I have met a new friend. Her name is Phoung and she is 2 years old.
She has literally stolen my heart! We met last week. I was on my way to visit my other new friend the 'smoothie lady' to sip on a yummy avacado strawberry drink when all the sudden a woman came up to me. (Side note: It's actually not out of the ordinary for people to invade your personal space in attempts to sell you something.)
She had a little girl on her hip and a basket on her other side. It was full of gum packets and bracelts that she was trying to sell. She didn't speak English so she was just smilng and pointing to her things, then pointing at me, and then back to her things. I smiled back at her, waved my hand and said no thank you. Since then I have made an attempt to find Phoung and her mama every night. My heart is to just be with them, hoping that they will feel pursued, loved and possibly see the Jesus inside of me.
It is absolutly not uncommon to find people here in Vietnam swarming the streets, trying to sell things. I'm not saying a person every few blocks or so, no, I'm talking about hundreds of people walking along the streets in an attempt to make money. I have gathered that there has to be something more to this issue than poverty and people needing money. It has seriously become a mentality and a way of life.
So the more world that I see, the more that I begin to understand that this isn't just a poverty issue here in Vienam. It happens back in the states too. And it's still happening in the other other 9 countries that I have been to. I solidly believe that this problem can go back to it's roots- in that people still do not know who they are. They live like they are beggars, like they have nothing and that they are nothing. They have no clue where they came from, that they have no value, worth, significance or idenity.
I would like to make it clear that I don't claim to know why things are like this. I honestly don't really even have the desire to try and figure 'why' anymore. At this point I've throw out my rights to needing all the answers and I have decided to just be okay with not knowing why. I have realized that I could possibly never have all the answers. And in that, is where I think the invitation lies. I get to make a choice to not allow the 'not knowing why' or my questions or my processing become a hinderence to helping someone and bringing hope to the world.
So what do we do?
It all comes back to hope. It comes back to being people that are constantly coming to the end of themselves, that risks, that love when it's hard, that forgive when it doesn't make sense and gives when you have nothing. People that don't hold offenses in their heart but live honestly and purely. People that are sensitive every day on how to be a blessing to someone instead of looking out for themself. It comes back to a smile, a hug, a note, a conversation, opening the door for someone, investing in relationships, choosing grace over judgement, inviting someone over for a meal, giving something away, buying someone food….
Love has many different forms. Being a Christian is not just being an 'overseas missionary with the end goal of 75 converts.' We weren't created to just survive on this earth until we finally make it to the sweet by and by where angelic beings are playing the harp and the streets are made out of gold. We were created to know love and be love. Being a Christian is being Jesus. And being Jesus is being love. And being love is being present. And being present is being whatever someone needs in that moment.
I think what will change this world and restore hope is when we start to personally encouter the living God as a being, as our Father and not as this idea or theological concept. I believe that it is in those moments that you will encounter an outrageous love and be radically changed. You will then start to see who you were made to be. You will know that you have worth, purpose and destiny- propeling you to love those around you.
It is my HOPE today that you fight for the encounters that you were created to experience. That you begin to see that you have a responsibililty to be apart of changing this world and out of knowing who you are helping others see who they are. I mean you never know, you might just end up half way arond the world one day getting to hang out with the most adorable little Vietnamese girl you've ever met. Just sayin.'
