Painting Pictures of Egypt

Greetings, friends!

 

Much has happened since I last posted.  A couple weeks ago, we said good bye to Cambodia and the beautiful little girls at Remember Nhu.  My precious Pata sat on my lap with her head in my chest, clinging to me, shaking because she was crying so hard.  It was one of the hardest days of my life.

 

But I got on a plane and flew from Phnom Penh to Singapore, and from Singapore to Bangkok, Thailand.  From there, my team and another team of five girls took an overnight bus to the city of Chiang Mai.

 

It’s beautiful here!  The streets are cleaner than Cambodia’s, and many more trees dot the landscape.  At night, the ten of us do bar ministry together on Loi Kroh road.  We visit different bars with the intention of building relationships with the girls who work there.  During the day, my team works with an organization called Garden of Hope.  It’s basically an after-school program for kids who live in the slums and have a history of abuse–kids at high risk of being trafficked.  The team helps out by performing skits, telling Bible stories, leading songs, making crafts, teaching English classes, and loving on the kids while they’re here.

 

Last weekend, we rode elephants, hiked to a gorgeous waterfall, and bamboo rafted down a river. 

 

Sounds great, right?

 

Yet I was unhappy.

 

Thailand found me feeling disconnected and distant, missing the girls at Remember Nhu and wishing I were back in Cambodia.  All I could see was the look in Pata’s eyes as she met my tear-filled gaze for the last time.  All I could hear was her sweet voice singing “You’re beautiful, so beautiful.”  All I could think about was how at home I felt at Remember Nhu, and how foreign I felt in Thailand.

 

Then, this past Sunday, a bug fell out of my hair.

 

More specifically, a louse.

 

When we were in Cambodia, half of my teammates got lice.  I was checked at least four times and pronounced bug- and nit-free.  But it seems that was not correct!  Judging from the number and size of the bugs on my head, I have had lice now for at least three weeks.  I know, gross.

 

But in a way, finding lice in my hair is a huge blessing.

 

A song by Sara Groves talks about the Israelites as they wandered through the desert, missing Egypt. I encourage you to listen to it here.  The chorus describes them “painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacks, because the future looks so hard, [and they] want to go back.”

 

Cambodia was a wonderful place.  Sharing a room fostered some amazing community for our team.  Living on our ministry site allowed us to develop deep friendships with the girls, to truly become part of their lives, and to see things we would have missed sleeping at a guesthouse.

 

But the lice also came from Cambodia.

 

I am a creature of habit, someone who appreciates familiarity and balks at big changes.  So instead of embracing Thailand, I was clinging to Cambodia, to the friends I made and the people I love there.  The lice on my head served as a wake-up call for me.

 

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacks.