The Days

Lately I've had a line from an old song from JoDee Messina going through my head.

"These are the days you will remember for the rest of your life."

Thinking back to my students and the road we've journeyed together.

These are the days I remember:

*Drying their tears,
*Driving them to and from school because their mom was busy working and their dad couldn't be bothered,
*Buying them food because their mom was sick and had no money,
*Checking their foreheads for fever and praying with them when they were sick,
*Holding him as he cried after his dad's anger branded a red mark on his face,
*Driving him to the grocery store where his dad worked as a security guard because no one was home to let him in the house,
*Holding their hair out of their faces and rubbing their backs when they had to be sick,
*Sitting after school working on homework and work they weren't able to finish in class,
*Driving him home because he had his bicycle and it was so stormy and the roads were flooding,
*Carrying her through the rising flood water to get her back to her house,
*Taking her to get KFC for her birthday,
*Picking nits out of their hair for hours,
*Spending every spare moment of the day reviewing math facts and giving speed tests,
*Playing tag with them until my bare feet blistered,
*Visiting them in the hospital and bringing stickers,
*Playing bubble gum, bubble gum way too many times,
*Singing along with the one CD in the school van,
*Talking with their parents in the parking lot after school - reporting the good and the bad - hearing about their lives,
*Spending time with them on the weekend eating yogurt and ice cream just so they would know that someone cared,
*Talking with them about right and wrong and praying they'd make good choices,
*Standing in for their mom on Mother's Day,
*Eating lunch together,
*Sitting outside listening to your stories about wild animals,
*Reading Bible stories together...

The list of memories could go on and on.

Today I got to visit my students and it was sweet. I now have new memories of my now fourth grade boy seeing me and having his face light up and running to me to give me a hug. My precious girl proudly telling me "I no have anymore" pointing at her head and speaking about her lice. My boys asking, "Did you go help the kids yet? Are you finished?" Squeals and hugs and smiles. Their stories, speaking in English, holding my hand. How much I miss them. We've been through a lot together... ups and downs... tears and laughter... sickness and health. These kiddos hold a special place in my heart...they always will.

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.

Dad We Need You

My children have an obsession with Angry Birds. So, yesterday while waiting for early dismissal for our parent teacher conferences I gave my students angry birds valentines for them to color and give to whoever they wished. I was playing a Proverbs for the Family CD which has different verses from Proverbs and then a song about that proverb. One caught my attention.

“Dad we need you, we need your care, we need you there to always help us through. To show us the way so we’ll all meet in heaven one great day. Dad we just need you. A precious thing a kid can have is a dad who is wise and true. A dad who is kind and fair and always there for you. He listens when you talk, he hears the words you didn’t say, he patches the cuts and lifts you up he is there in every way. We need your strength to keep us safe, we need your hugs and touches too, we always need your wise advice to show us what to do.”

This song struck me because I looked at my five precious 4^th grade students and I realized four of them don’t live with their dad. Then I counted out of my nine 3^rd graders four of them don’t live with their birth fathers and one’s dad isn’t always home. So out of fourteen kids nine of them don’t have solid father figures daily invested in their lives. Some of those kids do have loving dads, they just had to be sent away to go to school and therefore can’t really speak into their children’s lives since they don’t see them often. My heart breaks for these children who have to grow up without a godly father to teach them how to be strong, hard-working, and honest. They are steeped in a culture that says that men drink, smoke, use women, and are lazy. They are immersed in a culture that says being an effeminate man or even becoming a woman is more valuable than being a man.

I looked at my girls and thought about how important it is for them to have a loving dad who protects them, tells them they are beautiful, and that they have great worth. Instead it is more normal for them to have dads who force them to work, who put them in danger, who neglect them.

Later in the afternoon, during the parent teacher conferences I was talking with the dad of one of our students. This is a father who I don't know well, but who I respect for the little I do know about him. I know that he teaches his son right from wrong, he teaches him honesty and respect, and I know that his son respects him. After several minutes of talking we got into some interesting topics. He told me how he was so not happy that his son's only option was to go to a government school and that at that school his son was forced to worship Buddha. (Every government school, as far as I know, has a time of meditation in the morning). He prayed that the Lord would bring a Christian school that his son could learn about God and that he wouldn't be required to serve another god. He views our school as a direct answer to his prayers, several other parents I talked to said that as well.

Then he told me how he came to know the Lord. He said that his life consisted of drinking and smoking everyday along with other not so wholesome activities. His friend invited him to church and the pastor told them that if they wanted to change their lives they needed to pray and ask the Lord to help. So this father prayed asking the Lord to change him, that was on a Sunday. On Monday he didn't want to drink or smoke or live the way he had. His friends all asked him, "What happened? What did you do?" And he told them, "I didn't do anything, I couldn't do it on my own. The Lord changed me." Since that day he has been walking with the Lord and he desires to bring his children up in the truth. His son's Thai name means Peace. Because he has come to know the peace of God.

