In exactly one month from today I will be boarding several airplanes and heading to Thailand for an adventure of a lifetime.  Let me just disclose the rest of this blog by saying that I NEVER EVER in my right mind thought I’d go overseas for a long period of time.  Some people were just meant to go far away, and you know that when you meet them, but never once did it cross my mind that I’d be a “Missionary” and go to a foreign country for a long period of time.. and if it ever did cross my mind, it was probably in the context of being married.. never EVER alone.

I will go by myself to Nontaburi, Thailand, a suburb of Bangkok from June 2008 to March 2009 as a Music Teacher for Global English School, a Christian school with 95% Buddhist Students.

This is one of those decisions that you make in your life, and you KNOW you will never be the same because of it.  I’m fully aware that the person I am today will still be the person I am when I return, but I honestly believe that there are different things in my future than I ever had planned or thought for myself.  “His ways are higher than our ways, and the plans that you have laid are good and true” as the song “If You Say Go” says.  A song I learned and sang 5 years ago for my worship team audition at Simpson University. Interesting.

In my life, there have been many paths that I could have chosen, or would have like to have chosen that could have been “good”.  I could be married right now.  I could be in Redding right now.  I could have pursued a full-time worship job, but the fact is God guided me and lead me through circumstances to NOW… this place, right now.

This past year has been the hardest year of my life.  I’m not saying this to make anyone feel sorry for me.  I needed this last year to show me the things I was really passionate about and to show me the things that bring me joy in the midst of the tough things that life brings us.  Change requires willingness.  Change isn’t always easy.  Change is the only thing we can count on in life (and the Lord, of course).  

Change is always happening in us, around us, and through us.

Gandhi said…”Be the change you want to see in the world”.

In all the change that is happening we can always cling to Christ… grab onto him with all we have.

“Faith is the desperate clinging to Christ” Bebo Norman once said, and that phrase describes this last year of my life.  “Faith is the ability to be at peace amidst the pain of shattered dreams” is another quote that also really speaks from the depths of who I am.  

But I also know that this trip is much more than just about what I will experience and what I will gain.  God has plans for me to touch lives of the students and teachers in the school.  I’m willing to be used above and beyond just teaching, but also with worship for chapels and churches.  I’m just praying for God to show the right opportunities for that to take place.