He's got the whole world in his hands...

Today was an interesting day. A day where I was seemed to think about this world more than normal. I left school today at 8:00 am to go to immigration to extend my 90 day visa and to get a re-entry permit for when I leave the country next week. And as I was sitting there for three hours I really started to think about this whole "American" thing. I don't know how to describe it... but there I was sitting in Thailand with people from Germany, Burma, Switzerland, Canada, and some where in Africa. And every once and a while I would hear someone open their mouth and hear and American accent... I never before realized that there was an American accent. I have found myself clinging to American food and only eating Thai every once and awhile. I realized that it was crazy for me to think that after 22 years of eating western food, would my food palette instantly change to enjoying all Thai food all the time. Also, anytime I go into a home of an American here -- I usually say the comment "Wow, I feel like I am in America." There is something different about their homes, whether its their decorations (one house surprisingly enough looked straight like a page out of pottery barn, I don't know how you do that here!) or the smell of vanilla candles. I never really appreciated being an American before, until you are taken out of your country and plopped right in the middle of a culture so different from yours.

But, wow have my eyes been opened to this world and the beauty that is all around me. I have never had a better geography lesson than I have from the 3 months I have been here. I walk into my class and realize that I teach kids with backgrounds and nationalities from England, Germany, USA, Italy, Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland. Kids who may have parents from two different countries but a passport from another, and then raised in a completely different country. Kids who spend their vacations in Bali, or have gone to school in Paris -- or their favorite place to visit in Tasmania (which is an island off of Australia if you didn't know, I sure didn't).

I went on a walk today, and happened to walk through the fruit and vegetable market during its busiest time. I had my ipod in and am walking shoulder to shoulder with 100% Thai people all around me. I never thought that I would ever think that they would all look so different, now I cant believe that I thought when I came here they would all look the same. Here I was in a sea of Thai people where people that look like me are literally on the other side of the world.

But, it just so happened that when I reached the end of the street I was at the American consulate. Something about it looked so regal and protected behind the cement walls. But high above the fence was a huge American flag flying up above. For some reason I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Yea it may sound corny, but there was something that made me so proud of those red and white stripes and stars. I walked across the bridge and looked at it for awhile as the hustle and bustle of Thailand was all around me and the sun set in the distance behind the mountains. I was eating pomello that I just got from the market (a thai fruit) and fittingly enough my ipod was playing ... "He's got the whole world in his hands." And in that moment I feel like I caught a glimpse of how big our God really is.

This makes me think of a conversation I had with a mom of one of my students who is originally from Indiana. She said she misses the cornfields and the wide open spaces of "home" but has realized that "home" is not really in Indiana at all. I asked her what she meant, and she said heaven in my home. And it doesn't matter where I am I have belonging in heaven. So as big as this world is, and as I am as far away from home as I could possibly get -- I am comforted by the fact that home is forever with me, for home dwells with my Jesus.