The Press of Human Need

 Some things you know will be awful when you sign up for them.  Like volunteering to assist in a medical missions trip to Burmese refugees, some who live in a trash dump.  Like that.

I ponder this as I am once again bracing around ridiculous bends on a heavily traveled highway through the mountains.  This time we are on the way to Mae Sot, 7 hours south west of Chiang Mai and next to the Mayanmar (Burmese) border.

It's a Saturday, and a long weekend, which accounts for the volume of traffic.  Plus there's major construction going on, forcing us at times, around treacherous cement barriers and past crews I assume are also trained as trapeze artists, labouring precariously above us on the steep red clay slopes on either side. There are 'no passing' signs clearly posted, but apparently this is merely a suggestion.  Slow crawling trucks provide the motivation to take the risk, which we do often enough to prompt both admiration for the particular skill of mountain driving, and much prayer.

We arrive late Saturday afternoon which gives us enough time to settle into our accommodations, which are pleasant enough to make me think perhaps this won't be so awful after all, and leaves me feeling a tad guilty, actually.  Later I will understand the essential need to have a safe place to crawl back to.  For now, I unpack quickly and head over to the outdoor cafeteria to meet the rest of the team.

We are as an eclectic bunch as could be gathered together, I think.  Two English-speaking medical doctors (married couple) from Oshawa, both from Asian backgrounds.  Two highly skilled Thai interpreters who speak multiple languages and dialects.  Four equally skilled pharmacists, all Thai. Three very well-resourced farangs, also from Canada, one of whom is financing this trip, and one who acts as our coordinator.  Suradet, Yupa and Bell who are here to assist in any way possible.  And me, the farang in this group who will, by the time the weekend is over, realize she identifies more with the Thais.  I've been asked to lead the spiritual component of our team meetings, and engage with people at the camp while waiting to be seen by the doctor.

The dynamics between us are the stuff psychology and/or missiology doctorates are written about, the details of which I will leave to future ruminations and analysis.  Suffice it to say here that in spite of huge gaps in language, culture and presumed and real power structures, we were able to work together remarkably well.

By Sunday morning we are ready to head to our first stop, the bamboo church building of a Burmese refugee camp about 30 minutes out of Mae Sot.

They've heard we're coming and are waiting for us.  I can't tell if it's patience or resignation that makes them sit so quietly, all clustered together like that on the floor, about 100 men women and children.  Yes, many children.

While the medical station is being set up in the school room next door, I venture to the opening of the bamboo structure and poke in my head.  There's immediate interest, although silent, and that sensation that I am getting more and more used to, that all eyes are on this strange Canadian.  I risk a little wave.  Immediate smiles and a unanimous waving response, enthusiasm and life suddenly breaking over their faces.  Okay, I can work this crowd.

After checking in with the coordinator, I leave my flip flops in the sea of shoes outside, grab a chair, look over the crowd and begin with the universal language of a smile.  Then, knowing that they understand the sound of a bee, and using the mime of catching one in my hands, I launch into a highly animated version of "I'm Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee".  They catch on quickly, and I am elated by my initial success in engaging an entire group of people when I don't know one word of their language.  This is great!  My self congratulations are interrupted mid thought, however, when I suddenly realize that we're about to come to the 'barfing' verse.  "I'm barfing up my baby bumble bee."  What was I thinking?!?!  I have no clue how barfing or talking about barfing is regarded in this culture!  Am I about to commit a terrible offense?  Even in Canada, it's a tad on the edge of polite.  There's no time to over think it, however, because here we go.  I clutch my stomach, make a face of pain, and with great gusto and considerable volume barf up that troublesome little bumble bee.

Hilarious laughter breaks out.  Every time I get to that part, they seem over-the-top delighted, laughing and barfing right along with this crazy farang.  I guess it only make sense.  Barfing is universal as a smile.

This is not the awful part.  While the rest of the team is doing the real work of why we came, taking blood pressures, weighing in patients, doing the check up, doling out the medicine, I am having fun. The morning is full of joy even in this wretched place.   A smug little worm slides its way into my 'I've been to Thailand so many times now, I've got this' brain.  Refugee camp?  Piece of cake.

