Hello everyone.
As usual, the corresponding videos can be found on this page and pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/AaronandLorrie.
Let’s see…everything is going swimmingly and we are enjoying life. Last Saturday we finally purchased a cell phone (Pastor Steve breathes a sigh of relief… : ). On Sept. 24, Aaron got to go on another field trip. This time, the Thai staff were in charge, so it was much less stressful than the first one. We went to a chem lab downtown and the students got to extract DNA. Of course, they only took DNA out of some fruit, but it was still pretty interesting. It was a relaxing day, and on Wednesday night, we were invited to have dinner with our administrator and her family. They made some tasty enchiladas (her husband Craig is from Mexico), and it was quite an enjoyable evening. However, that same afternoon we found out that we are having “visa” troubles. The brief description: we received a work permit, which we thought was our work visa, but it wasn’t, which means we are still on our original visa that expires in 1 week (October 4), which means we have to move very quickly to get a work visa in order to not violate our “immigrant” status. Basically, it was supposed to be the school’s job to take care of all of the staff’s visas, but Aaron had to spend an hour on Wednesday (24th) sorting out the mess. Why? Because the front office has a higher staff turnover rate than McDonald’s, which means we have had 3 different women who were in charge of getting our visas taken care of thus far. But, before they can even get properly trained, they quit, which means a lot of the staff are now in visa trouble. Yikes! So this next week on Wednesday (1st) Lorrie and I will be traveling to the US embassy and then to immigration to make sure we get our visa in time. Don’t worry though, Lord willing we won’t have any problems.
This weekend we didn’t have class Friday b/c we had “Professional Development” instead. So we sat around on Friday and Saturday listening to speakers and brainstorming on how to improve our teaching. We were not looking forward to it at all because we had heard from others that in the past years it was a waste of time. But, it was actually kind of interesting and helpful, which was good. Our schedule for Friday morning included 4 hours of “spiritual development” (since the theme of the weekend was our professional development), which was to be led by Pastor Dave from our church, CCC. We (mostly Aaron) were not excited about this because we figured it would be cheesy, shallow, simple advice about making sure we read our Bible everyday, and we’d rather use that time to get “real” work done instead. However, the time was more like a discussion instead of a sermon, and it was actually a very interesting discussion about the stages of spiritual development in believers, ending with the topic of hitting a spiritual “wall”. On our way to lunch afterwards, we both agreed that we were humbled by God’s message and learned another important lesson about assuming… God works in funny ways, huh?
The high school teachers had an interesting speaker in the afternoon: the guy who taught it was an ex-marine who was teaching on critical thinking and how we can teach it to our students. He actually seemed like a pretty intelligent guy, but talk about an America-basher! Holy cow! He fought in the Gulf in the 90′s, and he sounded pretty mad at uncle Sam. He had some serious scars on his face and head which made Aaron think he probably got those in service. He basically said that with the state of our economy right now and the government bail-outs, America is now a communist country. We would half agree with him that yes, America is taking some serious steps towards socialism, but then he went on to blame the WHOLE thing on George Bush. No joke. We gave some push back about how Congress is the one that had to approve it, not just Bush, and that it was actually suggested by the Democrats, but he wasn’t having it. He then said we were all “talking out of the sides of our heads”! We all just took a step back, because the guy was getting pretty hot about it! It was amazingly awkwardly… very unprofessional. He also said he wants to bring his son over to Thailand so he can teach him how to be a “real man”, which is ironic because Thailand has more lady-boys per capita than any other country…
This weekend Bangkok was hosting a film festival downtown, so we went to that on Thursday and Saturday night. On Thursday we saw a flick about Israel and Palestine, based on a controversy between a Palestinian olive grove owner and the Israeli Defense Minister 5 years ago. It was interesting. Saturday’s film was a waste of time. It was a different experience, because after the movies they would have the directors/writers come down for a Q/A session about their films.
After the movie on Thursday, we went to the mall Siam Paragon, which has a bookstore. Aaron bought the books “A Briefer History of Time” by Stephen Hawking, and “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. You can imagine what the second book is about! It’s a very . . . frustrating read, but so far he hasn’t said anything new worth mentioning. It does challenge you to think, and he does make some very “logical” points. Dawkins worships logic, and everything else is secondary (or so he would say). If you’re thick skinned enough and like being challenged in your faith, I’d recommend it. If you have a difficult time reading blasphemy (which of course I do!), I would whole-heartedly tell you not to waste your time.
Lorrie is enjoying creating better friendships with the Thai staff and the students’ parents. Anyway that she can mention Jesus to these people is great because maybe later they will remember and have questions about Him. She will have her first field trip on October 16th to Safari World. It will be interesting, but she is really looking forward to it. She is having much more patience with her students now, and really enjoys teaching them. They are loving, precious children who need to know Jesus and she is so excited about being able to plant (Jesus) seeds. She just found out she is Kindergarten Coordinator (like a division head). This is a funny story that she can tell you if you write her, but it is too long to mention here.
We are heading into our last 3 weeks before break, which will probably end up being a review time for the students before final semester exams. Lorrie has been battling a head cold, so keep that in your prayers. One of the mother’s that Lorrie talks with everyday just told her that her mother-in-law is battling breast cancer and is having surgery on Tuesday (29th). Lorrie told her about our recent struggle with cancer and it was a way to talk more about Jesus/God with her. Please pray that this can be an avenue for Lorrie to share the Gospel with her.
We are in the process of finalizing our trip to Nepal (for those of you who may not know, we will be visiting our missionary friends who run an orphanage in Kathmandu, and then hiking towards Mt. Everest for 8 days in the Himalayas! We will be within 3 km of Everest Base Camp, but we won’t be able to reach it because there is not enough time. We will still be able to see it and enjoy some spectacular views, though!). Again, let us know what’s going on in your lives and if you have any prayer requests. We love and miss you all, and thank you to those of you who are faithful to pray for us and respond to our emails. We appreciate your encouragement.
Abiding in His Love,
Aaron and Lorrie Brooks
Advertisement
