we arrived!

Well, I've been in Bangkok 2 full days now... and it feels like I've been back weeks with all that's been crammed into each day! It's quite the juggling act between scrapping up every bit of free time I can with Claire before she leaves, helping orientate Steph, and handling my own responsibilities (unpacking, my annual work permit blood test, laundry, etc.) all while incredibly, incredibly jet lagged. I barely trust myself to write anything at the moment, exhaustion and sleeping meds aren't a recipe for brilliance... but I did want to let everyone know that we made it here safely and are adjusting again to the noises, smells and cuisine of the city :)

I will try to post again this weekend or early next week with more substantial details and stories... and pictures. Claire has been faithfully documenting everything on her camera, so I'll have to find a way to borrow some of her pictures from this week for my blog! Everything feels like a whirlwind at the moment because Claire is leaving on Sunday (she'll be stopping over for a week in Germany to visit her sister on her way back to the US) and will arrive in Dulles on July 7th.

I am so blessed to have had this last year with Claire and am also looking forward to this next 6 months with Steph. I don't know what the rest of this year will hold, but I am confident in this, that He who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion (Phil 1:6).

For all of you who faithfully lift me and my sisters up in prayer, thank you! Here are some specific ways you can be praying for us in the next few days.

Prayer Requests:

- Jet-lag... this is a real thing. I'm currently waffling between feeling like I'm swimming in a fog and/or like I was hit by a bus (and Steph is feeling a little cloudy too). So please pray that our sleep schedules become normal and that our bodies are able to adjust quickly! 

- Claire as she is packing and wrapping things up in Bangkok. Pray that God would give her good closure, sweet time with friends, and continue to prepare her heart for the next season He has for her. 

- Steph as she is transitioning into life in the big city! There is a lot to learn and absorb, and it can easily become overwhelming. She's been a great sport so far, though :)

- For logistics to be worked out smoothly. Claire and I have to make a trip to Immigration to do some paperwork (I'll be renewing my work permit and Claire will be wrapping things up). Steph is working on getting a new phone as her current phone doesn't have a sim-card and can't be used here. Claire is packing/re-packing and weighing bags. And I need to organize some material for a new-teacher orientation class I'm teaching on Monday! 

liminal space.

Liminal space is "a state of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage" between two seasons, or places in life. I think that this middle ground is the hard stuff of transitions... When you are no longer where you are, but not yet where you are going.

As I am wrapping things up here in America, my body can sense change coming... I'm trying to plan and prepare while also being "in the moment" and treasuring these last three days with the people I love. I still have bags to pack and people to see. Monday morning I'll depart with Steph for our long journey back to Bangkok. I think that's why I can't sleep... I don't want to miss anything.

A lot of people have asked where my heart is at, what I'm feeling and processing about returning to Thailand for 6 more months. Am I excited? Am I nervous? Am I sad? I think the emotion that I'm feeling needs a new label, because it's a conglomerate of a great many things.

God is doing incredible things at Spotswood and I have been singularly blessed to have been able to jump back into life here these past few weeks. It's so encouraging to see the new faces and changes that the last year has brought! For this brief window, I've been able to serve and observe... I love that. I have also been able to reconnect with friends and have face-to-face/heart-to-heart conversations that have watered my soul. And yet, as good as those things are, they also make me a little sad to leave because I know more acutely what I am missing.

At the same time, however, I am excited to go back to Thailand. I know that Bangkok is where God has called me for the next six months. I'm excited to help Steph adjust to life/ministry, picking back up with tutoring the girls at Rahab (and meeting some new faces!), serving alongside the dozen college interns coming for Mission Training School at LifePoint, meeting new "family members" at the Community House and teaching classes again! It'll be a busy start to the term, but an exciting one... and I'm looking forward to jumping in and picking up where I left off.

For all of you who have continued to lift me up in prayer, thank you. It has been a crazy-wonderful-whirlwind year... and it's not over! I still very much covet your prayers as I enter into this new chapter, which, though similar, will be a different season with different lessons. I still don't do transitions as smoothly as I wish I did, so please keep me in your prayers as life wraps up here and as God prepares my heart to return to the work He has prepared for me in Thailand. I'm thankful that God is the God of every season... even the weird in-between liminal ones! :)

At risk of being a little sentimental, here are a couple pictures/moments from my time in the US of A.

[My first trip to Chipotle with some of the UMW gals]

[The only thing sweeter than time with grandma is time with grandma at Sweet Frog!]

[Visiting some dear family friends]

[Spending some quality time with one of my college roomies!]

[Hiking Old Rag] 

[Highlight: Every time I got to hang out with this girl.]

[Uhm. I have the cutest niece ever. The end.]

[Catching up with the newest Mrs. Keaton!]

where i want to be.

I want to get more comfortable being uncomfortable. I want to get more confident being uncertain. I don't want to shrink back just because something isn't easy. I want to push back, and make more room in the area between I can't and I can. Maybe that spot is called I will.  -Kristin Armstrong

Except, I would change the ending to read, "Maybe that spot is called faith." Because the last four weeks has shown me, that despite all that God has taught me in the last year, I still feel uncomfortable with a lot of things. I still feel very uncertain about "my future" and "the direction of my life" and "God's specific vocational calling" for me... I still tend to shrink back from hard things (perhaps less than I used to, but I still prefer to shrink...) There are still a plethora of things that intimidate and scare me... as well as countless areas of my life where God is flashing his pruning shears.

And that's okay. That's where faith grows. Faith grows in the rub between where we are and where God wants us. Between how we are and who we were created to be. The fact that I can't answer the most frequently asked question since I returned ("What are you going to do when you return in December?") freaks me out.

This past Sunday at our college big group, Pastor Doug stated that, "When facing trials in this life we must not avoid the sanctification God wants to bring through them." And I'd just like to chime in and add that waiting is a trial. (In the words of The Karate Kid, "Being still and doing nothing are two very different things.") As much as waiting on the Lord and learning to hear His voice through the chaos and distraction of life is a discipline, it is also a huge trial... waiting is a test. A test of our faithfulness in face of the unknown... to see if we will be steadfast: "loyal under stress" (definition Doug's).

There are dozens of unknowns in my life right now... big unknowns. Scary unknowns. And to look at them daily and dwell on them would send me cowering under my covers catatonic. So instead of that (because really, that's no viable option at all), I am trying to remind myself of the truth. And my Dad, being the good Dad that He is, gave me this timely reminder in small group from James 1:

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

These verses don't say that I should pray to be mature and complete and then whine when it's time to pay the piper (with the price tag reading: trials)... but rather, that I should consider it pure joy because the waiting and the faithing is producing something of value in my life: maturity and completeness. I'm not completely there yet, but it is where I want to be moving towards.