Love. It is the force that drives emotions, decisions, attitudes, and actions. It is the giver of happiness and the destroyer of selfishness. It is the highest honor to achieve and the most treasured gift to give. Love has made me who I am and love is why I do what I do. Love is the reason I type tonight in Thailand, drenched with sweat and itching my hair that is filled with lice. Love is what makes impossible things possible and Love gives way for mercy.
My team and I traveled to a location on the border of Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) yesterday called “No Man’s Land.” It is owned neither by Thailand and Burma and is filled with corruption and lawlessness because it has no government. Hundreds of Burmese citizens who were cast out of their country with no identification cards or papers are forced to live in these tiny boundaries between 20 acres of barbed wire. They can not go back into Burma, and they can not enter Thailand. They are trapped and desperate to make money to survive. They have resorted to a devastating perversion of children, selling pornography and sexual material to citizens of both border countries.
We went to play with the children and pray for the area. I left awakened to a love I didn’t know before.
We walked the sidewalk that surrounds this home for the neglected and forgotten, with wide eyes and heavy hearts for the things we saw. I had to stare at my feet as we walked by the carts at the edge of the barbed wire division that contained explicit sexual material for sale. A sickening feeling plagued my stomach as I passed each little girl and boy, knowing their role in providing income for their family. I looked into their beautiful yellowed eyes feeling helpless and unable to stop the abuse they endure. I looked at the men with the carts of paraphernalia and expected to feel anger, resentment or hate. But I didn’t. I felt love.
I saw their desperation and it reminded me of my own for Christ on the night I truly surrendered my heart to Him. I looked deep into their eyes and saw them not as abusers but as brothers and sons of God. I prayed for them as I walked away, feeling the promise from God that He knew their name and had not forgotten them.
Love is what makes this possible. I am not a saint or a perfect person, in fact most days I feel quite inadequate in serving the Lord and being His disciple. But Jesus Christ is the giver of a Love that makes hard hearts soft, that turns abusers into worshipers, and wounds into testimonies. I might not have the ability to feed all of the starving children or move them out of their prison, but I have the ability to love, and that might just be what they need the most.
Picture of the homes in No Man’s Land:
Abby- Learning and Loving in Thailand
