Hope

These children are precious, beautiful, of great value, and left alone in the world. They fight great odds. They fight a strong system, prejudice, hunger, and absolute poverty. Yet these boys are three of the lucky ones. They have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. They have been redeemed at least for now. They will have to go back out into the system but hopefully they will arrive there prepared. Prepared with a skill that they can use to earn money to eat, to live. The others aren't so lucky. They sort through trash to find something of value, they collect used water bottles, they beg, they sell cigarettes, they are porters, they do anything they can to survive. Many are trafficked.

Thankfully, right now they don't know how harsh their world is. Although they do know much more than most of us. They are where they are because they were abandoned, because they were orphaned, or because their families gave them up because they can't provide for them. Some of them wandered the sand bank between their home country and the country of their residence with no one to look out for them. Their stories are all very similar.

In spite of this the hope in their eyes is bright. Their smile is contagious. The one on the left repeatedly ran into my open arms just looking for someone to cuddle him. The two boys on the right were fearless. Well, in a sense. We played a game which I really shouldn't admit to seeing as it is a bit dangerous but I couldn't let these kids down. They stood on a desk and I would spin them around the room. Well, some of them wouldn't wait for me to lift them off the desk. They would jump, flail really, into my arms before I spun them. The two the right would leap without looking to see if I was ready or would catch them. One even jumped while I still had the other in my arms. Thankfully, I caught him and held them both. I think they would have climbed onto the roof if I had let them.

 The little girl in this picture was the most pitiful child I think that I've ever seen. She wailed like she was all alone in the world. The first time I heard her crying she was coming towards our little group with tears and snot all down her face. She was covered in dirt with a tattered little white dress. And she wailed. I went to her but she turned away finding comfort only the arms of the girl in the yellow dress. She joined our game, the one where they jumped off the desk. But she would stand there looking terrified of falling off and like she was about to lose her balance. Yet, when I picked her up and twirled her her smile was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Each time when she would make her way onto the desk and gingerly wait her turn as soon as the spinning would begin I got the rarest smile. I've never seen so much hurt, distrust, and pain in the eyes of someone so young. The girl the yellow dress would hold the little girl and comfort her. I don't know if they were related, but she definitely has a heart of compassion.

My time there was short, too short. But the memory of them will remain. I will pray for their country, for their freedom, for their identify, for their faith, for their education, for their daily needs. I will pray that they never lose hope because that is all they really have.

May the words of the "Lady" remind you to do what you can in this fight.

                       “Please use your liberty to promote ours.”

*Currently the children are living in a home/school. They are loved there and are in much better conditions than they were previously. If you would like more information about that project please just let me know.

Rescued

(Dear Lucy and I...this picture has nothing to do with this story
except that we were there together)

Most times I think that I can live on my own, take care of myself, and that I'm fine. However, that was proved untrue today. I was driving my old roommate Lucy to get a smoothie on this super hot summer day when I suddenly saw a huge spider crawling up the by the steering wheel, right next to my leg. Anyone who knows much about me knows that I really truly dislike spiders. I'm quite afraid of them even. If they are small and I have a shoe I'm okay. However, when they are the size of a tennis ball and they are crawling ever nearer to your leg and you are in the middle of driving a hunk of metal I am not okay. All I could think was, "Get out, get out of the car before it touches you!" So I carrended towards the curb even hitting it with the front tire before I put the car in neutral and sprang out. My sweet friend was sitting there all the while going, "What, what!" Thinking that maybe the steering had gone out and I couldn't control the vehicle or that there was a fire in the engine. She was a little annoyed I think when I finally could utter the words, "Spider big spider." However, when she came around and saw the monster she understood why I freaked out. I am so thankful that we weren't driving on a major road or I probably would have crashed much worse than that.

We stood outside the car for probably about 15 minutes trying to find the wretched creature. People slowly drove by staring at the two strange girls who were staring at their parked car with all the doors wide open. Yet, typical for this neighborhood, no one stopped to see if we were okay. Lucy was brave and tried to find the thing. I, however, mostly paced around and made groaning noises. I flatly refused to get back in the car to drive the short distance remaining before we arrived at the restaurant. I told Lucy either we're both walking and leaving this car right here or you are driving and I'm walking. Now, this is especially funny since Lucy is 17 and doesn't have a driver's license. I don't mean that she doesn't have a Thai license, she doesn't have a license at all and hasn't practiced driving in 9 months. She finally agreed that she would drive as long as I was in the car with her. So I curled up in the passenger seat and focused on coaching her through driving our beast. She did an excellent job.