That was before the oil.

Near to the end of the morning it's time to hand out the cans of tuna and bottles of cooking oil we've also brought.  The logistics of distribution are left to the least experienced farang among us, but, to be honest, I think the error was impossible to avoid, given the whole gringjai thing.  Even here, in the midst of such need, there is a reluctance to ask for too much.  The pastor of the group gives us a number of families, and based on that number we calculate one bottle of oil and four cans of meat per family.  I am asked to be one of two farangs that help hand it out.  The other is the team member who financed the trip.

I hate the optics of this.

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 It should be members of this community that do this, the pastor perhaps, or at least one of our Thai members.  This looks so sickeningly western-resourced and power-imbalanced, that all that I've been unlearning in my culture immersion resists it.  Yet, there's no time for conversation, and likely no ear to hear my concerns, at least that's what I perceive (remember the dynamics I mentioned before).  So here I am, feeling oh so very white, handing out oil and meat to desperate, beautiful people.

At the beginning they are very orderly about receiving what's given.  They smile and press their palms together first, and then I place the items in their now open hands.  Some are mothers who look no older than 13 or 14, their babies tied against them.  Some are old, toothless and frail.  I speak a blessing over each one, quickly laying my hand on their shockingly thin shoulders before they leave with their gift.

But something happens near to the end of the distribution.  It becomes clear that we will run out of meat, and likely oil before the line is done.  The logistics guy asks why.  The reason:  They didn't want to appear too greedy so they gave us a smaller number.  We really should have been giving out two cans per family.

And it is this miscalculation of culture that will make things awful.

An announcement is made, an apology, that there are now limited resources and some families may not get oil and meat today.  This error will be corrected the following day and every family in attendance at the clinic will receive their portion.  But at the end of the line they don't know that now.

Quite suddenly I am swarmed.  The press of human bodies threatens my balance.  Countless open hands are thrust before me, coming from all sides, some reaching around from behind.  I struggle with the plastic wrapping, can't wrench the oil free fast enough.  I make slow, quiet, deep noises, meant to calm, but it makes no difference.  I feel them all, right against me, pushing, grasping.  I feel their desperation.  The press of human need.  I run out of meat.  I run out of oil.  It's all done.  And it's awful.

Because I felt them.  Right up against me.  I felt them.  I felt it.  Their need.  Their desperation.  I felt it.  It pressed right into my soul.

When you sign up for some things, you expect it to be awful.

Which is why we so desperately need redemption.

When writing to believers in Corinth in the first century, Paul talked about us being 'ambassadors for Christ' and having a 'ministry of reconciliation'  (2 Corinthians 6).  Because 'reconciliation' and 'conflict' are semantically related, it's easy to be too narrow in applying exactly what this ministry of reconciliation entails.  It's way more than just helping people get along.  It's reconciling all that was separated by sin back to God's original intentions, if not more.

Our biblical world view instructs that we live in a world 'under the curse' where humanity is separated from God, humanity is divided against itself, and the natural world groans with longing for healing and restoration.  Regardless of one's personal theology on the first point, the last two seem only too obvious.  For Christians, our work as ambassadors is to continue to press toward God's ultimate ethic, where humans enjoy intimacy with Him, loving connection with each other, and harmony with the created universe.  Where all is restored to a 'better than before' reality.   And even though this won't be fully realized until Christ's return, every time we make a choice towards love and compassion and grace, we move God's agenda forward.

Which is why we sign up for awful things.  To make it just a little less awful when we can.

Those families did get their meat and oil.  Every child there received medicine for the worms every one of them hosts in their little bodies.  Over 200 people were assessed and assisted towards better health.  More medical visits are planned for follow up.  There are plans underway for a water purification system, and small business training and investments to reverse the cycles, get those people out of the trash dump if they so choose.

The press is overwhelming.  I will be processing this for a while, I think.  But the push back is what makes us image bearers of a God who don't run away from the awful.  We engage it instead.

I'd sign up again.

"Let my heart be broken with 

the things that break the heart of God."

Bob Pierce