I Can't Even Make Carrot Cake

What are holidays like for people living overseas?

That was my question as my wonderful Sister-In-Law told me we were having a bunch of friends over to celebrate Thanksgiving and she was inlisting my help for holiday cooking. I signed up to make a gluten free Carrot Cake that I've made before that went over well with our family. However, making a Carrot Cake overseas is actually QUITE a process. You have to make everything from scratch, even the applesause that goes into it, since cake mixes are pretty expensive here. But as I began cooking, I quickly learned that God was teaching me a wonderful lesson.

The lesson began with me walking the twenty minutes in the Thailand heat to the import grocery store to buy the cream cheese for the frosting, only to get all the way home and realizing I purchased processed CHEDAR cheese. Praise the Lord that my sweet brother drove me to buy cream cheese the second way.

As the lesson continued, I started the cutting, pealing, and grating process of the carrots as my applesause was simmering, my three sweet nephews and one beautiful niece start talking to me and helping me. Which caused me to forget totally about the applesause until the smell of burnt sugar filled our pourch. I burnt the applesause. I knew it was bad when the littlest of my nephews, who is three and loves apples, wouldn't eat it. I had to throw it all away. Alright, I thought. So it wouldn't be as moist, that's okay, isn't it?

But the biggest part of my lesson, was using the rice flour instead of the normal kind, which is what makes the cake Gluten-Free. You see, the rice flour wasn't rice flour. It was corn starch. Everything in our house is labled in Thai, so that's a little inconvienent for me because rice flour and cornstarch look exactly the same.

When the cake came out of the oven deflated in the middle and dryer than a bone, I went in my room and bawled my head off. I cried to the Lord, "Jesus! I can't even make carrot cake without you!" He taught me over this Thanksgiving holiday that I need Him for everything. For breathing, joy, purpose, direction, and yes, even baking a Carrot Cake. He showed me He is always with me. What a sweet lesson to learn! And although my "Gluten-Free Carrot 'Bars'" (named by my sweet Sister-In-Law and friend A.) were super dry, the whole pan got eaten and it turned out to be a very sweet day.

I'm a Sunday School Teacher, That's Who I Am!

I am a Sunday School teacher, that's who I am.

Here there are no projectors showing cute kids worship videos, no cute decorations hanging on the walls, no table and chairs, no unlimited supply of crayons, and no toys. But what we do have is four walls, a whiteboard, a tile floor with bits and pieces of carpet glue that wouldn't come off after hours of scraping it with paint thinner, and a God who meets us where we're at and adores how we worship Him there.

He adores the lessons we share, He adores how the kids teach me more than I teach them, He adores prayers like, "Father, let our church grow. Nothing is impossible with you." from a seven year old boy, or ones like, "Jesus, help me quit biting my sister. Thanks! Amen." from a four year old boy. He loves the way we lay hands on each other and pray for one another. He loves the way the kids memorize the verse from that week. And most of all He loves all the children that meet together there.



Our floor before I spent 9 hours on my knees breathing paint thinner scraping the glue off.
Praise God for the friends that helped me!

My super awesome whiteboard with sliding panels. I love it.

It's okay that we have no chairs. It's okay there is no table. It's okay there are no decorations on the walls. It's okay that all we do is pray, worship, and learn. Because that's the most important thing. I love being a Sunday School teacher.

True Woman 101

I'm going to start a new Bible study book! How exciting. It's called True Woman 101 Diving Design and 8-week study on biblical womanhood by Mary A. Kassian and Nancy Leigh Demoss. Sounds pretty awesome, huh? If you would like to go through the study with me, you can buy the book on amazon here.

The book talks about abandoning the world's view of womanhood and turning to God's. I'm pretty excited. I'll be posting weekly to write about what God's taught me that week!

Make sure you guys keep me accountable! (:

He's my Number One

In high school, I always wanted the "Picture Perfect" experience. The best friend, who knows everything about you and you know everything about her, your like sisters. The group of friends, where you all hang out and go to the mall together. The high school sweetheart, who upon graduation would propose and get married to in the fall.  I dreamed about going to all the football games, senior prom, ect.

