Thanksgiving Lessons

This week has been incredibly frustrating for both of us, and it sort of culminated yesterday. We've been having trouble with our hiring agency, and we have found them pretty unhelpful recently. Other people warned us that this would happen after a few months with them, and now we are experiencing that firsthand, unfortunately. They were very helpful when we first got here, but now that they have a lot of new teachers (that bring in more income for them), we don't see or hear much of them.

Anyways, it all came to a head when our electricity was shut off in our apartment yesterday because of a bill that we were unable to pay (it's very confusing trying to pay your bills here because you have to go to so many places to pay them, and no one speaks English). No electricity means no air-conditioning after a hot day, no power for the food in the fridge, and no light after the sun goes down at 6 pm. It just sort of proved to us how spoiled we really are, since there are still people who live without power and air-conditioning all the time. We were told that the soonest they could turn everything back on would be the next day sometime.

On top of all this, our phones were having issues. We could receive calls, but whenever we tred to call or text someone, we would hear a message in Thai and it wouldn't connect us. To sum it all up, we were really frustrated!!

But during this time of stress, God has been taking care of us. We were able to go spend the night at the MacArthurs' house (our small group leaders). Jack was so kind to open his home to us, and give us a comfortable bed and nice breakfast, and since his wife is in Canada until Monday, it meant company for both of us. It wasn't until we were sitting talking about Thanksgiving plans that all three of us remembered that it was Thanksgiving already!! And it was so nice to know that God has made special plans for us before we even realized that it was Thanksgiving. Also, for no apparent reason, the agency paid us a day early this month (yesterday instead of today), and so we were able to do all these things.

I (Dana) got to call my family last night, and Mom reminded me that there are 3 stages to adjusting to a new culture. At first, you love everything about the culture, then that passes and you hate everything about it. Finally, you sort of find a middle ground, and can see the positive and negative a little more objectively. Right now, we are smack in the middle of stage 2, but God has reminded us that he is with us through it all, and we are open to whatever he wants to teach us.

More next time...