The Mattresses Have Arrived!

Something big happened this week.



It's hard to explain, really why it seems like such a big deal to me. I mean, they're just mattresses. They arrived at Hot Springs, and Tutu has sent me the pictures, and I'm beside myself with joy. We celebrated it at church this morning. Showed the pictures to everyone. We're all in this, after all. The mattresses were purchased with the money we raised at the Christmas Bazaar last November.

But...it IS a big deal. How can I explain? Maybe the best way is to include here an excerpt from my journal last year at this time. It was my first trip to Thailand, and my very first introduction to the children who now own such a big piece of my heart.

This is rather lengthy, so if you just come in for a quick check of the blog, you'll want to come back another time. OR, you might have seen this before. I've printed this off and included it in various ways over this past year. So if that's the case, you can skip down to where I come back with the pictures of the mattresses again :).




Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Painting Project

It’s a long hot day of colour.
Two colours, to be precise; one pail of cream, one pail of butterscotch. It was something of a spontaneous project suggested to us the day before; to paint the two rooms of the main hall in preparation for the dedication of the new nursery building. Apparently Dave A. has received word that the Japanese ambassador to
Thailand is coming. He will bring about 100 of his countrymen and colleagues for the ceremony that will officially open the nursery some Japanese businessmen across the street from the orphanage have sponsored. Suddenly, this painting project moves up in the priority list, in honour of these special guests to the orphanage. Dave asks if we’d be willing.

Most of us didn’t bring clothes for painting, but by now, who cares? If it serves the kids, then we’re on it.

We really push ourselves today. Physically, it’s taxing to work that hard and that long in this heat. By the end of it, my arms feel like they might fall off if I’m not careful. I notice that it takes two hands to lift my water bottle to my mouth. Even so, it’s a satisfying exhaustion. The place has been transformed in a matter of hours by 7 willing hearts working alongside our new Thai friends. Feels good.

Except I am disappointed when Sherrod tells us we will go straight from here to visit the Hot Springs orphan home. Right now? Without going home to shower and change? How can I possibly engage in this strategic visit looking and feeling like this? I feel so rude showing up to meet with Suradet and his wife, all sweaty and paint covered and sloppy.

The Hot Springs Visit

As we’re driving the rough and winding roads out to Hot Springs, I am thinking hard. The significance of this particular event, and its connection to the entire Asian component of Regions Beyond at Highview, may well be the most important reason we’re here. The Hot Springs orphan home is led by Pastor Suradet and his wife, Yupa. He is from the Karen tribe and she is Thai. (This is significant, as the hill tribe people are regarded as an inferior ethnic group by the Thai. For him to lead a church of most Thai people is, to him an affirmation of God’s call to this ministry. Socially speaking, he shouldn’t be accepted in a leadership role. As a female senior pastor, I instantly relate to my pastor friend in this.) They serve and shepherd a small local congregation about an hour’s drive from Chiang Mai, up in the hills.

They have two young children of their own, and have, in addition brought 11 more to live with them, so Dave tells me. An act of compassion, inspired by what Tutu and Asia’s Hope is doing at Doi Saket. Without any promise of sponsorship, these children have been taken in.

In an e-mail sent about 10 days before we left, Dave described the Hot Springs situation and asked that Highview consider whether or not this might be an opportunity to respond through a partnership with Suradet.

I am favourably leaning toward the idea from the start. Before I left I sent the e-mail on to the Elders, asked them and a few others to pray, and told Dave I’d like to meet this family when I’m there.

So now, I here am, sweaty and limp and covered in paint, physically and mentally fatigued, riding in a car up a harrowing drive dodging dogs and water buffalo, to gather important data that I will bring back to Highview. I am not bringing my best game to this. I wonder how I will be able to form intelligent questions, and work it all through an interpreter. I’m concerned about how I’ll be able to take notes for my report. None of this will matter later, but in the car I don’t know that.

As we step out into the dusk I breathe a prayer for sufficiency. Cover me, Lord. It’s all You in this moment. I have nothing to bring to this. Let me see You here. Guide my heart.

I am first impressed with the structure of the building. Built in 2005 through sponsorship of the Korean Methodist Church, there is a traditional Thai beauty and characteristic steep staircases, combined with crisp lines and Methodist simplicity.

But I’m not looking long at the building. Our arrival has been quickly noticed and we are greeted en mass by the children, with that odd mixture of respectful wai and familiar hug. This is only our second time meeting them. These children had attended our program the night before back at the Doi Saket orphanage, and afterwards, when I spoke directly to Suradet, they stood beside him and shyly giggled because of the camera. They are not so shy this time.

Tutu is here to translate, but I am amazed at how little I need her by now, with the children at least. The little ones don’t care that they can’t understand me, they just carry on the conversation regardless. The older ones simply love it that I’m speaking English to them. If it looks like I’m expecting an answer they just smile and say, in English… “My name is…..”and then something completely unrepeatable, which I try to repeat. They are very patient, but my efforts most often elicit a giggling attempt to correct my pronunciation.

We are pulled by eager little arms in to see their place.

Dave had told us that Suradet had set up space for these children in the basement of the church. I guess I thought he meant the Sunday School rooms. I guess I thought he meant there would be beds. I guess I thought there would be windows. I guess I thought he meant there might be an actual floor.

