thinking

I like the way traveling makes me think, how seeing things new or familiar along the road will make me think of something new or familiar and how God will then shape those ideas into something more concrete even in their fluidity or changing nature. It gets even better if I'm reading good book in the process – not necessarily a story, but something from real life teaching and challenging me to grow bigger or smaller in something.
Lately I've read some really good books, the kind you want to read real fast because you want to eat it all up and equally want to read real slow to savor it and let it all sink in. I'm somewhere in the middle now of settling for reading a second time, not every book, not always, but some.
I've been in a small little fishing village in Thailand for the past week. That's not all that relevant to all of this, but I was there to observe or visit a small orphanage for children with AIDS. In the midst of staying at the girls home there I've been reading a book on racial reconciliation, grace and all that in America not really all that long ago. It's made me think. After growing up in the states the first thing I think of when I hear racism is black and white and all I have heard about slavery, civil rights, segregation and the rest we learn in school during black history month and other classes we take. It's good because it's such a huge part of our history. The book's also a good story.
So the week in Thailand. I was reminded again of how far ahead Thailand is or how far behind Cambodia is – looking at the glass half full or half empty. So one day at this amazing home and being around town thinking how great this place is and how education, medical care, attention to kids, transportation, the roads, the quality of life and the need being so much less in so many visible ways I realized well that's one reason why you wanted to see orphanages outside of Cambodia, to see what it could look like to raise the standard in your own and to learn from them how can it be done differently. So I got to thinking about how much Cambodia could learn from Thailand if they were willing to, how much these countries could help and influence each other in positive ways, how much they could gain if they'd lay aside what maybe is racism whether it's over ancient temple grounds or little comparisons of wide faces and features being less attractive. If we could take pride in our cultures and all they have to offer, but at the same time realize all they have to offer and all we've gained in our own work and development is not merely for ourselves how much greater could life be? Instead of being effectually 20 years behind Thailand could they work together, learn from each other and see that gap diminish faster than projected. And in the process realize how much value and worth are locked up in each other and how great real friendship can be. I don't know.

mustardseeds

I've been thinking about this whole idea of faith like a mustardseed lately. So much of what we need to see God do things is not a huge amount of faith at all. Have you ever seen a mustardseed? They're so tiny. So it's not a huge amount that we need at all, but just a little bit of faith, so is God saying he sees so little faith in us, less than the amount of a mustardseed and telling us to get it together, you don't need much people, or is he saying look, you only need the tiniest little piece of faith and can move mountains, you can throw them into the sea. Nothing can stand in your way. There's so much more inside of you than you're giving yourself credit for. So maybe the deal is where are you sticking your faith? You'll never do it, but if you have in me, in King Jesus, and expect him to move that mountain in your life, then yes, it will be thrown into the sea and you will walk on water or walk across the sea on dry land to see that dream you've always held onto as the impossible accomplished from just a tiny seed. Maybe that's what it's all about, because God, you've certainly called me to do things I am very much unable to do by myself. So please take this weary struggle and may my eyes be fixed on you like and like the Israelites I say, I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on you and like that one dear man who got it, I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.

Jeevit!

Jeevit is alive and thriving. She's being loved and taken care of. It's pretty great when the director of the orphanage says she's one of his favorites, listening to her laugh and seeing her smile all the time. And about a year ago everyone kept thinking she was going to die. She's been a fighter since the beginning and she's apparently not going to let anything deter her from the life she wants to live.

