Sifting

In Chanthaburi our means of transportation are in the bed of our Pastor’s pick up truck. And sometimes we drive 2 or 3 hours to ministry. At first, I hated. It was uncomfortable, too long, and unbearably windy. And also boring. Really boring. Like, what are you supposed to do in the bed of a truck for 3 hours? But after a few of these long rides I realized there is much to do. Or much to hear. Or much to understand. I started writing on the truck rides. Blogs, email’s, notes, etc. Then I started praying. But THEN, I started just listening. Yesterday, we taught at a school that was about 2 hours away from us. This was the first time our team had been split up into all separate classrooms. In Honduras, I taught grades 1 and 2 alone, but it was much easier because if the students didn’t understand my English, I could just quickly explain in Spanish. But here we are normally with someone who can translate for us and we are normally with each other. But at this school they split us all up and I had about 50 students in grades 4 and 5 and no translators. I wasn’t really nervous, as were some of my teammates. I was just afraid I wouldn’t be a good enough teacher for the kids. The director gave us papers of what we were supposed to teach on, but it was WAY too difficult so I just had to pull stuff out of my brain. It was really challenging but doing this I realized I like teaching English. So, we will where that takes me… After school we drove about an hour to the Thai/Cambodian border where there was a huge market. We stayed for a couple of hours, got to see Cambodia, and then got back in the truck for our 3 hour journey back home. At first I was dreading the ride, but once I sat down I was fine. It was starting to get dark as we drove away from the market and onto the main road. I was editing pictures on my phone for a while and as soon as I turned it off and look up, it was pitch black outside and the stars were shining bright. I could see the dark outline of a mountain with stars all around the top and it was silent and at that moment I felt God’s love more than ever before. I don’t know why and I can’t really explain how, but looking at the beautiful night sky, I felt it. And I felt an overwhelming peace. That He will take care of everything. He is taking care of me. He is taking care of my family and friends back home. He is taking care of my family and friends in Honduras. He is taking care of all of the students I teach. He is taking care of us. It’s so easy to fall into negativity. Exactly like I did at the beginning of my time here in Thailand with the truck rides. But we have to search through everything and find the good. It’s like as children on the beach we play with those little sand sifters. The sand all sifts through the holes but the pretty shells and rocks are able to be seen. We have to sift through things to find the good. At times, they may be more obvious, and other times, it may take a little more work. But if we do this on a daily basis it’s a great reminder of what God does for us and how He works so intricately through our lives. We just have to sift away the bad and stop worrying about it.