Longings

As a child I didn't deal with disappointment very well. I guess that's pretty normal, but it seems to me that a chronic sense of being "hard done by" followed me into my teen years and adult life. It might have been due to a misguided parental belief that to give a child something they really, really wanted was to spoil them. I'm not sure. But it did lead me to develop an emotional habit of not hoping for things, not longing for things. What was the point? It wasn't going to happen anyways.

Throughout my spiritual journey, God has sought to gently rebuke and re-parent me on this. The rebuke is against the pity party, and the re-parenting is toward understanding my Heavenly Father as lavish and loving and eager to grant me the desires of my heart. Over and over again, He has given me over the top gifts that come in wild and wonderful ways to my soul.

In no small way, this time in Thailand has been one of those gifts. The longing to return, the deep ache to come back and spend time with our Hot Springs kids....that has been fulfilled and filled up more than I was able to think or imagine.

It hit me hardest when I first arrived.

We'd been at the zoo all day [I'll have to send pictures of the zoo later when Suradet can send me his copies. Mine got deleted, but that's another entire story] so we were all pretty hot and tired. I rode home in the truck with the kids and Suradet and Yupa, about 8 of us inside and 7 in the back with all my bags. As is normal whenever I'm driving anywhere in Thailand, my eyes were wide open taking in all the scenes zipping by. There's so much that is so strange. Huts on stilts. Women selling garlands at the intersections. Seven people on a moto. Water buffalo sneaking onto the road.

I was looking for some familiar landmarks to let me know when we were getting close. But when we'd been there before it was night time. So by the time we turned into the driveway, it took me by surprise.

The first sight of the church building was like a grab to the heart. That's it! I've been here! This is what I've been looking at in pictures for 8 months, wishing, praying, asking if I could come back! But we didn't park out front. Instead we lumbered up the steep hill behind the church to stop in front of the "mission centre" where I'd be staying.

And then we got out. And I stood on the red earth and looked out over the Hot Springs "compound" and realized...barely able to breathe....I'm here. This longing....He's granted me a deep, deep desire of my heart.

And then I lost it.

I didn't want to do that. I thought it might scare the kids, crying like that. I was very sure I couldn't explain myself. Quick, what's the Thai for "It's okay, I'm just happy!" But I didn't need to say anything.

It was Tor (Yaowana) who made the first move. She just came up and put her arms around me and hugged me and started making little quick "sh,sh,sh,sh" noises. The other girls followed and very soon I was surrounded by a pack of little sticky wonderful bodies and thin brown arms, telling me with little comforting noises that it was all going to be okay.

I pulled it together a bit, mostly because I so badly needed a kleenex that the beauty of the group hug was soon going to not be quite so beautiful. We unloaded my bags and brought them into the room where I was staying.

Clean floors, my own bathroom, a decent mattress. I took it all in quickly, but a more pressing matter was at hand. The SPONSORS PACKETS!!!!!

Do you know how eager they are for your love from home? Picture 15 sets of brown eyes completely focused on the opening of one large suitcase. Try to feel the electricity of 15 children who have so little, holding back as best they can, in order to be polite, while I hand them out one at a time.

Hear their happy sounds as they open the envelopes, look inside, and show each other the pictures. And....this is unusual for us, I'm afraid....right away, with no coaxing, they are instinctively equalizing the candy component of the packages. Everyone shares everything that was edible in the packages we sent. I don't know how they do it, but they do. It's just what you do when the Sponsors send the packages. The books, the letter, the other gifts, they're yours. But anything there is to eat is common ground.

I am trying to get all this on tape to bring it all back to you, especially the sponsors. The happy noises, the fun of "Christmas morning" in the middle of a very hot day in October.

After the children leave to take their new treasures back to their bunks, it's just Yupa and me.

I so badly want to tell her how glad I am to be here. I so badly want to tell her that I admire what she is doing to mother these children. I so badly want to say about a million things. But I can't. She can't. I try...in English...so she can hear my tone, see my gestures. A hug seems best. And that's when we're both crying. She's saying, in English, "Than Yoooooo, than yooooooo, than yoooooo" over and over again. But I'm saying, No...You have no idea what this is giving ME!"

And when we're sort of done all that hugging and crying and saying thank you badly in each other's language, we get down on the floor, quite literally on our knees, and pray. She prays in Thai, I pray in English. And it does not matter that we can't understand what the other is saying. God hears us both. God is standing over us both.

He is mighty in the midst of us. He is rejoicing over us with singing. He is quieting us with His love. And He is delighted to be lavishing upon us, Yupa and me, the desires of our hearts.

There are many ways that going far away makes God seem so much bigger. Receiving so much from Him, even in just my first hour at Hot Springs, was just another way for my heart to know that in the care of such an enormous God, deepest longings can be met beyond imagining.