Full measures of joy sometimes manifests itself in simple, unexpected iterations.
Like when you're providing English learning to Thai children, and you introduce some Canadian bird names into the vocabulary.
It started innocently enough. I was teaching on Isaiah 40:31 and the whole bit about mounting up on eagle's wings. It was part of a bigger unit on how God views 'strength' as a whole. That particular lesson it was about the strength we can't find in ourselves, but on which we can rise up as we trust in God.
To connect the English part with the Bible lesson part I prepared a Power Point on my laptop of various kinds of birds. The punch line was the last slide of the eagle of course. But before that we went through different birds and their names. I deliberately chose birds native to Canada not found in Thailand, just for interest sake. They were particularly interested in the Cardinal's bright red feathers, and also the Blue Jay's bright blue, especially when I told them these friends came for peanuts up at our cottage.
But the star of the Canadian lineup was, hands down, the Chickadee. That's because I told them that this bird sang its own name. "Chickadee-dee-dee-dee-dee."
And they loved it! Thought it was hilarious that a bird would call out its own name.
All of them immediately copied my chickadee imitation. And with great enthusiasm. And volume!! If you've been in our meeting hall, you can likely already hear the echoes. Twenty one kids plus a few hilarious adults all crying out loudly at the same time, "CHICKADEE-DEE-DEE-DEE-DEE-DEE!!!!"
We had fun with it for a bit, and then I advanced forward to the eagle and segued into the lesson proper.
For a later English lesson I thought I would add some of the new bird names to an older Power Point on animals.
A bit of a background might be important here. I sit with my laptop on, well, my lap, but turned towards the children who are all seated on the floor in front of me. You do what you can with what you have, right? We then advance through the slides, first with the animal pictured and the English name displayed, and then just with the names. It's a group exercise, which is a very common learning strategy in Thailand. So everyone calls out the name as it comes up.
Somewhere along the way I discovered the fun of advancing the slides in mischievous kinds of ways. I'll start at a steady kind of rhythm, but then slowly speed it up until it's literally impossible to keep calling out the answers, the pictures are just flipping by so fast.
Or I'll keep a steady pace, but then, instead of going forward to the next slide, I'll go backwards, just to catch them off guard. And then, just for the fun of it, I'll go back and forth between two slides over and over until they all have the rhythm and are all shouting out what they are so sure comes next, only to advance it to the next slide after all, catching everyone off guard.
Throughout, they are all completely humouring me! Everyone is trying their best to shout out the name of the animal on the screen, trying to keep up, trying to outwit this crazy lady who is having way too much fun with those arrow keys.
We've done it like this for a long time already. Many visits, over several years. But when I added something into the mix just this last time, a new level of crazy emerged.
Without telling them there would be new creatures on the familiar Animals Power Point, I just started advancing the slides one after another. The Cardinal was the first new one, and they stopped and thought and tried to read and then someone got it and shouted it out. "Cardinal!" Yes! And we continued. But now they were on to me. Everyone was on the look out for the next surprise. "Blue Jay!!!" They got it quicker this time.
The biggest fun however was saved for the Chickadee. I honestly would have been happy if they just remembered the name. But when the picture came up they all did the big loud thing they had done the time before. "CHICKADEE-DEE-DEE-DEE-DEE!!!!"
This added a whole new dimension to the game of flipping through things fast, or, even better, going back and forth. How loud can you make the sound of a Chickadee? We'll show you!! How quickly can we go from that to the name of the next animal on the slide? We've got it covered!!
I confess to having way too much fun with this.
And, in the breaths between laughing joy, there is a fullness.
Paul's prayer for the strengthening of Ephesian believers was, in part this:
I pray that out of His glorious riches,
He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit
in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power together with all the Lord's holy people,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep
is the love of Christ,'
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge --
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16-19
Yes, this.
This is a full-measure moment.
Paul's prayer has been answered for me.
Not just this, because my life is full of full-measure moments, to be honest.
And for that I am unspeakably grateful.
But in this Chickadee chorus, yes, for absolute certain,
I feel I am able to grasp how wide and long and deep it all is.
And while I may not be able to take all of you to Hot Springs to see it for yourselves, all of you who support us in any way at all -- through donations, sponsorship, prayer, cheering on the Teams that go, showing an interest in any way -- you are all part of it.
So I pray Paul's prayer over you.
Sincerely and with deep thanksgiving.
Rev. Ruth Anne Breithaupt, MDiv.
Canadian Representative/Missionary in Residence
New Family Foundation/Highview Community Church
The mission of New Family Foundation is to
provide a loving home for at-risk and
orphaned children in Northern Thailand to
help them achieve their best potential in
education, vocation and service to society.
