Itsara

The money for the land has come in, and the official exchange rate we received was 34.94. That’s pretty good, all things considered, so praise God for providing as we need it!

But don’t forget that we still need prayer as we sell our condo. It seems like everytime we talk to our agent she says that the price is going to have to be lower than the last time. I’m fighting disappointment on this, but it’s totally worldly. I expected a certain amount of money from the condo, so I somehow think I should get it, but God doesn’t always work that way. Maybe the timing is so that someone else can be blessed with a really good deal and God will choose to take care of us some other way. That’s cool if that’s what it is, but keep praying for a miracle anyway. I mean, it can’t hurt to ask, right?

In other news, they’ve finally started working on cleaning up the land and building a wall around it. Sean went over there and took some pictures which I merged into these two panoramas. If you’d like to see more detail, click here for the very large versions (warning, they’re about 1.3 MB each): taken from in front of the land and taken from the back.

Here are a few videos. I must apologize again for the quality, brevity, and silence of these videos. Our digital camera wasn’t really built for video. Still, for those of you starving to see our little one in action, this should help. In chronological order:

• Boxer: Isaac sits on the couch (“propped” might be a better word), and practices his Rocky impression.
• Fun with Cathy: Our friend and neighbor, Cathy, loves to make Isaac smile.
• Faces: Isaac makes faces at the camera, until I finally get him to look at Daddy and he smiles.
• Head Rub: This is what Isaac does when he gets tired. It’s part of the reason he’s losing his hair.

Up until now, I haven’t really been worried about money. A (too small) part of this is because of faith in God. It was an untested faith and the larger reason for it was that we had a condo in California that I knew we could always sell, as well as a decent amount of savings from my last job.

But now we are selling pretty much everything we’ve got to buy this land and these houses. I don’t think we’re being stupid about this. I’m actually really sure that this is God’s will, but it doesn’t change the fact that after this is all over we will truly be living on what we receive from God’s own hand. There will be no leftover income, no condo, no savings to fall back on.

So even though I’ve been a missionary for two years, I’m just now facing the idea of living only on God’s provision. I’ve always been ready for it – at least that’s what I told God, but he and I both know that I’ve never done it before. Like I told a friend recently, no matter how ready you think you are, it’s still scary to look over the cliff’s edge and say to God, “You want me to what?“

Isaac is 3 months old tomorrow, and I think that’s as many times as I’ve promised to upload new pics. Here’s the best of what’s been taken since the last time I put any pictures up. Enjoy!

I have some videos too, but my (ahem) “file server” doesn’t seem to be allowing FTP connections (or, more likely, there’s some user error I haven’t figured out yet), so I haven’t been able to put them up.

I just found this out, but apparently today is the Global Day of Prayer for Burma. Follow the link for more information on why this matters.

One of the hardest things for our kids to learn is delayed gratification. The ability to wait for something that they want. Can I eat now? Wait until everybody has their food. Can I use the computer now? Finish all your work first. Can we play a game now? Wait until I’m done with my own work. Can I just give up on school and do whatever I want now? Make sure you graduate and get a job first.

That last one came up this week. One problem is that it is so difficult for them to see the long term. I realized the other day that I was hoping to have their assistance in their own education. I was hoping that I could get them to see the benefit of working so hard to learn stuff that isn’t always interesting, so that they’d stop being angry or depressed about having to do it. That’s not going to happen. They won’t understand the benefit of what we’re giving them until after they’ve received that benefit many years from now, which means that they will be against us all the way until it’s done. So the only thing for me to do, I realized, is to force them to learn against their will, while at the same time thanking my parents for the wonderful and thankless job they did when I was a kid.

So, Mom and Dad, I’m sorry I was such a short-sighted jerk. You guys did a good job.

It’s not just kids that have this problem, though. Humanity in general is terrible at waiting for what we want. I hope I don’t need to give you a list of examples – just watch TV or go to a mall. But it goes beyond getting money or toys or snacks or getting out of work. We have a hard time delaying our eternal gratification as well.

Like the Israelites. Moses goes up on the mountain for a month and they get bored. “Where’s our God and that guy who speaks for him? He’s probably dead. Joshua, give us a new god, we can’t wait for the old one to come back down.”

That’s what we’re waiting for now, in this age. We’re waiting for our God to come back down, but it’s getting so hard to wait isn’t it? He’s been gone so long that we sometimes wonder if he’s ever going to come back. Did he really mean what he said? Does it really matter what I do with my life here? He’s probably not coming back anyway.

