Rumblings in the Attic

I was awakened at 0230 this morning by some varmit stuck in one of our bedroom walls, never a good thing! I woke Mark (my hero) up but he wasn't too impressed and went back to sleep. Who can sleep with such a strange noise in your walls and of course my mind is going crazy wondering what it might be. Let me just say I have never seen a squirrel in Thailand...ewww!

So what to do while I'm awake trying to ignore the rumblings in the attic... perhaps blog some. I have been busy living again!! So, what fills up my days here in Thailand you might wonder? On Mondays, I attend a Bible Study with about 20 other women and we have just begun a new study on marriage, I haven't done a marriage study in a while and it's good to refresh my thinking on the subject. Last week our leader had us share how many years we have been married, I was #3 in terms of longevity, it made me feel really old, Mark and I will have been married 28 years this May which also marks the 30th anniversay of our High School graduation! Time flies!

Every Tuesday I read at a nearby Thai preschool trying to introduce English to the dek poo yings and dek poo chais. There are 8 classes that I read to. It's very rewarding for me and the children have been teaching me lots of Thai. I'm not sure how much English they are learning! This last week I had read a story about a Frog on a Log, afterwards I had brought along some flash cards to review some of the animals from the book. While reading through the book I had probably said frog twenty times along with pointing to the picture. I held up the first flashcard of a frog and the children in every class quickly shouted out "Gob" and I responded "English?" and invariably they would shout out, "English! English!" They thought the frog was called an English!! Too funny!

I have renewed my efforts to learn the Thai language and have acquired a new teacher that comes to our home every Tuesday afternoon. She assures me after thirty hours(sohm seap chooa mongs) I should be able to converse some. So far I continue to be the cause of laughter among most Thai speakers when I attempt to speak like I know what I'm talking about. I did learn a new word yesterday-taco ti ka-ticklish! I had a pedicure with a friend and she is extremely ticklish, I liked the new word and wondered how I might work it in to my limited vocabulary so I said to my nail assistant, "Mi taco ti ka-no ticklish!!" It's no wonder why a Thai speaking persons' grammar is so bad because the translation is really no ticklish. Mi ow ka is no want. mi chai ka-no yes. You say ka A LOT! It is a way to be kinder and show respect. Lots of ka, ka, ka and na ka is very polite. My brain feels very old at times. I practice with Songkran(my driver) all the time, I told him he would have to start charging us more because of his tutoring while he drives. Last week I asked him how to say dumb, he had no idea what that meant, so I asked about stupid, he's looking bewildered repeating, "Stoopeed? Stoopeed? Don't know!" I often wonder what he really thinks about this crazy Farang!

Wednesdays are my bakery days. After dropping the boys at school around 0825, we drive 40 minutes to the Rayong Ladies Prison where we pick up the baked goods to be delivered to 4 area schools, the pick-up points for our weekly customers, not returning home most Wednesdays until around 1pm.

Thursdays fluctuate between cooking lessons at the prison and other activities. Since Christmas we have added pizza, pineapple upside-down cake and American brownies to our cooking repitoire. Thai people for the most part do not like really sweet things, after baking the chocolate brownies with the girls most of them commented. "aung-too sweet!" Remember they eat fruit for dessert here!

This past Thursday I was asked to speak at the Pattaya Christian Women's club, a group that began monthly meetings in September, I had attended two previous meetings before speaking. I was asked to speak for 20 minutes on parenting, the hardest part was deciding how to narrow such a broad subject down. I spent much time in prayer and felt the Lord just wanted me to share the three scriptures that Mark and I chose years ago as our parenting mission statement or parenting mantra and why. The three verses that we painted on the nursery walls as we awaited the triplets arrival. We printed one of them on our birth announcement. The scriptures that have transcended 15 years of parenting so far and have been applicable to each age. The three verses are:

1Samuel 1:27-28
I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord. Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord.

After 12 years of waiting for children we KNEW that God granted us these children, that He is the one that opens and closes the womb. He gave them to us to be given back to Him. It makes a huge difference in your parenting when you realize that these are Gods' treasures that are just on loan. That verse is also on Abbie's tombstone, a precious treasure that was only lent to us for a short time. I remember early in the deep, deep sorrow Mark reminding me that we had given her back to the Lord when she was born and she wasn't ours to begin with. We forget that when we are in the trenches of every day living don't we?

Proverbs 22:6
Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.

So if God has loaned them to us we better get busy training them for Him and His service. Training our boys now looks much different than it did 15 years ago. The first thing that we wanted to impart to our children when they were small was that they were a welcome addition to our family. That the Northcutt family was not a child-centered home but a God-centered home.

The other crucial thing during the early years is teaching obedience. "Obedience is the gateway for knowledge to enter the heart and mind." a quote from The Miracle Worker. They must learn obedience in those young years so that you will produce a receptive child who can listen and will respect you later when you begin to impart the gospel to them as they grow older. They have to learn to obey their parents so they will know how to obey God.

I talked about Deut.11:18-23 and the importance of knowing His Word so you can teach it to your children all the time-when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down...As my prayerful friend April reminded me. Continually spreading the Word like seeds, praying that they will sprout and take root in the minds and hearts of our children.

Now that our boys are teenagers(Ethan is only 11 but is starting to really act like a teenager!) and we can't MAKE them obey, how are we training them? I explained that we try to always have a gospel-centered approach. What does gospel-centered parenting look like, here were some of my thoughts:

1. Loving our children because we were first loved by God that sent His son for me and them. A God who didn't spare His Son but gave Him up for us all.
2.Loving them with a love that never ends regardless of their performance or how they disappoint us or embarass us. (Yak maek maek-very, very difficult!)
3.Forgiving our children because of how we've been forgiven.
4.Realizing that He didn't leave me here alone but left the Holy Spirit in me to guide me, lead me and help me with parenting and the ability to resist sin.
5.Disciplining in a way to show them their need of a Saviour-explaining that Christ went to the cross for their sin and mine. Helping them realize the grievousness of sin.
6.Parenting out of gratefulness and humbleness because of the grace that has been imparted to us through the gospel.

Just some of the ways that you can practice gospel-centered parenting. I'm thankful to my dear, praying, friend Cecilia who reminded me to just impart to my audience the importance of the gospel when raising children. Years ago we were impacted greatly by CJ Mahaney's small book, The Cross Centered Life
6. an easy, quick read if you're interested.

One other note about Proverbs 22:6. I am claiming that as a promise from God for our boys. With God's help we are trying to faithfully train them and He said they won't depart from it when they are old. (I often wonder how old He is was implying?)But I'm holding on to that promise.

Finally #3
Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Aw, I like this one and I keep repeating it over and over. Early on when the triplets were so critically ill I held on to this verse tightly. Now that they are teenagers it takes on a different meaning for me. Like I said earlier I can no longer MAKE them act like I want. When I feel frustrated and defeated in this marathon of parenting I remind myself that Dustin, Nathan and Ethan are God's work and HE will complete the work HE began in them.

You didn't know you were going to get a small sermon as you checked into my blog today! Pray for us as we continue this journey of parenting. Living in Thailand has its own specific struggles-no Corey Shepherd(our previous youth leader at Grace Church) in fact at our small church it is just our 3 boys and one other 12 yr. old boy (our current pastors' son)it can feel lonely for them. The blatant sin we are surrounded by. The few fellow Christians here in Pattaya...on top of all the other normal challenges of raising teenagers. Thank you for standing in the gap for us and praying for us.

Man! I've rambled on and it all began with the rumbling in the attic! I'll have to tell you about my Fridays-Wan Tit, Saturdays-Wan Sook and Sundays-Wan Sows another day!