2009: Looking Forward / Looking Back

Happy New Year everybody. Depending on where you are in the world anyway (Australia is a year ahead of most countries… literally.) It is now 2009, and I’ll probably be writing ‘2008′ on everything for at least 3 more weeks.

2009 should prove to be an exciting year. God willing, in a few months I’ll be on my way to Thailand to learn the language, and face my own set of troubles associated with that. 2009 should thus be a year of updates, and a year of excitement.

I know I kind of wrote a retrospective already in Monoday ‘08: In Retrospect so I won’t beat a dead horse too much by repeating all of that, but let’s have a quick descriptive look back at 2008 anyway (warning, I may drone on).

Today, one year ago, I was in Chiang Mai, Thailand, celebrating New Years Eve. I was a stranger in a foreign land, unable to distinguish between a ’sawat dii’ and a ‘korp khun’. I was optimistic, hopeful for the trip at hand, believing that God would reveal something new to me, something about my direction. Fresh out of Bible College I was relieved to finally put my years of formal education behind me and start heading out into life. How naive.

God did not reveal something new to me on that trip, instead He reminded me of something old that, in my excitement I had forgotten, but was greater than what I had replaced it with. He reminded me of a call to Thailand that I had once had, but in the tense build up to the end of my Degree I had begun to imagine for myself all sorts of different paths (most of which, thinking of now, I would have HATED). After a short two-week period, I returned home to Australia, back on track and expecting to return to Thailand mere weeks later. How naive.

When I returned, I made my intentions clear. I thanked all who had contributed to send me on the trip, and told them that their investment would pay off. Immediately, I was enrolled into a Missions Perspective Course, an extension of my Bible College, which of course meant instantly that my time frame of mere weeks was stretched out to months. During this time I met a Thai couple who had come to Perth and were running an outreach to the local Thai community in Perth. They at once wanted to support me, and in boldness, I asked them to teach me Thai. They accepted, and I thought I’d be fluent in no time. How naive.

My time of departure had a date once more. I was going to buy a one-way ticket to Thailand for July. It very quickly became apparent that I would need to make that a two-way ticket, and I was left without a clear vision of how I would return for real. I continued to struggle along in learning Thai though. First from my own self-learning via mp3, then with the help of a couple from my church who had spent the previous year in Chiang Mai, then the Thai couple I mentioned, and finally as it became apparent that our schedules conflicted, an Australian who had been a missionary in Thailand for a good few decades took up the gauntlet and began to teach me.  Over this time progress was made and I was ready to have conversations with people in Thai. How naive.

July crept up, I boarded the plane, and went to stay in Thailand for the maximal permitted time without a VISA, which was 30 days (though I miscalculated and ended up staying for 31, but no fine was given). I returned, armed with my language skills, and immediately realised that they were far more limited than I had thought (and to be fair, I didn’t actually think they were all that crash hot to begin with). My calling was deepend on this trip, and I spied out the once foreign land, becoming very familiar with the inner-city moat, which I walked around quite a bit. Everything was falling into place, but a clear path for return was still unknown.

Upon my return, I made a bit of a remarkable step, and actually actively enrolled myself into another course. While in Thailand I had been asked to help the kids with their English homework, and found myself to be all but useless, and their education to be as ineffective as my Italian lessons at school. (Proof of the 5 or so years of lessons: I can count to ten… and say “My name is Michael”, and um… “cosi cosi” means “so so” right?) So, I started looking around, and found myself a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) course. The course was held at the same place I did my Degree, and so although I was 4 weeks late, I was permitted to enrollment due to the recommendation of some of the school’s faculty.

During this time one of the teacher’s from the Mission Perspective course, who also had been a missionary in Thailand for many years, and also attended the church of the Thai couple I mentioned, approached me. We had a meeting, and he presented me with a way of permanent/semi-permanent return. We then both met with my Pastor, who had in all honesty been a major supporter of mine, and presented the different options to him for us to talk over. We then decided together, and I had myself a path. I was looking at a January, 2009 return.

As the ball began to roll, January disappeared from view and second quarter, 2009 reared it’s head. Months began to drizzle on, as I split my time between working and study, gaining money and skills for my eventual return. I began to find myself support from more places than I had imagined I would have, and even from so far away, my heart continued to be reaffirmed. I knew I was making waves, because things were crashing around me in my personal life, yet I remained still in my center. I finished my TESOL course, and began the Children’s holiday program at my church (though my vision gave way to abilty). But in all the chaos, my mind still remembers this day, one year ago, and all that it means.

~ by Mono on January 1, 2009.