A couple weeks prior to entering Thailand, our team leader, Tessa, went over our upcoming month’s setup sheet, a document we receive a couple weeks before the next country informing us of who we are going to be partnered with and what we will be helping out with.
Normally, I would be able to disclose all information and details but for protection of our partners, I’m going to be vague, at least for now.
What I can tell you is a little about what my team and I have been doing to help this month.
On our first full day here, our host sat us down to watch a couple of videos to enlighten our knowledge and understanding of the organization we were going to help out with a project later that day.
I was completely moved and inspired by what this group is doing in Burma/Myanmar and the Middle East. They are essentially putting their lives on the line to help save refugees and internationally displaced people as well as provide them with emergency medical care, food, shelter, humans right documentation and more. Their goal in all of this is to bring hope and love to all these people who reside in conflict areas.
After watching these two incredible videos, we were asked to make the well-known salvation beaded bracelets for them to hand out to kids in these war zone areas. We were more than willing. I kept picturing Myanmar, Iraqi and Sudanese kids wearing these bracelets that I was going to help make, and I was completely humbled and honored to be a part of this project.
That afternoon our team went to town making as many bracelets as we could trying to knock down the tall order and goal of 4000. We spent around 3 hours and completed 677 of these beaded bracelets.
I’m not going to lie, that took a lot longer than I anticipated and my right elbow was not happy. The repetitive motion of tying knots and beading the bracelets felt like I was getting arthritis in my elbow. As much as I wanted to stop early, I again kept thinking about the kids and the situation they face daily. I thought I’m definitely okay with my elbow hurting and in fact I’m not even upset because it will help me to remember them! It was my little “thorn in my flesh” helping me stay humble.
The following day (Saturday), we were informed that for at least the next week, we were actually going to partner full-time with this same organization. We were pumped!
Rewind a few days prior to leaving Malaysia, our host sent Tessa, our team leader, a list of skills and asked who on our team had experience, knowledge or interest in areas ranging from office admin, construction, social media, gardening, maintenance, tedious tasks, personal training, organization to babysitting.
Well this is where it was coming into play.
Because I had marked off social media, the first day I was tasked with helping research hashtags that would be beneficial for them to include in their posts. I spent a good solid couple of days doing this, and I felt right back at work in CO. It was cool to put my Marketing background to use to benefit the organization. I had emailed the social media manager the excel document with the couple hundred hashtags I worked on since she had to leave on assignment for Burma and here is what she wrote back.
Tessa is very artistic, so they asked her to design and paint the nursery. She has been working hard on this for about a week and it is coming together so nicely!
Jess T. is great with all sorts of tasks. She helped laminate, proof read their employee manual and create an English and Math curriculum for their patients. (One of the girls is a nurse and helps take care of Burma patients at a nearby clinic).
I’ve been able to go a few times now, and it is an absolute joy being with these sweet kids. They don’t speak English, but they know the alphabet, numbers and some math. The first day, I went with one of the staff members and a couple volunteers. We spent the first 30 minutes hitting balloons back and forth and seeing the smiles on their faces was heartwarming. We then went over colors and numbers, which they already knew, so we decided to play a memory game with uno cards. Let’s just say when we played with two sets of colors and numbers, the little girl kicked our butts! The second and third time I went, I was with two different volunteers who are somewhat like staff members (one being the nurse) and Jess T. Jess led the sessions working on addition and subtraction as well as body part vocabulary. She did an excellent job leading and we were all impressed with how well the three kids knew math and picked up on the vocab!
Jess L. is an extremely hard worker. She loves manual labor and one of her jobs before the Race included lawn care. She gave their lawn a complete and necessary manicure. She’s even helped plant banana trees, passion fruit and has done some other gardening. Let’s just say the staff love her and her attitude!
Mary Beth is a professional musician. She was asked to help lead some worship sessions at the office and at their house church. In addition, she has been helping scan documents, format a cultural guide powerpoint, and research ESL (English as a Second Language) material they can use in the jungle. (We swapped clothes one day, so that I could go see the patients while see continued to work on her projects — not allowed to wear shorts or tank tops)
The other day we were blessed to give their main office space a deep clean because Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Over the next few days, a couple of us are going to put together a 12-week Christian kids program that includes songs, dramas, games and a short message.
We are all happy to help in every and anyway possible! We love this organization, especially the people! While every month on the Race I’ve been saying and believing it has been a privilege and honor to work with the partners we’ve had, it’s on a whole new level here. I have so much respect and admiration for them and what they do. I feel very blessed and grateful for this opportunity.
Someday, with permission, I hope to be able to make everything public because I have more I want to share with you!
In the meantime, I would appreciate prayers for God’s safety and protection over their staff and teams in these conflict areas.
