happy to sit back, listen and learn and encouraging those Thai christians we're training up for the time being.
After our conversation on all that in class, my teacher and i ended up having another great conversation about singleness and how we felt about it. My new teacher is a year younger then me and single as well. something that she does struggle with at times, so it was great to be able to talk to her and try to encourage her to be patient and wait on God's timing. To not be hasty about it and get married just for the sake of getting married and bowing to family and peer pressure to get married. Unfortunately our time then ran out.. another lesson with a new teacher where i didn't quite get to open the textbook :) haha but to me, it was a great day of learning new vocab, being able to encourage my new teacher as a christian and push myself in trying to have 'deep' conversations with someone who is at a similar stage of life to me. So i really thank God that so far things are really working out well with my new teacher.
For those who are praying:
- please pray for Khruu Jai, for her to keep on trusting in in God for contentment (now that's a word i do need to learn in Thai)
- thank God for opportunities to get to know Khruu Jai more and that we do get on well as teacher/student already
- pray that we'll be able to get to know each other more over the next few months
here are a few 'fun' photos in the past week:
At a recent picnic day at the hot springs, we saw this sign "Bathing with the bowl and bathing in the basin for men"
i'm not so sure 'cripple only' is the most polite way of describing the disabled toilets
At our upcoming church camp this weekend, we're going to have some mascot panda's for the 'compulsory fun' night our cell group is running. It was seriously hilarious seeing May and Musir get into these suits and attempt to breakdance and the like. Can't wait for the actual night!
