The end of one season and the beginning of something new

I promised myself that I would finish this story one day but it's taken so long to get round to it.

It's now that I have the privilege of hindsight and I am able to look back on the rest of my time in Thailand with a bit more wisdom, yet still a lot of questions !

When I moved from the Bang Muang camp it couldn't have been better timing really - although I wasn't convinced of that at the time. At the time that I left things really began to close down there. I don't know if it was the prayers, but we expected people to have to live there for a number of years, yet in less than a year - people had started to be moved in to newly built houses.

The area was well on the mend after the Tsunami - although people were far from it.

During this short time since the Tsunami the number of churches in the 40 km stretch from Takua Pa to just beyond Khao Lak had gone from 0 to about 15. The next phase of rebuilding was the rebuilding of lives as people settled back in to communities.

Little did I know at the time - that I was one of those lives being rebuilt. Not from the disaster of the Tsunami - but from the destruction of my past. God was working in me, healing and cleansing me. But it was a rather unstable time. I felt like spiritually I was going through adolescence - with all the tantrums, thinking I'm right, etc. But God bought me to where he wanted me and I'm eternally grateful for his patience and grace.

So I left the camp and joined Step Ahead to be on the core team of English teachers there. I avoided teaching anything for as long as possible because I was terrified. However I was initiated into the beginners group. Every lesson was precluded with a sleepless night, panic and insecurity. But somehow I got through each one and the students kept coming back.

After a while, myself, Jo T and Mozza received an opportunity to start teaching in 2 local hotels and I began to develop a hotel teaching syllabus. So, my life at Step Ahead mainly consisted of teaching during the stable times.

However there was something going on in me at that time that made me very unstable. I went through a phase of deep jealousy and inferiority towards the other 2 girls I was friends with. I always tried to hang in there, but my work life balance was poor and I began to fall into depression. The whole thing climaxed when we were involved in a terrible road accident which resulted in the death of to local boys riding a motorcycle. Following the accident I first went into overdrive and threw myself into work. Then, when the stress overtook me I took a break from the area. For the rest of my time in Thailand, I struggled back and forth between teaching at Step Ahead and going off to search for my 'real' calling, but ended up always being called back to Step Ahead.

I found teaching such a challenge. I loved it, yet I felt i wasn't good enough. I constantly felt I was letting the students down. I could never do enough planning, and living and working in the same place often took it's toll. Around this time I took a bit of comfort as I started teaching a group of advanced level students. I did a short series on story telling and tied in different language and grammar techniques with types of story telling (news reporting, biography) and ended the series with a lesson about stories with meanings; fables and parables. I had the opportunity at this time to tell the students a bit about my story. It was then that I realised that I did love to teach - but I wasn't sure I'd quite found my niche. But this moment of teaching something with meaning and combining it with my own story was quite a breakthrough.

I began to think about the Alpha course (www.alpha.org), a 10 week introduction to Christianity which I had benefited from a few times. And I though how great it would if somehow ESOL teaching and Alpha could be somehow combined and used together.

I didn't have the mental energy to think about the detail, but on and off, as I thought about it, I would pray for it to be possible.

So my time at Step Ahead went on with highs and lows as I battled with self esteem, teaching and searching for a real moment with God. My pastor once said to me: "it's like you get restless and you go off in search for God. And you end up getting more and more lost because your looking for him all over the place and he's right here."

I think I can say that was so true of my time in Thailand. God did some amazing things both in and through me. But I was adamant that this would be my calling. I took off on sometimes dangerous journeys in the hope that I would stumble upon a situation in need and that somehow through that I would meet with God and find my home. It's amazing how God can use you and meet with you in the wilderness. Sometimes you can convince yourself that you have arrived at your destination. I think I'm just learning now that God moves us on. Life with God is a journey and a training ground of trials, learning, growing and trusting. He takes us on a journey with him where he prunes us, blesses us, provides for us and uses us along the way at each stage as he makes us more like him, from one degree of Glory to another. And often he is most glorifies when we know the least; when we're depending on him; when we know we don't have what it take in our own strength. And THAT goes against everything our human nature tells us is worthy and acceptable.

I had thought that somehow I would find the Jo shaped hole in some corner of the world and once I had reach that place that I would only ever feel harmony and peace for the rest of my days. Often, when things didn't go to plan, I would come unstuck because I would think that God had left me or was ignoring me. But actually I realise that I was the one who kept wondering away from him, and it's a lesson I'm still learning. It's not so much about the Jo shaped hole in the world. It's about the God shaped hole in me - and making sure that it is filled with God and not other things that don't satisfy.

There's so much adventure that I would love to go in to detail on but I'd be here all year. There were times when God spoke to me at great times of need. I'm sure I will recall them on this blog at some point, but I want to move on to how I came to be back in England.