Well, maybe. Okay, yeah, pretty much. I don’t know. There are at least two that I still have to share; one lighthearted and the other quite the opposite. At least I think . . . I hope. It’s 8:11pm and my thoughts are already jumbled for the night.
The biggest thing that has happened recently is an unforeseeable weather thing. Turns out there is some kind of storm system off the coast of Taiwan that is causing lots of rain and flooding (we think) in the rice fields we were going to hike. This happened a few hours before we were supposed to leave the amazing KIM base and after lots of weather checking and praying and attempting to contact leadership, we decided to postpone our trip for the day.
Then today, (Sunday), we were asked to ATL and make a choice as to whether we were going to go to the Rice Fields or stay here at KIM for the week. So after a lot of angst and prayer too, God and I have come to the conclusion that I will stay put for the week. Sorry if you were hoping to hear all about the rice terraces, but it ain’t gonna happen this month.
Seven of us chose to go while the other twelve of us remain. We’re not sure what the schedule is going to be yet, the plan is that we’ll be debriefed on that after tomorrow’s breakfast.
Ugh. I feel like I’m rambling, at least in my thoughts, but I really wanted to write a blog tonight. But I don’t feel like I have anything to write a blog about. Probably because I just really like writing. In fact blogs are probably the main way I’ve gotten my writing fix these past eleven months. On the down side of that, satiating that craving with blogs may be the reason I haven’t made more progress on the book I’ve been writing since Malaysia. I swear it’s never taken me this long to write a book in my life, not even the first one. How ridiculous.
Anyway. Now I’m definitely rambling.
My week was not atypical. It was full of feedings and new faces and smiles. It involved new friends and whirling kids around in the air which basically makes you BFFs.
Closing my eyes now I can see the smiles running toward me with excitement and waving hands. They’re hungry; in their stomachs and their souls. They’ll walk away with food, but also a story to tell about how they hung out with the white people, how they got to play with them today and for an hour maybe, someone they saw as special spent time with them.
Maybe it’s a drop in a bucket, maybe it’s less than that, but for a minute there, when I’m with them, knowing I can make them laugh, giving them the freedom to ask for a ride on my shoulders or to spin them around till they’re dizzy or flip them upside down . . . I don’t know, it feels good. It feels like I’m making a difference, even if it’s just for a couple of kids. And I know my time is limited. Ultimately I know I’m asking them to include me, to let me be a part of their lives for a minute, someone they can count on to (at least) not drop them, knowing that soon I’m going to leave and in all likelihood I’ll never see them again. And I can only hope and pray that they don’t harden their hearts against people who can’t stay. I can only hope and pray that the next people who come along can see how beautiful and how precious they are and that they’ll treat them accordingly.
Truly these kids are something else. Part of me wants to share them with you and part of me just wants to keep them all to myself. I want to protect them from the world’s cruelties, but if they hadn’t already been exposed to those, I wouldn’t be here.
So this kinda sucks.
More thoughts later,
TL
