Our Saturday night was dictated for us. “You need to be at Thai church for “Creation night” at 5:30 and sing with us or you’ll have a meeting with Peter, Sue, and me,” Aaron, the new admin, wrote on the board. Great, we have the pleasure of sitting through at least a 3 hour event of singing and songs sung off key that we don’t understand amidst the chaos of cell phones going off, kids running around, people coming and going as they please, and sitting in hard seats. The highlight for me was that I was asked to sing with the school chapel band, which meant some of my kids would be there as well.
We entered the normally dark and dreary church only to see that it was transformed into a veritable garden! No joke! They had laid down real grass, pebbled-lined walkway, fountains with water pumping through colored lights, bamboo sticks lining the back wall with white lights illuminating the flowers and the columns were now trees. It was amazing!!! The smell of grass and flowers filled your nose like welcome perfume upon entering the miniature Garden of Eden and then they gave us a plate to eat from the picnic spread in an adjoining room. WOW! I talked with my students Lukpad, Ben, Sammy, Tee, Soda, and Carin for quite a long time during the fellowship time. What a blast to have the kids have a desire to talk with me outside of school, for their jokes, and their punches on the arm or head leans.
I stood in the back of the church as all the groups sang and it was fun to have random people stand next to me as we talked about what was going on and laughed at the circus of kids running around and ringing of cell phones in our garden! Then it was the bands turn. Usually we sing next to Ben and Tee who play bass and guitar and have all the kids stand up and do the motions with us. Well, now it was parents and older people staring at us and Aaron and I were on stage front and center with our feet on grass. Weird! Well, we asked them all to stand and do the motions with us. They lasted half a song but I continued to do the rest of our songs in full actions and enthusiasm. It was great to see the smiles and few brave souls that would copy me at times. I smiled and laughed a lot of the time as it must have looked hilarious!
After that the rest of the teachers joined us and we sang a song and then, for the finale, a group of old women got up to sing a traditional Thai song and then our old crusty cook, Ba Baow, who hates us farong teachers got up and started to Thai dance in the middle of the aisle. HA! Then Sue dragged us up as well and we had a spontaneous Thai dance session in the middle of the church! Too funny!
It ended after 9 with ¾ of the people having left during the show and with another sampling of Thai food and crème puffs! Then about ten of us went and played cards for a couple of hours laughing at ourselves and just being goofy. The dictated Saturday night events had now become one of my favorite memories of this year so far! From Sammy picking his teeth obnoxiously and wiping them on my arm, to Tee posing for another picture with me, Ben coming and playing despite him being Buddhist, and the girls singing and hanging on my arm to free-style dancing and sarcastic comments and laughter while playing President!
Oh how thankful I am for moments and times like these where good comes out of expected bad! A reminder to me to choose my attitude wisely as situations erupt in front of me. Even in the midst of chaos and confusion God can be worshipped with songs in all languages and smiles can light up a room. Im thankful for friendships with the staff here and the relationships I have with my kids. And Im mostly thankful for my Creator God who is the author of it all.