So there I was on my hands and knees scrubbing my bathroom with my green and white scrub brush, sweating in the 100 degree heat and watching the dirt go down the drain…again. Every week has the same cleaning routine and it constantly amazes me at the amount of dirt and mold this dusty and humid land can lay in 7 days. Cleaning was a bit more painful this week as I had gotten fried at the beach (Hua Hin) by accident and yellow blisters appeared where white skin used to be. Pain shot up my body with each spray of water that found its way to the tops of my feet. I shook my head at how I had yet to learn my lesson of the sun on hazy and windy days.
Then I glanced at the ants plastered dead to the tile where my housemate SJ had sprayed them a few days before. My battle with ants and termites for the past 3 years still continues and battles are won and lost on both sides, this one was our victory. I was cleaning today because when I came in from running yesterday, sweating profusely and stinking profoundly, I started to mop our ever dirty house when the water stopped flowing. Not again! I called my principal and told him our house has no running water AGAIN which means no toilet, no shower, no nothing! I putzed around waiting for them to get our newly moved water pump (they moved it so they could build a shed for garden equipment in our doorway area) working. No luck. I needed to leave for youth group, so I grabbed my towel, soap, and clothes and trotted over to another building to take a shower. I came back with my towel on my head and Bunan asking me if I had a key to some random door. Uh, no. Apparently they moved our pump to a room that was locked and they couldn’t get in to turn on our water. Too funny! So between my radioactive sunburn, not having water, the parade of ants that we are continuously fumigating, the ever present fight with dirt and gecko poo in the house, and the oppressing heat it hit me that some things never change and will continue long after Im gone.
Life has come full circle for me here. My students will forget me more with each new year added to their effervescent lives, the ants will eventually take over my house, new teachers will clean the areas where I have cleaned, and the youth at church will progress with their young lives as well. My sunburn will heal, Oot will get a new English speaking friend to buy her fruit shakes each day, and the Jr high will get another crazy Magic-Schoolbook-like Ms Frizzle science teacher to teach them about how incredible life and earth are! Its humbling, you know? I found myself getting sad and down as I wrote my last comments for my students whom I’ve taught and loved for 3 years and as the reality of only a few weeks left in this crazy place set in. Why is it that those were my first emerging feelings? Why weren’t joy and thankfulness for the time that I’ve had here my first response? I was talking with another friend on our way back from youth and we were saying how amazing it is that God uses us to do His work. He certainly doesn’t have to! He is the creator of all things and more powerful than any other force or being! Yet He uses willing vessels to allow us to experience joy! Yet I chose sadness. Yes, humbling. So as I think of how nothing is new under the sun and how Im replaceable, may it bring me joy that I had the opportunity to be used by God.