I wrote this a week or so ago…and then never posted it…my brain is basically mush right now as far as blogging goes so I apologize. I have a lot to say, just zero desire to write it down. Weird. 🙂
I’d never heard of Kabril, Thailand before today. It’s a village that’s now known around the world because of the recent flooding and mudslide that destroyed many homes and took the lives of at least 40 people. We’re often pretty far behind in the news since we don’t have television and most of the newspapers are in languages that we can’t read, so we weren’t even aware that this happened until we arrived at our ministry site in Thailand. The town of Kabril is only a few hours away from us, so our arrival proved to be perfect timing for a church in the area that needed help distributing disaster relief supplies.
We woke up around 6am and began the journey to Kabril, where we spent the morning tying trash bags full of supplies. I began the day with a huge sense of excitement; I was overjoyed at the thought of being able to help meet the physical needs of people, which is something that I’ve felt a huge burden for the past few months. Upon our arrival, we were directed to a small room that was filled with supplies. After about 20 minutes of re-arranging and tying the bags with 10 other people, the room began to feel more like a sauna. We were sweating profusely. Even though it was HOT, we all mustered up good attitudes and continued working until we tied the last bag an hour later.
We loaded up the vehicles and began the trek into the Thailand “jungle”. Our vehicle for the month is a small pick-up truck, which has benches that face each other on both sides of the covered truck-bed. If you’ve read any of my other blogs about the awesomeness of my travel experiences, then you know that this isn’t a great combination for the motion sickness that I often have. After being jostled around through the potholes and muddy roads for a few miles, I was positive I was about to vom all over the girls sitting next to me. I also didn’t have time to eat breakfast and haven’t adjusted to the need to drink much, much more water this month, which added dizziness to the mix. So, I was pretty much down for the count before we even made it up the mountain.
I was so annoyed with myself. I’m often the person that people make adjustments for so I don’t end up puking on everyone during travel…AKA lame.
What I’m learning is this: sometimes God doesn’t need me to be the face that someone sees. He doesn’t always need me to be the person on the front line doing the talking. Sometimes, He needs me to be the feet that are walking and the hands that are working. I may not have been able to talk to the people that we gave food, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as important. You may not be the person that will ever be overseas on the mission field, but you can still have an influence wherever you are.
