Pray without ceasing

Arson, looting, explosions, warnings, guns, possible bombs, curfews, barricades, rejected proposals, destroyed buildings and no talks of peace...

The protests in Thailand have taken a turn for the worse. School has been canceled for the rest of the week (meaning we only had 1 full day of school this week, but many students either stayed home or many were picked up during the day to be taken home by their parents). The rest of the school year and what will happen is really up in the air... we don't know if there will be finals, we don't know if there will be SALT trips, we don't know if there will be class... we simply don't know; it all hangs on the political situation.

I was having a conversation with my Spanish 3 students today about the political situation and how they feel about it (in Spanish of course! :) ), and one of my students told me that many of the red-shirts don't even understand what they're fighting for... they just keep fighting because that's what they've been told and paid to do. Yes... PAID; paid to fight, paid to protest, paid to cause a raucous, paid to negotiate on behalf of Thaksin. Thaksin... a man of power despite not being IN power (or even in the country). He fought for the rights of the poor people, gave them things that no other PM had and he's essentially raised up his own little army now, albeit a very disorganized one.

On the other hand, many of the red-shirts DO know what they're fighting for: closing the gap between the rich and the poor. I once heard that Thai college graduates make a max of 9,000 baht ($300) a month; we make approximately 7X that per month [feeling a bit gross about this], which pales in comparison to what we would/could make in the states [not that teachers make that much]. But the red shirts are not college graduates; they are the poor/working class and make up the majority of the population in Thailand. These are the people that are the taxi drivers, the guards, the mall workers, the food vendors, etc. These are people who make minimum wage, work long days and can never have a "sick day" simply because they cannot afford to do so. So while it's a big deal that they're burning down buildings, setting tires on fire, protesting, taking over buildings, invading hospitals and so on... they simply want to be heard and for change to take place. If you made only $10 a day (which would only happen if you were a college grad and had a "good" job), wouldn't you want to be heard too?

Several of the red shirt leaders have turned themselves in over the course of today, but that hasn't stopped the protest or the violence. In fact, the violence has escalated for two reasons: 1) several of the red shirt leaders wanted (very loosely?) to try to keep things as peaceful as possible and 2) now the black shirts are emerging. (I feel like it has become unsafe to wear any color shirt around here... black, red, multi-color, white... you name it). Unfortunately, as if there wasn't enough violence and trouble, the black shirts are more of a "terrorist" group and known for their violence.

The protests have unfortunately come a bit closer to us now; our normal mall, grocery store & bank have been shut down, the main street off of which we live is being "shut down," and a curfew has been put into place from 8pm-6am. While this was alarming at first, how thankful I am that it hasn't crept our way until now. We are safe in our apartment/the ICS campus for now and are stocked up on the essentials, are loaded with movies and books, so I think we're good to go for while. Boredom might strike (it did a tiny bit when we didn't have school on Monday or Tuesday), but I'm okay with that since it makes us all the more grateful for our jobs and students. Additionally, I know that both of us could use the extra rest to continue to recover health-wise.

We trust that the Lord is at work... even when we don't see it. I'm sure that Thailand has never had so much publicity before... and I am sure that there have never been so many people world-wide that have been praying for Thailand, praying for the leaders, and praying for ICS. Thank you for your continued prayers, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; may you continue to pray without ceasing.