I'm showing

I'm showing and I'm afraid I've learned that's not such a pretty thing. Jesus, they can see me and that's not why I'm here. It's not why you sent me here, but what do I do? how can I find more of you? I'm needy.
the kids at the orphanage want to switch back and forth from one game to another and I'm impatient.
another person on the street is calling out "hello, hello" and I am tired of being a foreigner that they want to talk to.
and so what do I do when I know the purpose of my being here is for me to decrease so you can increase. I need your kingdom to increase in my life.
what do I do when I've somehow grown weary in doing good and I'm not feeling so encouraged these days? when what I think you've called me here to do seems so far away and intangible and my days are filled with all sorts of other things, but is that really it?
And Jesus, you came though as a person, a precious little baby who grew into a boy and then learned the skill of a carpenter so that the hands which once formed the world now made tables and chairs. . . you were God from the beginning and you gave it up. Gave it away. You didn't hold onto your equality with God, so we could be restored and made whole when we were the ones who messed up initially. And you became man forever, not just 33 years. For eternity you chose to allow the decision to love us to effect you. You sacrificed yourself for my sin, but you couldn't stay dead because you never sinned. do we realize what it cost you? it's so much more than being on a cross for several hours and dying for a few days. and you knew all along that it would be this way. would I act differently if I realized how much you gave up? would that that I'm hoping in grow if I knew the magnitude of the sacrifice you made? oh how I want to say yes. Revelation please come because I don't even know where to start, except I know I need to cry out to you. when I see injustice repeating itself where do you break the cycle? how do you teach someone something is wrong when it's all that's ever been done to them and so I'm being driven back to the cross and back to my knees because that's what will bring change and I have nowhere else to go. that somehow my life would be so powerful that at the end of it it's not me they even really remember at all, but that they would be standing before others building the kingdom of God across the nations. and even as I come I have nothing to really give, but an emptiness inside because I'm weary and I've run as far as I can go and I'm out of good ideas and my words are few because I don't know how to pray or what you're saying, but I know you're the answer. And so I'm here now because I'm showing and I don't want them to see me. I'm not what it's about.

How can you love?

Such a combination of emotions today. So much of not knowing what in the world is going on or what I'm supposed to do about it. At the beginning of the week one of the boys from the orphanage was in the referral hospital with a fever, so I went to visit him. While I was there I met another lady with her two little kids. She was supposed to leave the hospital because her baby was healthy already and she can't just keep staying there. I could not take her kids like she asked me to though, so if she could not take care of them she should take them to the orphanage - that's what people do here, so she agrees to go to the government orphanage with me and we meet the director. This mom, who is not all there and who smells too much of alcohol then decides she doesn't really want to give her kids up if she can't stay with them even just one night and she'll go home in the morning, so lots of moms are trying to help her understand and make a decision that's best for her kids - her 14 month old who looks about 4 months and weighs only a few kilos and her 2 or 3 year old, Cloke, who is so precious.
She wants them all to go home. She won't change her mind and maybe it really is best. I don't know.
So Barbara meets me out from with a tuk-tuk. It's already been over an hour since we got to the orphanage and her kids have now at least eaten, but she won't eat.
So we get in the tuk-tuk and go to her village - only she can't really find it and we're driving back and forth near the military hospital asking a few people even - do you know this lady?
Barbara got permission from the military hospital for them to stay the night there and they can go home in the morning. She doesn't like that idea when we get to the hospital though and so we are there and this guy who works there knows the village and the village leader's phone number. Random. So he calls him and tells the driver how to get near there. So this guy comes with us too. And so we go back down the road- farther down this time and the pavement ends. And we turn left down another little mud road. And at the next left the tuk-tuk driver stops. He'll wait for us. And so we walk in the mud flinging it straight up our backs as we try to hold onto our shoes as she leads us down some little roads to her home. And I am carrying this little girl trying not to slip and the only light we have is from the flashlight on my cell phone. So we make it to her home where she doesn't want us to leave, but we must. We'll try to go back sometime. Our new friend helped me make it back through the slipperiest parts by holding my arm up. We get back to the kindest most patient driver ever and drop our new friend off at the hospital again before going home finally. I am covered in mud when I get home and have to clean off at the pump out back before I can even come inside. More than three hours later I get back. My bike is at Pisey's house at the orphanage. I'll have to go get it tomorrow.
And then I don't know. I wanted to cry at the hospital. I wanted to lose it and I knew I was going to for a while as I was going to the orphanage telling this mom she should leave her kids there. And then I started laughing. You just have to laugh or you can't keep going.
But what do you do when a mom can't feed her kids?
How do you teach her?
What do you do when they ask you to take their kids?
What do you do when you see a mom feeding her baby sweet milk because formula is too expensive?
How do you fight to keep families together and intact when the only choice for her if she can't feed them is to give them away?
Is it love to give them up?
Is it love to keep them?
And if she really is getting abused what do you do to help her?
And how do you make a difference when each week or sometimes each day you meet another child and another family and you have to do something to help them, but you don't know what?
What can you do?
How can you help them for more than a day?
How can you love?