Mai Nit Noy

Thim is my own sponsored child.

There are 17 amazing Sponsors at Highview, who have committed to providing a monthly life altering contribution to the lives of 17 corresponding and equally amazing children who live at Hot Springs.

Thim's my girl.

She's beautiful. Tall, graceful and smiling always. I've watched her grow more and more into a young woman these past four years. She's 16 now. And beautiful. I mentioned that, I know. But obviously you can see that.

Her temperament is very even. In the six times I've been to visit, she's always been so gentle and pleasant and smiling. She seems to be a stabilizing factor for the other girls a lot of the time. Just quiet and confident and nurturing.

She's expressed her affections freely with me, but always with that quiet reserve. Until this time.

On the Sunday before we left just as we were waiting for church to begin, she found me waiting just outside where it was (relatively) a little cooler. I was looking over the garden, trying to take in my last moments, making them count, trying not to think about how hard the goodbyes will be. Thim came up behind me.

She had a bracelet she had made for me. This is a common symbol of affection and friendship in Thailand. In fact, this wasn't the first I'd received from her. But this time she is speaking to me in Thai and she is choking on her words.

'I give you so little. You give me so much.' She is crying.

I take the hands that had just finished tying the bracelet around my wrist, and draw us to face each other, close. I muster my brain around the rising emotion and speak the best Thai I could manage.

'Mai nit noy,' I say. 'Not little. Thim growing up beautiful young woman, not little. You loving God, worshiping God, not little. Thim grow up beautiful woman become teacher (she had told me once that this was her goal). I will come and see you teaching. If Thim has husband and have babies, I will come hold your babies.'

We're both crying now. And we're hugging, and I'm saying over and again words I now know well, "Ruk mahk, Thim." I love you so much, Thim. "Kit-teung makh." I will miss you so much.

I call Thim 'my girl' but she is in fact very much her own girl. She calls me 'mother' in her letters. Imagine that. Another gift that is anything but little. Mai nit noy.

In fact everything about Thim is mai nit noy.

And who am I that these things should be offered me?