Once at the restaurant I relived the horror of the spider and we decided to get dinner so I would have time to calm down. I tried to determine if I knew every male that walked, rode, or drove by the window and if I could ask them to help me conquer this spider. As we walked back to the car I had to convince myself to be brave and get over the fear since we really didn't know if the spider was still in the car or not. I kept telling Lucy stare at my feet and look for the spider make sure that it isn't crawling over here. She was looking and I was trying to concentrate on driving, but I couldn't I kept looking for the spider too. After we had driven just a little ways from the restarant I saw it climbing up my door! I pulled over quickly (not hitting the curb this time) and told Lucy "I see it!" I hoped out again and Lucy came around to see. Sure enough the thing was sitting there behind the driver's seat. Then I did something quite shameful. I went back to the restaurant to ask for help from a high school freshman boy who had helped me take care of kids in the nursery at church. He walked to the car with me and took a swing at the spider with his shoe. However, the spider did his disappearing act and didn't resurface. We said thanks to the boy and let him get back to his drink at the restaurant. Then we looked at each other. We couldn't get in the car since he was still in there. We couldn't go anywhere. We couldn't get him out. We were feeling quite defeated.

Enter...our heroes. We had stopped across the street from a dorm or a children's home of some sort. There was a woman sitting on the porch watching us. She came out and asked in Thai what was happening. I told her there was a very big spider. She said, "Oh you're scared? Foreigners are always scared of spiders." I told her yes I was definitely a foreigner who was very scared of spiders. I told her where I had last seen the monster and she called to her house full of children to come and help this lady who was freaking out about a spider. So out they came, in all I think about ten kids (there were more in the house) and this one older lady. They started searching in the car, pulling out rugs, moving the seats, and then they got a broom. I think they realized that this strange foreign woman was going to stand there all night unless the issue was resolved.

The woman told me that it wouldn't bite me. I wasn't so sure. She said that foreigners are scared of spiders because spiders bite in their country, but she hasn't ever heard of a spider biting someone in Thailand. I was reminded of how all Thai people are very afraid of caterpillars. Where I come from, kids play with them all the time, but here if they touch you it is extremely painful.

So after at least ten minutes of these boys searching my car one of them spotted it! He tried to catch it with his hands but the lady didn't want him to. After a bit of a struggle between boy and spider the boy eventually flung the spider out of the car. The sweet Thai lady stomped on the creature. Even they were quite surprised at how big the spider was. After we thanked them profusely they all trotted back to their house. I was so thankful to have the problem taken care of so we could go home in peace.

Moral of the story, I cannot take care of myself when it comes to spiders. I need a handful of boys to take care of that for me. I will always be so thankful that they noticed our distress and came and helped. This morning I was reading about loving your neighbor as yourself. They definitely were a pretty good example of that.

What Now?

(My crazy 3rd and 4th grade classes from 2011-2012. I love the expressions on their faces.)

As some of you may have heard there are some changes coming my way. Life recently in fact has been so different than "normal". I've been able to see some of my sweet kiddos since school finished and they still call me teacher, but in truth I'm not. See, the Lord has shown me that right now He has some other things He wants to teach me. I'm not sure which path that is exactly, but I will follow obediently anyway. A wise woman recently told me, "The moment His specific plans for the future will change how you are living, He will reveal them to you." The Lord has been working in my heart and molding it to be what He desires. In fact I even wrote a post last October that is about obedience when you know God has called you. http://www.elenberginthailand.blogspot.com/2011/10/callobedience.html

Right now, as crazy, sudden, or thoughtless as it may seem I know that God is leading. I can't even describe how I know. I won't say that leaving my kids and the school is easy because it's not. The need is still great and I love them deeply. I won't say that leaving not knowing exactly where I'm going is easy. It stretches me far beyond my comfort zone and causes me to rely even more on God. I won't say that living without people I've come to love is easy. It is different and lonely and it broke my heart to say goodbye. But God never said, "Follow me, it's gonna be easy."

I am so thankful because I know He is faithful. I know He will provide. I know that He goes with me. I know His word is true and that He does what He says He will. I am so blessed that He has chosen me to be one of His own. I am so blessed that He allows me to be a part of His work in the world. I can truly say that sometimes I thought what He gave me here in Thailand was too hard. Sometimes I thought it was too much. Sometimes I wondered why me? But now I can clearly see that it has been one of God's sweetest blessings in my life. I can't believe He allowed me to be here, that He taught me, that He carried me, and that He changed me. I am so thankful. If I had the chance to go back to the beginning: before the tears, before the darkness, before the struggles, before the laughter, before the love, before the growth, before I knew what was waiting for me on this side of the world. If I stood at the beginning again and had to choose knowing what was in front of me I wouldn't have done anything differently.

That being said I'm just looking forward, putting one foot in front of the other, and loving God. What now? Only He knows. And I'm okay with that.