489: Ponderings

I'm sitting at one of the better net cafes I use, one that charges 15 baht an hour (with 37 baht to the U.S. dollar), has recliners in which to sit and air conditioning. I can't help but feeling a little useless today, well, at least so far today. The Muslim Club apparantly did not meet for lunch today, because when I got there at about 11:30, the door was shut, a sign on the door (in Thai and thus unreadable to me), and perhaps most tell-tale of all, the rice cooker was off. It doesn't bother me too much because Friday is the Muslim Holy Day, and my friend "Travis" was going to go to Mosque for today, and also being Friday, a lot of the students go home. But I am excited about what happens next with the club, because if God wills, I will eat with them Monday-Wednesday of next week before leaving Baeng Saen on the 29th, and they have asked me to teach English again Monday night. By teaching, I really just answer questions in English, and the cool thing is that I've had the chance to talk about Christian beliefs, and I hope to keep building on it. May I receive grace to lay a foundation, the foundation of Christ, and may the Lord of the Harvest send someone to build upon it, send someone to harvest from the field I till.

But anyway, here I sit, wondering about life, the universe, and everything, wondering about the implications of things I have learned today. "Good news from a distant land is like cold water to a parched throat" says Proverbs 25:25 so consequently bad news is like sea water in the mouth of a castaway. I doesn't help the fact that today I feel, well, spiritually "blah," waiting by the phone for a call perhaps from Ohm to go do something or from Rick and Cooky. I wait for a call because my phone probably only has a handful of minutes left and in Thailand, you don't have to pay for incoming calls. I've made a sort of contact with the Christian Club on campus and I hope to head back there tonight with Ohm and see what's their M.O.

Speaking of Ohm, we spend yesterday afternoon hanging out, and I got the delight of teaching him how to bowl, and the disgust of bowling as bad as I normally do. Well it could have been worse. I picked up a few spares and the second game's score was 79. I swear that before I die I will break 100. I swear. We also got some ice cream at Swensens, from where you can get a three scoop sundae with brownie chunks, syrup, whip cream, and an ice cream filled truffle for 59 baht, or, less than two U.S. dollars. We started off the afternoon by hitting the aquarium, which was fun, especially hearing a yong Thai toddler cry "Nemo!" after spying the orange and white anemone clown fish.

And thus I am here, pondering why things happen the way they do, but instead of wondering about God's soverignty, I wonder why the American national soccer team doesn't just own up to the fact that they blew it and couldn't live up the hype, rather then blaming refs. I mean, we earned one draw and two losses. Landon Donovan, highest paid player in the history of Major League Soccer took one shot in three games, and the statistical lack of brilliance continues. I wish our defeaters, Ghana, all the best as I would like to see the "Black Stars" (as their squad is named) to take down Brazil, who they face next. They already defeated the Czech Republic, who joins the "Stars and Stripes" in the graveyard of round one shame, and the Czech Republic was ranked number two, second only to, well, can you guess? My dream final would have Ghana squaring off against Mexico for the FIFA World Cup, as I would enjoy seeing either side take home the prize and neither nation has ever won one before.

Well, I'm about pondered out, so I think I'm going to take this show on the road and walk around now that the rain has past.