This month we’re teaching English at a public elementary school. In Thailand, the kids that attend the public schools are the kids whose families’ are poorer families who can’t afford to send them to the private ones. We teach 3 classes a day and spend a lot of our time playing with the kids and loving on them.
While playing with the children the other day, I was given more than I could even comprehend. I was given an enormous bouquet, countless numbers of rings, bracelets, and even beautiful crowns. I assume that you’ve guessed that the gifts I received weren’t expensive. In fact, they didn’t cost a single thing. They were all made out of grass.
I watched as children eagerly went searching for the perfect blades of grass. They would pick as many as they could and work them into crowns, rings, and bracelets. They would run over as quickly as they could, and with joyful smiles on their faces, hand us their creation. After they decorated us in their jewelry, they paraded us around the field, fighting to hold our hands and to walk next to us.
It may seem crazy but I felt like a princess. I felt loved and adored and so beautiful. My heart was overflowing with joy as I watched these children so eager to give, deeply desiring to bless us with whatever they could find. Dying to show us they love us in the only way they know how.
Then my heart exploded with an overwhelming love as I realized I was witnessing Christ in every single one of these children. God is so eager to give us the desires He’s placed in our heart. He deeply desires to bless us with everything He has. He sent His only son to literally die to show us how much He loves us.
His love and joy was shining through them. Servant hearts filled with the desire to bless us with everything they had. Just like Jesus. It absolutely amazed me. In these children, raised in a Buddhist culture, at a Buddhist school, right next to a Buddhist temple, Christ was shining through it all. And through their Christ-like actions, I felt Christ’s love consume me. Through these children, I saw Jesus in His purest form and it was so beautiful.
