They say some of the most meaningful times in your life are those moments left unspoken.
Today, I NEEDED to run. On the World Race you CANT DO ANYTHING ALONE. You have to have a chaperon no matter where or what you do for safety. (HAHA but not really)
We are working at a school this month in Vientiane, Laos. We are building on a kitchen for a cooking class here on campus. We’ve also painted the parking lot, made a volleyball and racquetball court, put in a water line, stained the deck to the coffee shop…basically whatever we can do to bless this school we are trying to do in a months time. It’s been really awesome so far!!
The students have been gone for New Year break, but today was the schools first day back.
We spent the day painting the schools parking lot. I mean it was a great day of work but there wasn’t a lot of active movement painting lines all day.
I’m a pretty active person. I’ve always got to be moving… So when the workday was over I was REALLY itching to go running. And no one on my team was in to it.
So…
I walked into the girl’s dorm of the school and asked if anyone wanted to ride their bike or run with me.
I quickly got little giggles as they rose up from their bunk. They met me by the door and simply said “we no understand’
I did my best to charade out what I was trying to communicate, and they soon picked up on what I was ridiculously acting out. One girl sprung to her feet and with a smile ear to ear she said :I go”
She quickly changed her clothes, grabbed her shoes and within minutes we were running down the road.
As I began to ask small questions she with hesitation said she understood me but didn’t know how to say the answers.
I told her it was okay… and that I didn’t’ understand Lao either…
We kept running and because the conversation was clearly going nowhere and was so ridiculous we just laughed about it…
After running a while along the Mekong River she looked over at me and said “trampoline”??
I asked if she wanted to go jump she said YES!!!
Our contacts live along the Mekong River, so we ran to their home. And…
We jumped… we jumped and we jumped… We laughed and we laughed. We even laughed harder at the moments spent trying to make each other fly through the air.
We jumped for a while and then we continued on down the Mekong eventually making our way back to the school
When we arrived back at the school some of the other students were outside playing “futbol” so we excitedly jumped in.
She then showed me a game like haki sak but with a wooden ball that I was terrible at and after playing that I made her join in my daily plank challenge.
WE could barely stay planked because we were laughing at how ridiculous we looked planking in the schoolyard.
As the evening ended, she asked if I was tired, I said yes, so she walked over to me and gave me a hug and said “okay” “bye bye” with the biggest smile on her face.
And then she walked away and went back into her dorm.
I stood there for a moment and just smiled. I thought to myself how I hadn’t had that great of a time in a while.
I am thankful for my new friend Paeng.
And Even though few words were spoken, she spoke to my heart today.
God puts people in your life at times when you really need them. And just maybe they need you too.
It’s the little things in life that matter the most.
I guess Some of the best moments in life really are those left unsaid.
-Sarah Nelson
“People will forget what you said, people with forget what you did, But people will NEVER forget the way you made them feel.”
O