Or heaven. Talk about delayed gratification. Do the right thing here on earth, even though it totally sucks sometimes, so that I can store up treasures for myself in heaven? So I’m supposed to be generous with my money, even though I could buy myself stuff right now. I’m supposed to love and serve other people, even though I’d rather serve myself. I’m supposed to love and forgive the people that hate me, even though I could just walk away and forget about them (or satisfy my need to get back at them). I’m supposed to trust and accept this pain in my life because it will one day make me more like Christ. And then I’m supposed to be willing to die for all of this and Jesus. But he’s been gone so long! What if he’s not coming back?

And the whole time, the problem is that we can’t see the long term, just like our kids can’t. Not without good reason – these kids have no concept of what life is like beyond school. How could they when it’s all they’ve ever done? They can see our lives, but they only see part of it, and they can’t imagine that our lives would apply to them someday, and they really can’t understand why they have to go through pain to get there. Likewise, we have the example of Jesus and the promises of the Bible, but it’s hard to imagine that these would actually apply to us someday. It’s far easier to see the good time that people around us are having now and ask ourselves why we aren’t doing the same thing.

So this is my encouragement to you (and myself) today, and it’s the same as the Bible’s: Life is temporary. Pain is necessary and temporary. The pleasures of this world are rotten, corrupt, and short-lived, but Heaven is forever. And we will get there.

And meanwhile, we ought to praise God for the thankless job he’s doing in the lives of us short-sighted jerks.

Here’s something to pray for. We have a large chunk of money coming over from America to buy the land with. Lately, the strength of the dollar has been dropping, giving us far fewer Baht for our money than before. Pray that, at the moment of wiring, that exchange rate pops up just for us. Or for God’s glory, rather.

Another, similar prayer request. We have decided to sell our condo. The market is not particularly good for this right now, but for a number of reasons we are not waiting. Pray that our condo sells at a higher price than the analysts think it should.

Whatever God decides to do about these things, be it nothing special or something amazing, I’ll post it here when the deed’s are done. It’s sort of my promise to God that, if he wants to do miracles, I’ll make sure people know about it.

I’ve been kinda stressed lately – off and on. The reasons include, but are not limited to: taxes, teaching, condos, lack of sleep (both mine and others’), disobedience, trying to transfer large amounts of money, next year’s taxes, and dead hard drives.

Yeah, that’s right, my computer died. Again. Sean asked, “Why is it that computer guys always seem to have the most problems with their computers?” I wish I knew, but at least this problem was cheaper to fix. Cheaper in money, that is – some files were lost, but I got a cool God story out of it. So Wednesday night, my hard drive crashes. I can’t start my computer, and I can’t get any files off of it, period. All that night I was thinking about the work that I’ve either lost forever or will have to redo (e.g. pictures, taxes, the book I’m trying to write, budget stuff, etc.).

Thursday morning, I woke up early and sad. I prayed in the bathroom (one of my more frequent places to pray – aren’t you glad you know that?). I was begging, “God, if you have found favor with me at all, could you please just let me get those important files off my computer?” Afterwards I go back to the computer and turn it on. It actually works. I managed to save my book, taxes, budget and homeschooling files, and a bunch of pictures from the last three months (mainly pictures of Isaac). Cindy was so happy for me when I told her, and I added, “Yeah, God answered my prayer, but I’ll know it was God if this thing crashes as soon as I’m done.” No sooner had I moved on from the important files to copying less important ones than the thing crashed for real, and I haven’t been able to get it back up since.

I’m still missing some files. I have some backups, but they’re either partial or corrupted. So with one thing and another I know we’re going to be missing any pictures taken between May and November (though fortunately I put the best of those pictures here). Hopefully there’s nothing else important missing from that time period.

Cindy commented that this is exactly what she doesn’t like about technology. Actually, I agree. I’ve had this sinking feeling of losing days or weeks or months of work too many times, and if I were writing a book on paper, or taking pictures with film, or (gasp!) keeping financial records in a logbook, I wouldn’t have this problem. And yet we tend to think that technology is safer or longer lasting. I still have pictures taken 30 years ago and papers I wrote when I was 7, but I’ve never had a hard drive that lasted longer than 3 years. That’s a little messed up if you ask me.

Back to the update. The last of our Parade of Guests left yesterday. We’re alone again and trying to remember how we did life like that. Actually, it’s not the same. We have Isaac now, so I guess it’ll never really be the same again. I know I keep saying it, but I’ve got more pictures of Isaac for you. You’ll just have to be patient. Sorry about that. Could you pray for freedom from all computer woes, God’s provision, and smoothness as we figure out how to handle the finances we need to buy the land and everything? Thanks, that’s a load off of my back.