Bananas and puzzles

So we've been back in the swing of things here in Thailand, except for the massive earthquake we had and the military coupe, everything is somewhat back to normal. Our girls are back from their villages and with them came a new little one. She is four and about the cutest thing you've ever seen. Her name is little "Bee" and boy I'll tell ya she's a stinger.

The first night of having this new little one, we noticed that she had this awful rash and open sores over a lot of her body. She wouldn't go to sleep, because she was itchy. Now I don't know about you but this is probably the worse thing ever.....when you've got a rash, it's 102 degrees outside, you have no air condition, and youre trying to sleep. Not a good combination, and to top it off she's surrounded with all these people she doesn't know and in a place she's unfamiliar with. Naturally my instinct is to help, I mean this poor baby girl is miserable. So I go get some itchy benydryll spray to maybe help her stop itching so she can go to sleep. Well I bring her over to me with everyone watching trying to figure out what to do, and I start spraying the rash. She jumps up, and starts screaming holding the area I had just sprayed. I was flabbergasted. I don't remember itchy spray ever stinging that badly. I mean she keeps crying. She's wailing. She is over in the corner not coming out because the foreigner sprayed her with something that felt like fire on her skin. Needless to say after that moment I was like the plague to her. Anytime she would see me, she would run in the other direction. She was so scared of me, because I was the bad lady.

I felt awful, all I wanted to do was help, but she didn't understand that, she just knew I had caused her pain. So about a day ago, I was determined to win back her trust and hopefully her love. I mean she's so cute, it's awful being hated by someone so cute. So I went and got a puzzle and opened up my door to my room. I sat on the floor and started eating a banana I had brought up to snack on. And before I knew it she was walking by my room. At first she just walked by very quickly. Then I couldn't believe she walked by again, but a little slower and saw the banana I was eating. But kept walking. The next time she stopped right at my door, and I decided to go out on a limb. I held out the banana and said in thai, " aow mai?" Which in thai means, you want some? And she just looked at me and sat down right at the edge of my room, right in the doorway. Still afraid she reached for the banana and started chomping away. So I decided to start playing with the puzzle by myself. She just watched me trying to figure me out. When I looked at her and asked her if she wanted to play with the puzzle. She just starred then scooted closer and closer. Before I knew it, we were talking, putting the puzzle together, and laughing. After that we were like best fiends, holding hands and all.

In writing all this I learned a simple lesson through precious Bee. That people are normally won by the most mundane things. For Bee it was a banana and a puzzle. But in saying that people are also not won by the simplest things. Me spraying that on little Bee summed up her opinion of me. I was bad. But giving her a banana and playing a little puzzle game showed her I wasn't. We need to always be careful on how we treat others, good intentions or not. Doing small things for people will always pay out. So today do the small things, do them with love, because the small things win hearts.

Life speakers

It seems to be that no matter what I do here, my heart and my everyday life seem to always collide into this beautiful mess that becomes this reassurance that I am doing what I’m suppose to be doing.

As a teacher in a foreign country, daily I am faced with things that might seem strange or unfamiliar but in reality, it is considered so normal or mundane to my students. For instance, I am teaching my students about Global issues, things such as Aids, HIV, human trafficking, wars and internal conflicts, and refugee camps to name a few. And this unit is hard to teach not only because there is a language barrier as far as trying to communicate the right information but also that some of these subjects are hard to discuss. So the other day I’m prompting my students to think of one issue that they do not like in this world. And then come up with one solution as to what they think the solution should be for the problem.

Now I had a variety of answers from bad things such as rape, war, child soldiers, hunger, poverty, and orphans. But the one that jumped off the page and into my heart was the answer of this little girl who said…. “I do not like when bad man take advantage of little girls.” Now most of you know my heart, and this is it. That is one reason why I live and work also at Eden House, which is a prevention home to help stop this.

So automatically my heart went out to this little girl. Here one of my students completely separate from my work with Eden house is being affected by this vicious cycle. And then my thoughts were, “wait, is this happening to you? Where did this happen? I’m gonna find who did this to you and go make him make things right! I will stop bad men like this! I will make them pay!”

But then I looked down at her answer for the solution to this horrific problem that seems so prevalent here, and it was this, “ Just tell the bad man to do great things instead.” That simple. Tell him to stop and do great things instead. Her solution to this problem is to speak life even into the filthiest of people. To speak life. She didn’t say, create more laws to stop pedophiles. She didn’t say go do harm to him in revenge for what he has done to her. She didn’t say beat him till he has learned his lesson. She said to speak life into him so that he becomes a better man.

Now I don’t know about you, but this cuts straight to my soul. This makes me rethink everything I used to think about these kinds of situations. This kind of wisdom astounds me to have obtained it at such a young age. But its not just wisdom, it’s a love and outlook that humanity can be better. Sometimes we make things so hard. We want things to be better or we want to help out here, or do this or that to make the world a better place. But honestly it is quite simple. We have to speak life into each other. We have to believe that even though we are covered in all the mud that we can still be washed off.  The American church today needs to grasp this small little concept spoken by a little Thai girl half way around the world. We as the church need to be life givers, life speakers, and life dwellers. Even to the muddiest of people. Even to the ones that don’t deserve it. Christ washed us. So we need to wash them.

Being in this land has made me realize that love will always win no matter what battle it is. We may think to stop evil you have to have extensive plans elaborate with charts and statistical numbers, but in reality its quite simple. Love. Speak life. And love some more.