The best thing about horror movies is the fact it’s not real.
When it’s “based off a true story”, they’re not as fun to watch. But what happens when you see something that would be in a horror movie but it’s real? That’s when it gets scary.
It was just a typical night in Phetchabun Thailand when we decided to go to the week long festival. My squad leaders were visiting, and I along with one of my teammates took the five squad leaders to go see the Thai music, dance, games and fun. We played games, won prizes and had fun, until something haunted me for the rest of the night. Shriveled bones. This man laying on the ground in the middle of the walk way with a bowl to put coins in by his head. Let’s call this man RP. I’ve never seen anything like him before. His fingers and toes were shriveled, with lack of a better word. His hands and feet looked as though they were cat paws with cat-like nails/claws. His whole right side of his head went straight down instead of round like the other side.
Mutilation.
This man had been beaten, dragged down, lied to, and treated as scum. Someone had laid him here, in the middle of a walk way to be ridiculed. I knew all this, and yet I was so incredibly afraid. This man was like a real life horror movie character for me but I knew we needed to do something for him. I was too afraid to actually take anything into action though. Stacy and Ryan, two of my squad leaders spoke amongst themselves as I cowardly stood listening, and they bought him food. I knew this was not as scary for them as it was for me, but at this point I was secretly freaking out.
They both squatted down next to him, Stacy without any problem at all began to unwrap his food and hand it to him. He patted his paw down on the ground signifying to lay the food there. He rolls over and sits up. I am still standing, somewhat behind the man (very afraid), and take a picture. I knew it probably wasn’t the best idea to snap a photo of this man, but it was a way for me to avoid kneeling down to him as well.
So I literally counted in my mind… “Three… oh crap…. Two…. Noooo…. One” –not breathing, I kneeled down as well. This man looks right at me and I just want to pray and run out of there. So luckily Stacy very quickly says “Let’s just pray”. So I VERY hesitantly shut my eyes. As I’m not even using real words in my mind TRYING to pray for him, I’m seeing these claws attack us. Not in real life of course, just in my mind. So I open my eyes, and he is still looking straight at me. So at that moment I think “Oh Shoot!” and shut my eyes again quickly. I was so afraid. Thankfully the prayer ended and we walked away. I turned back around and looked at him, as he’s not at all concerned with the food; but looking at us with these wondering, longing eyes.
People are actually mutilated in this world. People are actually beaten. People are actually sold. I cannot minister to these people with words. I could not tell that man how much God loves him (not that I’d be able to talk to him anyway). I could not hear his story and listen to what is happening. His eyes said he wanted to tell us. His eyes said he wanted to know what we were doing with our eyes shut and hands towards him. This man was real, not a horror character. He is RP. Real Precious. If only he knew how precious he is.
I pray that we ministered to him enough by doing the small actions, and I thank God for such strong squad leaders to lead me in the times where I want to run. God is working in this world, but there’s so much sadness. I want to have a part in changing this sadness, no matter how scary it may be.
