Pride & Privilege

 

Being in Phuket, Thailand, was a wild rollercoaster of emotions. Everyday I felt hopeful, sad, angry, overwhelmingly exhausted & joyful. We were confronted everyday with people who were selling men & women for other people’s pleasure & gain. We were making friends with women who were selling their bodies to feed their children, because there were no better options. It is all unusual and sad and bizarre to even think about. I was walking home from ministry one night and the blog post I have written below semi-formed in my mind. It has taken me a long time of looking at it, editing it, deleting all said edits, ignoring it in my notes & then finally sitting today to finish it. It isn’t perfect, but it was something I felt I had to write down. 

 

 

 

 

 

“It hit me as I walked through the streets of Patong Beach, Phuket, last night, how remarkably different my life would be had I been born somewhere else. Isn’t that a bizarre thought? I mean I know genetically I am who I am because of my parents, but humour me and think of the same me, but picked up and dropped into a different place. Different country, different upbringing, different childhood, different morals & values, in a different culture. Who would I be? 

 

 

 

I am a woman

I am white

I am British/Irish

I am able bodied

I am a doctor

I am a fiancé, planning her dream wedding to her dream man

I am a missionary, travelling the world with 30 other like minded people

I have a right to believe in a religion I love

I studied at a University of my choosing

I have a beautiful family who support me through everything

I am a 9 on the Enneagram

I am a child of God

 

 

 

When I look at this, I see a problem though. You see, few of these things are things that I have earned. Most of them are things I was born into, things I was given without a second thought, things I have had my whole life and have taken as promised. Most of these things I have never thought about, never worked hard for, and at times never appreciated.

 

 

Some of the things on that list I have worked for. I strived everyday at school to be the best I could be, I scraped into my dream University degree after years of hard work, I put aside personal emotions every single day to be good at my job, I left everything I know to be a missionary, I put in hard work to make sure my relationships with my family and friends are good and they know how much I love them. But I think my discomfort comes in with my perceived “right” to all of these things. 

 

 

What if I was born in Thailand? Or really any other country I have visited so far on The World Race. A different skin colour, a culture who sees women entirely differently than men, a different faith majority country, one that potentially would not allow me to work professionally in my chosen career. I read a book recently about a female doctor who trained in the US, but then was deported back to Saudi Arabia to work, and the unbelievable persecution she faced when she tried to work there. I literally never have to worry about that. I am respected and fought for as a woman, and as a female doctor for that matter. I have equal rights. I have things people could never even dream of.

 

 

Where would I be if I was born somewhere else? Who would I be? Honestly in some of the countries I have been so far it doesn’t bear thinking about. Unfortunately, living in these countries it is something I have had to think about, over & over again. I hope I can begin to never take the things listed above for granted again. I hope that from this day I will remember and thank Jesus everyday for the life I live. I hope you will to.”