In 2010 I had the incredible opportunity to intern for a summer in China (read more about that here: http://kaylahatcher.theworldrace.org/?filename=stepping-forward-how-i-was-called-to-missions)
Here is a little letter I wrote from the perspective of the children at the orphanage:
Dear Forever Family,
Are you out there? I am waiting, hoping and thinking. Will I have a sister, a brother or maybe two? Will we have a cat, a dog, a rabbit or frog? I hear there are grandmas and grandpas; can I share them with you? Dear mÄ�mÄ� and bàba, if you are lost I know how to draw. The lines may not be perfect and they may diverge, but I will make sure we come together in the end. Yesterday I learned of maps and planes, and how a plane can travel anywhere in a day.
I promise you I will smile, and only cry when I fall. I promise you I will clean up my toys and take care of the dog. I love you already, although I have not seen your face, because you are my mÄ�mÄ� and bàba, and I dream of you every day. The thought of being held tight every morning and night by the same loving arms is something new to my heart.
I play with my friend like any other kid, but at night we all go to our rooms in the same home, and dream the same dreams, because we all hope for the same thing, that someday our mÄ�mÄ� and bàba will find where-we are. I promise I sleep in the same room every night. My temporary home is nestled tightly to the ground, I make sure before I go to bed that its steady and sound.
My home sits on the corner of this small town outside a big city, where the dirt road meets the stone bridge. I am pretty good at hide and seek. I am small and can fit behind almost anything, but mÄ�mÄ� and bàba I have not been hiding. MÄ�mÄ� and bàba I have been waiting patiently to understand forever, and I hope you soon discover that my forever is forever in your arms.
Love,
Your Child
Years passed and the children in China continued to touch my heart daily. Here is the journey from 2010 to the present:
You wonder why I sit and stare at a screen?
I know, some days it seems like all day I am in this daze with a cyberspace superficial reality.
My eyes grow tired as i amp the F5 key for just a few more minutes; just a few more hours.
See, I tried reality, but after watching my friends grow up, and seeing these ties of 'We'll never grow apart' be ripped to shreds by a society saying distance on a map requires distance from the heart,
and our promises to write became promises to text, that turned into reminder on the sidebars of superficiality.
As my best friends found real jobs satisfying the 9-5, found relationships to meet the ring by spring, began families and invested in a white picket fence;
I just couldn't fathom taking what I had seen and buying into, well, this.
So, I said I would change the world.
I mapped it out!
…and cashed it in for a few extra bucks at mic night with a friend.
Then, I saw as my heroes took their maps and created roads to justice far beyond the ring by spring, picket fence, 3 cars, 2 kids, 1 dog and an iPhone 6!
They had found IT, a reason to live!
I grew jealous and uncertain.
All those teachers saying that I was going to do something big.
Well, they must not know me, because the real me, is not cut out for this life build on complete surrender to Him ^ .
So, I turned to my cyberspace superficial reality; searching and searching for something right for me.
I chained my heart to the keys, and vowed without words that I'd never give in
…but. I already had.
When searching became re-posting I began to believe that my clicking had a purpose.
As my social wall became a soap opera for the needs of thsi world I began to boast of myself.
I said I was not like all of them. I did not live to tell of me but of others
….but, oh, how I had bought in!
Cause as I posted-blogged-shared and liked I left my ambitions to suffice with a click.
I let distant images and off shore videos fill my cup, just enough, that I could balance this image of living to love through this cyberspace superficial reality.
I sang "Rise Up!" but I couldn't even get up long enough to live up to my expectations of others.
Since when did I buy into the belief that one could serve without going, change without living, and love without breaking the threads of distance, destruction and injustice?
It all began with a click.
Here's the truth.
I could exist, just enough, to serve without giving up, to change without living and to love without breaking, but to live, to truly live, I must love!
Surrender all, give it all, embrace the change that comes from the overflow of the heart.
So, to that cyberspace superficial reality, I have taken up a fight that leaves you behind for justice, defending innocence and loving beyond me.
I'm packing life into 60 Liters and going to serve and love: the orphans as a mother who loves with complete surrender, the widow as a best friend to lend a helping hand, the trafficked as a shoulder for the tears they have stored deep, deep from all the negativity they have been forced to embrace. To the child soldiers as a piece of the peace they have been begging for in silence, to the aids infected generations with a love so viral the destruction of the virus will cease to be detected, to the gypsies as a voice of possibilities beyond the margins of society, to fill the lost in faith with a joy beyond understanding.
Living to bring hope through destruction and love to the broken
NO LONGER will I exist as one sufficed with a click!
I have heard and now I listen.
"Talitha Koum"
"Little girl, I say to you, get up!"
