Blog Number Jet (7)

Well it’s been a while… let’s see, what can I tell you? To catch you up it’s been a harder last week. Harder than I realized until Monday night. Monday night was when all my thoughts had the opportunity to start to process rather than before, we’d been soo busy with meetings and DRIME work that all this ever changing information that was being given to us was being stored away and suppressed. Because before, we just had to get through this meeting or that meeting and THEN we could have time to think or figure out this structure (the way DRIME will operate in Thailand) when we thought it was that structure and then we’d talk to someone else and it would be a completely new structure! I was trying so hard to be flexible and adapt DRIME to what it needs to be in Thailand, and it does NOT come naturally for me to be flexible. I need to have a plan. I need to know when this is happening, on what date, at what time. I’m a scheduler or planner – it’s in my nature. But I want DRIME Thailand to be what God wants it to be and to look like – not necessarily something we’ve seen in the past (although it might end up looking like that) but I wanted to be open to something different if that was God’s plan, you know? We just never knew if this new information or these changes in structure were the start of what made DRIME Thailand unique, you know? And we totally want to be an aid to the already existing ministry at the TCCC and we just don’t completely know what that looks like yet.  So by Monday night I had just worked up this almost anxiety, more of a stress – my brain is telling me we have to be at this point by this day and we thought we knew how to be at that point but now it feels like we are 3 steps behind when we thought we took a step forward. It was a combination of a bunch of things: lack of sleep, busy-ness, always meeting with people, all this information and ever changing structure, always needing to have answers for people that we don’t have until we figured out (the structure which essentially depends on the people applying for leadership) and just utter exhaustion on thinking about the same thing in so many ways! And, to top it all off feeling the dynamics begin to change with the team coming and that was really hard because I just didn’t feel like the “me and janna stage” was finished yet and I just was feeling like I was resisting it because I wasn’t ready for it. And all my thoughts and emotions poured out along with that combination of everything.

I love my teammate and through this, we were able to have a good heart to heart. It definitely helped.

So a little glimpse into the events leading up to Monday: On Thursday we had a conversation with one of our friends who made us aware of some confusion that was going on that we were unaware of between – well a lot of people. So we were thankful for him sharing this knowledge with us and some insight about Thai culture as well. From there we were able to meet with the head of campus ministries and get more on the same page of their expectations versus our expectations and how leadership MIGHT work out for two of the campus staff despite their busy-ness – He was SUPER excited for them to be on board with DRIME. So we took that home and processed a little bit and tried to come up with a way that we could be flexible to work around the busy busy schedules of campus staff and see what that might look like. On Saturday we didn’t do DRIME stuff but we were out all day at a park until late and so although it was a fun day – we’d been going all week and I felt super exhausted. And with needing to talk to a bunch of people at church on Sunday – leadership thoughts kept floating through my mind. On Saturday night I had a moment where I was just like I can’t, like I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to be in this cycle of ever changing confusion. Lol. It’s so hard to describe. I’m not good with change. But of course, this is what God called me to do and He has blessed me with being here, so you just keep on keeping on. I’m just longing for that connection with Him and that affirmation that my thoughts are in line with His. On Sunday we had individual meetings with Por, Pond, Fook, Air, Kong and Suwit. Clarifying if they still wanted to be in leadership, clarifying their schedules and setting up interviews to go over leadership applications and get to know them better.

After all the meetings P'Por took us to a mall to look for a sound system for the DRIME team. He's good with all that technical stuff and sound equipment and was happy to help! So great! You can so see the Body of Christ at work - each have their own talents that they excel at and they are willing to so graciously offer them to others. ie Looking for sound equipment, making a (very professional looking) poster, helping fix our computers, translation etc. It's so perfect! 

When we were looking for a sound system with P’Por; we wanted to know if it would be loud enough outside. And… Get This!!! The employees of the store let us take it OUTSIDE to TEST the VOLUME!!! When in Canada would anyone let you do that with something you haven’t BOUGHT??? They WOULDN’T!!! Awesome, right? We didn’t end up buying the sound system on Sunday. We are very nervous to make this sort of purchase: a) because we’ve never had to make this decision before and b) because stuff in Thailand is non-returnable. So we have planned another day to go to another mall to see if they have anything better. So by Sunday night it’s been a long day and a long week and we just feel like we need a day off…  (and we felt like Saturday was just too far away) so that’s probably a contribution to my Monday night revelations. I didn’t realize I was as upset as I was, until I started talking and externally processing.

Few things to touch on (and catch you up on):

Interviews – We’ve had 4 interviews this week with potential leaders with Kung, Kong, Rahel and Fook. More on that later.

Emily from the Vancouver Team (that’s coming August 10^th to 26^th) arrived on July 27^th for about a day. The original plan was that she would stay with us and help us and then go visit some friends in Chiang Rai around the 4^th of August, but that all changed as we felt we would need her more closer to when the trip was starting. On Thursday she came to the office with us in the morning and we went to check out some ministry locations (Silom Road/Patpong Market etc) in the afternoon and she was able to come with us then as well. Then she headed up to Chiang Rai until next Thursday!

Vancouver Team: Comes in 9 days! We will be packing in the ministry times! Pray that this energizes me and Janna!  Pray that our hearts would be ready for this transition, change of pace and active times of evangelism, as well as unity for our team that is coming!

We’ve just been having a lot of long days – We end up taking work home with us a lot. The TCCC office closes at 5pm so we usually pack up and continue working after dinner til late sometimes. So just pray for adequate moments of rest whether it would be during the day at the office or less taking work home with us or having that time at home to just do something different – whatever it may be just adequate moments of rest so we have energy for all the tasks we have on our plates. I tend to need time to wind down but if I’m working until late and then I need to wind down then it’s LATE by the time I get to sleep. So keep us in your prayers!

Us and some friends at Suan Rod Fai Park (the train park)