In watching my children I've seen the obvious gap an absent father leaves and the pain that causes. I've seen good qualities instilled in my children from a godly father. I would never wish for the former for anyone. I'm thankful that the Lord is a Heavenly Father, and I'm thankful that He redeems lives in spite of circumstances. Because of this I know there is hope for each and every student no matter their backgrounds.

This is one of my biggest prayer points for my boys, that they will grow up to be godly men, faithful husbands, and loving dads. I think that is one of the biggest keys to breaking the cycles of poverty and oppression.

What Love Sees

So, hands down one of the sweetest moments happened today at school. Behind our school in a small "shed" lives a family. Last Christmastime when the pink baby blankets started appearing on the clothesline we thought it must be a girl. Shortly after I found out that the wife had given birth to a little boy. He's over a year old now and through the past months we've interacted with him some, but since he has become mobile he now toddles over to our PE class, assembly or recess. At least once a day he's in our arms or we are making faces at him or chasing after him. He is one of the cutest babies. Now, if we put our arms out he'll toddle over to us and put his arms up.

Today, some of us English teachers were sitting at a table outside eating lunch. My roommate went to the noodle shop (where his mom works) and came back with him and a butter/milk sandwich. I was holding him and one of my 3rd grade boys came over and sat down with me. I watched as he gently talked to the baby, rubbed his back, jabbered at him, and had this look and manner that I have never seen on him before. He tried to get the baby to go to him, but he came to me instead and my student said, "He likes Miss Emily." I thought my student would lose interest quickly and go running back to his paper airplanes, but he didn't. He sat next to me and loved on our sweet little friend. After a few minutes the baby reached over and gave my student a big hug. And my sweet little boy gave him a big hug back. My student picked up the baby, who is not too much smaller than him and held him in his arms. He played with him and let him wrinkle up his paper airplane. When the bell rang and it was time for our students to line up my boy hugged the baby and gave him a sweet kiss on the cheek and then ran to line up.

I can't explain to you how precious this was. Precious because of a broken little boy who hasn't had the love of a mommy or daddy. A boy who struggles everyday to not give up, to throw his hands up and say he can't. I am amazed by the love I saw shining in his eyes and by his gentle manner which contrasts deeply with his often harsh attitude. In those minutes I saw hope and I saw the goodness of the Lord.



"Tell me your story, show me your wounds, and I'll show you what love sees when love looks at you. Hand me the pieces broken and bruised, and I'll show you what love sees when love sees you. I see what I made in your mother's womb. I see the day I fell in love with you. I see your tomorrows, nothing left to chance. I see My Father's fingerprints. I see your story, I see My name. Written on every beautiful page. You see the struggle, you see the shame. I see the reason I came. I came for your story, I came for your wounds. To show you what Love sees when I see you. When I see you."
~Mac Powell "When Love Sees You"

I know that Jesus was watching us: dirty baby boy who is growing up in a shed, broken little boy who isn't quite sure that he is loved, and weak teacher whose inadequacies glare... He saw us there around that table and He loved us the way He has since before we were born. We bear His fingerprints and I saw them today in the love in an eight year old's eyes.

Soil...Who Knew

(after school gardening club...boys love that dirt)


Science class with 4th grade on Tuesday was filled with laughter. Mostly because we were talking about worms (because we just started talking about soil) and one of my girl says, "You know you can make medicine from worms." I'm thinking, really? Isn't that interesting. Then we discuss how her parents make medicine from worms, but city worms are no good because they are dirty, they have to be worms from a particular place. Then my other little mountain boy chimes in with a word in Karen that only one of my kids understands. They tried to work out what word he was thinking of (he couldn't remember it in Thai). Eventually we decide that he is talking about snails. His family makes medicine out of snails. I told them if I got sick I would ask them to make me medicine. They laughed and said, "Oh, we don't know how to make it, we just watch our parents." Apparently making the medicine involves squeezing the creatures in question. I'm not sure though because I think this was the point I directed the conversation back to the actual lesson. During that Science lesson I also learned the best way to catch termites for eating. I asked each of my students if they had ever eaten termites. Only one said that they hadn't. Not gonna lie I was a little grossed out. But mostly it was so funny. Anyone walking by would've thought we were crazy.


My favorite part though was when I asked the students what things we might not have if we didn't have soil. They answered, "houses, food, clothes, etc." But then one boy, the one who thinks he isn't as smart or as good as everyone else answered, "Well, if we didn't have dirt then we wouldn't be here because God made us out of dirt." I was amazed, I hadn't ever thought of that application. Then another student responded, "God did make us out of dirt, but He can do anything so He could have made us out of water if He wanted to. Then we'd all live in the sea!" They never do cease to amaze me.