A Prayer Answered

I feel uncomfortable writing about this stuff. It is decidedly unsexy but let me take you through some stuff from Sunday.

Luna and I not long after getting up were chatting about what we should do with our day. We thought it might be good to drive down to Hua Hin for the day and so Luna invited her chums to join us. They told Luna there was a meeting of the FIlipino community in Ratchaburi after mass to discuss teacher licensing in Thailand and they wanted to attend. So we decided we should attend as Luna is a teacher and there is a distinct possibility that I may join her in the not too distant future.

Now this mention of licensing set me off, panic, fear, anxiety. In particular the issue concerns me because if it is actually implemented as proposed it may well prevent me from getting a teacher's license and that would prevent me from teaching and from earning a crust here. That would mean having to move on from Thailand and possibly back to the UK because I do not yet have the funds to secure our future. And as you know I like life here. I am enjoying a quality of life hitherto unknown to me.

So in typical fashion my incorrectly wired up washing machine head starts to spin before I know anything substantive! In short I am going to have leave Thailand, this is coming in for the start of the new academic year and my prospects of teaching are now over. I am thinking that maybe I might have to invent teaching experience or ask the school for some assistance, like offer me a job now so I can apply for a work permit immediately but not pay me until the new academic year!

From experience of this type of mental maelstrom I know what is required and I do it. I get on my knees and start praying. I ask to be relieved from the rubbish in my head, to have the power to accept things as they are restored and to go with them and to be able to act on faith alone, that is to believe that God will look after me and mine regardless. I didn't tell Luna I was doing this or engage her in any real discussion about my fears. I just quietly got on with it in my bed room on a tiled concrete floor, naked! I said a few other prayers and that conditioned me, the spinning ceased if you like. On the way to mass I might have made some dramatic pronouncement like: "This means we will probably have to leave Thailand"!

After mass I was told the meeting wasn't about licensing but a presentation from a college in Bangkok who provide continuing education for post graduate students. The presentation was pitched by filipinos for filipinos and was actually hysterical. A fascinating insight into how to sell to filipinos! However I learned this college runs a Graduate Diploma in Teaching which is approved by the Ministry of Education and runs over 9 months with the tuition on Saturdays and Sundays. The next course starts early March.

Problem solved. Prayer answered. God truly works in mysterious ways. Or is this just coincidence?! Someone said:"Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous!" I am taking some soundings about the course/college this week and have told Luna to have a think about implications. Shall take a decision at the weekend. I said to Luna if I heard Amazing Grace then I would know this was definitely God's will for me!



So this ticket would secure me a teacher's license