Before coming to Thailand, I had already decided that I was going to hate it here. I had decided that because I had been here before and it wasn’t my favorite place that there was no way I would get attached or care about anyone that I met here. I had decided that there was no place for me in a country so broken and overtaken by a culture of sin. I had decided that the problems in Thailand were too big to be fixed and so there was no point in me caring about anyone or anything here. I was wrong.
This time in Thailand has been an adventure in and of itself and I have loved every second of it so far. The kids my team is working with have been so incredible and we’ve been here less than a week and I’m already attached. I am absolutely IN LOVE with the six boys ages 15-24 and the six girls ages 14-17 that I teach English to, not to mention the crazy girls who are 8-13 that I see around the ministry site. They are so wonderful and leaving them in a few weeks is going to be extremely difficult.
This week my teammate Daniel and I have been teaching a Bible study to the guys every day and we’ve been talking a little bit about who God says they are as opposed to who people say they are. Today one of them asked us possibly one of the hardest questions I’ve ever been asked. A boy named “A” (his real name can’t be disclosed to protect his identity) said, “I don’t know what love is. What does it mean?” “A” is 16 years old and I only know a tiny bit of his story, but that question broke my heart. It made me realize that with everything he has been through in his life, he has probably never seen an accurate representation of love in a tangible relationship. All I know about “A” is that his mother worked in a brothel and he was born into that life after she was impregnated by an American client and he was forced into a life of prostitution as a child in order to feed himself.
To hear him say that he doesn’t know what love means made my heart shatter. I’ve done a pretty good job on the Race so far at keeping my heart closed to stories like this. I haven’t really allowed myself to be broken by the stories others have to tell. I’ve kept the people I’ve worked with at an arm’s distance if I knew they could break me because I didn’t want to have those stories weighing on my heart. I wanted to be able to go home without having to deal with things that I can’t control half-way across the world, but this is too much.
This wonderful boy has no idea what it feels like to be loved. He was born into an extremely broken world and it has failed him. It has failed to allow “A” to feel the love of a mother or father. It has failed to let him feel what it’s like to be accepted by society. It has failed to let him know that he is important. It has failed to let him know that he matters.
How do I even begin to explain to him what love is when I’m not even completely sure what it means? How do I tell him what it feels like to have parents that love me no matter what I do? How do I tell him what it’s like to have a family full of people that support me and take care of me because they want to or friends that care about me because of who I am, not for what I can do for them? How do I explain to him how much Jesus loves him if he has no scope for what even the tiniest bit of love looks like? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell him.
This wonderful, funny, loving boy deserves an answer that I can’t give him and it kills me. It kills me that he may never understand what it means to have a family that loves him no matter what. It kills me that the only version of love I can show him is the tattered and broken version that I can give him in such a short amount of time. Even though this is what I can offer him, I can rest assured that the Lord is doing tremendous things in “A’s” life and that the love He gives him is the best “A” will ever receive.
Regardless of how I felt before this month, God is doing incredible things here in Thailand. The response that my team has gotten from the kids we are working with is phenomenal and I’m glad that I still have a few more weeks to love on people like “A” who don’t know what love is or what it means.
Also, I am still in need of $3,862 to be fully funded to finish the Race with my squad. Please prayerfully consider supporting me financially for the next three months. Just click the “Support Me” tab on the left of this page. Thank you!