Instead, two concrete rooms, one measuring approximately 8 x 10 and the other measuring approximately 8 x 14, provide the bedrooms of the 4 boys and 9 girls respectively. Their mats are rolled up and what little personal possessions they have are stacked neatly beside. Their clothes….just that for 6 girls?….are hung in one corner on a bamboo stick attached to the wall by a leather strap.

That’s it. Oh, and the room where you make the food. Not a kitchen. Don’t think kitchen. It’s a hard packed dirt floor with a table and some baskets of vegetables I don’t recognize. A small electric fridge sits awkwardly in another general all purpose room adjoining.

There is no furniture. No beds, no chairs. There are no toys. Not that I can see. Except, I do notice the colourful cloth bags with the Teddy Bears inside them hanging from nails above their folded mats. And an anime colouring book. It’s night, so the florescent lights buzz annoyingly.

This is where these children live.

Beautiful Narisara (Thim), with her uncharacteristic curls brought into submission in those amazing braids. Sweet Pakamat (Sai), whose enchanting smile is missing teeth in the front. Laughing Yingjareun (Fruk), who looks way younger than seven.

All of them. These real human children with faces and pretty little hands pressed together in the wai, and skinny little arms wrapped around my waist….they live here! It repeats itself in my head like a crazy, manic, whispered scream.

And the really awful thing about it is, this, this is better than where they came from.

Here they have adults to care for them. Here they have food. Here they are taken to school rather than forced to work. Here they are taught songs and hymns and spiritual songs and to say please and thank you and to share. Here, someone tells them they are valued.

It hits me like a wrecking ball. I fight to keep my composure. I feel sick to my stomach from it. They live here. Thirteen of God’s sweet children. They live here.

I ask if we can see the church upstairs. Perhaps it’s a defence mechanism, a way of giving myself and the team a chance to get out of the unbelievable, up to where we can breathe. We climb the steep stair case and are welcomed into a simple but clean sanctuary, with a smooth ceramic floor, a small elevated platform with a pulpit, and folding chairs.

The children sing for us. Strong and joyful praise. I’m losing it again. I’m asked if I’d like to say a few words. I don’t know if I can.

But I do. Tutu is my interpreter. I thank them for their warm hospitality and for letting us come to visit them. I tell them that I am from the upside down country of Canada where everything is very cold and people would just be starting to wake up on this day they have already had. I tell them I am glad to have made such delightful new friends.

I tell them that I see they are well behaved children. I encourage them to keep studying hard in school. I encourage them to obey their parents and be kind to each other. I tell them I believe that God has big dreams for them, and if they do these things and cooperate with God, then they will grow up to be and do many wonderful things for Him. I tell them God loves each one of them very, very much.

As I speak to them they fix their eyes on me. Even when Tutu repeats my words in their language, their eyes look at me. I am looking into the eyes of real human children who live in the cellar of a church and call that home. The eyes of children who have known more grief and fear and confusion in their few years than I will likely ever see in my life time. Children who have been discarded, beaten, left to beg. Children who have known hunger and desperation. Brown eyes, all of them.

In English we sometimes describe experiences as having “knocked us over”. This is a wrecking ball to the gut. I said it out loud before I left, that I was willing to let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God. What a foolish naïve thought. I had no idea whatsoever what I was talking about. Tonight my heart is smashed.

I am glad that even before getting on the plane, I was inclined to present to the Elders that we take the Hot Springs home as our Asian partners. I am glad, because I fully recognize the effects of the heat and the fatigue in how I’ve experienced tonight. Without the little bit of cognitive processing that has gone on before tonight, this would run the risk of being a totally emotional knee jerk reaction. Compassion gone rogue. We will think this through together, the Team here, the Elders as we send word home, Dave Atkins and the people at Asia’s Hope. We will make a good decision and be careful not to promise what we can’t deliver. You don’t do that to desperate people.

But tonight is still a defining moment. Tonight partnering with Suradet and the Hot Springs home isn’t just an idea any more. It’s people. It’s Suradet and Yupa and thirteen children who are looking at me. And their faces, their eyes are burning into my heart.

On the way home in the car, Tutu tells us more. These children recently went with Suradet into the bamboo forest to forage for shoots to eat. His personal resources are being stretched the max. The church is trying to help, but all of the people who make up this little community of faith are of simple means themselves.

She talks about two of her friends, growing up, who were too poor to go to school. They succumbed to the despair, and committed suicide. Both of them. They were 11. She’s crying. I’m crying. We arrive back to the Guest House and everyone is very quiet.

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That was last year. Last year, when I walked about that place and heard God saying, "These are my children. Do something."

So this week.....the mattresses have arrived. And I am beside myself with joy.

For Christmas I received a bit a of money from my parents and I chose to purchase the Rosetta Stone Thai computer language program. I've only got three and a half months left!!!!!!

George and Starr, I can't wait to go with you. Jen, I so wish there was some way we could go together this year, but I'm glad you get to go just the same. (You're doing an amazing job of getting there, by the way, on all fronts.)

Friends at Highview and elsewhere who have already expressed their support in my next trip...thank you so much. We have a lot to do there, mostly just simply loving these kids.

Who now get to sleep on mattresses!