I’ve been trying to write a blog for two months. I used to write several at a time so that I could post if I got writer’s block, but I burned through those a few months back and never quite got back to it. I’ve tried, and nothing has really fit. I think that I needed to have the combined experience of Malaysia and Thailand in order to have good context for both. Now, trying to encapsulate the experience of the past two months and the present realities of the race is not so much daunting as complex.
Malaysia was probably our busiest month of the race yet, with the possible exception of Colombia. Our team was working with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in the city of Ipoh. Our hosts Voon Li and Angie were sweet and gracious, and we worked our collective fannies off. We visited with the Orang Hasli, the indigenous people of Malaysia; we prayed with the leadership of YWAM and local churches for Malaysia Day; we painted many fences and window frames. We taught at Life School, a school for refugee children from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and India. I was blessed to be able to preach for the Mid-Autumn festival at their Vietnamese ministry. It was an intense, fast-paced month, and it flew by.
This month, we’ve been in Mae Sot, Thailand, and have been doing construction projects for Outpour Ministry, an organization that does outreach, evangelism, and training along the Thai/Burma border. Burma and Myanmar are the same country, incidentally, and also the source of some of the refugee children we were working with in Malaysia. Because (unbeknownst to me, since it was never covered in my 16 years of education) there’s a civil war going on in Burma, which has been raging for 65 years. Yep. 65 years of civil war. I try to keep up on things, so my ignorance was a rude reminder to me that I still don’t know everything.
There is a profound moment in relationships when children who have lived through tragedy and horror make the mental decision that you are okay to talk to and begin to share their story. I am always taken aback and humbled when that happens, particularly when the one telling the story is jovial, loving, and curious; such traits do not always result from such difficult experiences.
Kelvin (not his real name, though a common one in Malaysia) told me at length about his family’s journey from Myanmar to Malaysia; how they used to sleep in the tree outside their home so that they wouldn’t be killed when people in their neighborhood broke into homes looking to hurt someone. His parents and eight siblings chose to make a desperate move to another country.
They fled through the jungles to avoid being caught, being herded by guides with others, like themselves, trying to find a peaceful home. One of the other teachers and I were talking about my conversation with Kelvin, and she shared that Kelvin’s little brother, Benjamin (also a fake name) remembers vividly when their mother fell down from exhaustion, and the guides told her to either get up and keep moving or be left. He was four. “But he rarely talks about it,” she said.
Finally they came to the last part of their journey, a water crossing, and the boys had to paddle on boats built for two loaded down with six, eight, ten people. Kelvin still remembers the people whose boats capsized in the choppy water calling for help before they drowned. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “We couldn’t help them. Our boat would tip too, and we would all die, my brothers and me. What could we do?”
Now I’m sitting in a building three miles from the border, and I’ve been to Burma/Myanmar. Having heard Kelvin’s story, our afternoon visit across the border didn’t really capture the undertone of unrest, fear, and angst that exists in parts of that country.
The Outpour staff are phenomenal. Ray and Candace Ward are the founders, and they are normal, average people who simply want to make the world a better place and put Jesus’ name on their work. They have a restaurant that they manage, and the proceeds go to fund their programs in the community: a home for refugee children, and outreach programs that help house and educate children living on the street, who eventually have the opportunity to work at the restaurant and learn about the industry. They’re currently completing a recording studio to give the young people more skills and an opportunity to express themselves artistically. They also have plans for an emergency shelter so they can receive abandoned babies to care for.
We worked outside building furniture for their new office space, starting with a pile of reclaimed wood and some basic tools and turning them into tables, benches, and whatever other things they needed as best we could. I got to help be part of the team designing the benches; I was just thrilled to get out of the sun for a bit, but it turned out to be this awesome opportunity to be creative in a new way. Then we BUILT it. It was in my brain, and now it’s in an office. That’s just cool.
We grieved as a group for the people of Thailand as they mourned the death of their king this month. Another team from AIM is here on a three month trip, and Allison, their team leader, is a former racer from Calgary, Alberta. We were both struck by the situation: she particularly because she is here long term and loves the people of Thailand and her friends grieve, and because we can only imagine what it would be like to lose the monarch of our country. Queen Elizabeth means so much on so many levels to the people of commonwealth countries; just the thought of losing her is heartbreaking. Please keep Thailand in your prayers.
It was amazing to me to see the overlap between last month and this month, even though they somehow still managed to be unique experiences.
The Outpour team engaged us and invited us to be a part of their family here for a month. It’s been amazing. Many of them are former racers, and so there has been a lot of common experiences built in. Being around this many westerners so close to our age bracket has been a huge blessing and a great opportunity to build relationships and friendships. I’m excited for what God is going to do next here in Thailand.