But instead of the "ideal" high school experience, what I got stunk. My prom date decided to take another girl a week before prom, my friends never wanted to go to the football games, I always felt lonely, and the high school sweetheart never came. What a bummer.

However, living in Thailand has changed my perspective of the world. As I walk my city and see chidren begging for money in the street, over a hundred Buddist temples (just in my town!) and knowing that Thailand is less than one percent Christian, I quickly realize how silly the "perfect high school experience" and the "American Dream" is. I've learned that he's the only one who satisfies. I've learned that he so desires to be close to me and love on me. He thinks I'm beautiful and worthy. He sees me as no one else does, as someone lovely, precious, and important. He teaches me to come to Him first with things that make me cry, things that make me dance with joy, what makes me mad, what I find is interesting, and tell him all my corny jokes. He's my best friend. And the best thing is, he wants all of that with you too!

I so look forward to my Quiet Times with Jesus, especially when they come with pretty coffee.

My prayer for everyone who reads my blog is that they will understand just how sweet God is. God is my number one, who's yours?

Learning to Be the Light

The truth is, living in Thailand and trying to show the love of Christ can be one of the most difficult things ever, but totally awesome at the same time. Weird, huh?

I walk along the Sunday night market seeing thousands of people and you know that more than nine out of those ten do not believe in God. The feelings you would expect me to have would be disappointment, discouragement, sadness, and a whole bunch of other negative emotions. However, I surprise myself by being totally encouraged, totally humbled, totally in love with these people, and passionate.

Night Market

You see these people walking aimlessly, not aware or accepting the love of Jesus, and the thought that continually rolls through my mind is, "I could have been just like these people." It's only by God's grace that I am a believer and follower.

So with that truth in my mind, I am given courage and boldness to proclaim the good news and to not be ashamed. Even though my Thai skills are lacking, I totally can share with English speaking people. So in the midst of Buddhist temple grounds, the sound of the Monks chanting, the smell of incense burning in sacrifice to idols, I share and pray.

Two men sat down at the table where some friends and I were eating. I started listening to him talk and quickly found out he liked rock music and tattoos. So I jumped into talking to him about his tattoos and told him about mine (which is a Jesus fish) and we got on the subject of God. I asked him if he liked the band Korn. "Oh yeah!" he said.

I shared with him the story of Brian Head Welch (who was the lead guitarist of Korn who left because he became Christian) and he was really interested! I asked if I could pray with him and he said yeah, so I did. Praise God! His name is Josh if you want to pray for him, he still wasn't sold out on God, but he was interested.

So even though Thailand is spiritually dark, I'm learning to be the light.

Loving Public Transportation is a Process

So far, my travels here in Thailand have consisted of being picked up and dropped off at places by either my big brother, or friends. Now that I've been here a month and I need to be more mobile, I am learning how to be independent and get around on public transportation.

My dear sweet Thai friend came over to give me a crash course on how to use Song Tawes and Tuk-Tuks. So we begin by standing at the entrance of my neighborhood in the super hot sun waiting for a Song Tawe to come pick us up. Finally it comes and we pile on, and just as we do, it starts to rain. As it's pouring rain and I'm sitting in a taxi full of Thai people staring at me because my snow white skin is probably blinding them, Tdan starts to explain to me how the transportation system works. "If you take a red one, it takes you wherever, but it's super expensive, so no. If you take a brown one, it has it's own route it goes," and as she's explaining, I'm thinking, "How on earth am I going to remember this?!"

Finally, about two Song Tawes later we're on the street I would have to get off on to go to school. Then we realize we don't have the side street number. So we start walking aimlessly down this street trying to figure out where we're going, which as you can imagine is giving me buckets of comfort.

Finally we give up on trying to find my school and we start on our way home. She shows me where to walk to get a taxi home and she says, "Okay! You got this, call me when you get home!" And she put me on the Song Tawe. I'm like, "WHAT?" And I get on and go home. It drops me off a few hundred feet from the entrance of my neighborhood and as I start walking home, I start to cry, just from the stress of learning how to do all that. (How embarassing)

So as you can tell, learning to love public transportation is a process.