"Let Your Heart Be Broken"

How precious are all children in God’s sight. He loves them so much that He says it would be better if a mill stone be put around a person’s neck than to let that person hurt or abuse a child. When I think of all His love for the children around the world I think how God’s heart must ache to see and hear the sad things that happen to these little innocent ones. There are some sad stories here as well.

                                                                                            

Precious girls selling Limes at the roadside stand at the school

Leading out in song service at worship

First of all, you must remember that we are volunteering in a country known for child traffiking. So very sad, but so very true. One morning after worship (we have worship every morning and evening at 6:00 except Sabbath evenings because there is an afternoon meeting instead called AY - Adventist Youth at 4:00pm), one of the teachers, Thara Da Boo, got up to make an announcement. All such communications to the children is always in Karen, so we checked with one of the teachers that speaks English to find out what was being said. This English speaking teacher, Thara Sub Let, said that they were telling the children that only the ugly little girls should be out by the road to sell the extra limes (with the proceeds going to the school cook Mu Dah for such extras as salt, seasonings, etc). They are worried for the children’s safety, girls and boys, of being taken right here in front of the school and sold into slavery or postitution.      

Eating their meal above the creek

I wondered how it would make those who weren’t so cute feel, if they could sit up by the road side to sell limes because they weren’t cute. There is even a risk if the children walk into Mae Salit, the little village about 5 km away of being picked up. I would think it would be a good place to be a little homely, if that is what you want to call it.

Between where the school is and Meta, the village with the closest hospital, is a dangerous section of road, especially if you are on a motorcycle. Apparently there is a motorcycle pirating group, out to steal motorcycles from people. If you happen to be along that stretch of the road, on a motorcycle, just pray for protection, that you will not be shot at or scared off your bike. Being white is definitley not any safer, if anything we have been told, it could be used to bring in more money if they kidnapped one of us to use for a ransom to get money. I am not sure what people group this would be that would do that, but I think it is those against Christians.

The little boy on the far left found his mother in the jungle

Back to the children. There is a little boy here who went into the jungle to look for his mother who had not returned home after being gone for sometime. He found her, but he did not find her alive. It has affected him, mentally ever since, as I can sure understand why. Many of these children have seen loved ones die or be killed right around them. They know what it is like to flee for their lives. They know what it is like to not be wanted. 

Sometimes it is very hard to know who to trust too. There was an article in the Bangkok newspaper recently about a nice, I believe American man who had a very good, kind reputation who ran some children’s homes. Well, he got caught. He had been “selling” young, 4-5-6 year olds, girls and boys. He had a place where he kept them seperate from the other children. What a sad, sick world we live in and the worst of it is the innocent ones are the ones that suffer. 

Jaw Day Paw is in the front on the far right

There is a little girl here that I have mentioned before in a previous blog, named Jaw Day Paw, (but I actually found out I spelled her name wrong, but so to keep things consistant for reference I will continue to mispell her name for you). While I was registering her, it is obvious that she is very poor. Ripped, torn skirt, stained shirt, and she stated she only has the one set of clothing, but when asked what she needs (we ask every child what things they are needing ie. toothbrush/tooth paste, soap, Karen clothing, uniform, Sabbath clothes, warm jacket, more blankets or mats etc.), she said she was content, she needed nothing more. Wow, how many of us would be content with what we have when we have so much? And here she is with so little! Well, in the process of the registration it came up that her father had died in the last several months and we didn’t even know! Life is so hard for them, they must just, go forward and not look back as looking back would be to painful. Looking back would not change anything so the only direction is to look forward and keep moving on. 

Mu Dah

The cook for the school, Mu Dah, has had a rough life. In brief and because I do not know all the details I will share what I understand. She was stolen from her family when quite small and taken to Bangkok, not to go into the prostution scene, but to be used as a domestic slave. As she grew older she was forced to work in a restrurant giving all her pay to her owners. Eventually she married, but she wanted to go home, back to her roots and escape her life of slavery and the city. Her husband did not want to go with her, so she took her small child and walked from Bangkok to the area where Sunshine Orchard Children’s Home and Learning Center is located, to home. That is a long walk. She did not have Thai papers, she was not her own person, being able to freely go whereever she wanted to go. So she did the only thing she knew to do. Escape and walk home. Although she is Baptist, she attends worships as she can morning and evening. She also presented one of the Truth 4 Youth presentations and did a good job.

Eda Say with her baby-what is her story?

There are so many stories of so many children, staff and teachers. I do not know but a fraction of them, but I long to know more to share about this people group so others can know.The more people that know the more people can pray. The more prayers there are the more awareness, support and involvment on many different levels will be happening. Oh, friend, please keep these dear people in your prayers, like my favorite hymn says - #575, “Let Your Heart Be Broken” - Give and give again. 

Public Transportation!

One of several types of Tuk Tuk's

Being here in Thailand without personal transportation has been challenging at times but interesting all the time! As I have mentioned before there are various types and modes of transportation that one can pick from in most situations. In the larger cities you have the most options of course, with the bicycle rickshaw’s, Tuk Tuk’s, Taxi’s, Song Tau’s, city buses, cross country buses and trains. In Mae Salit we have Song Tau’s going by approximately every 1/2 hour and you can use them to get all the way to Mae Sot to Mae Saring if you needed them too. You may be traveling with not only lots of other people but maybe a pig or two, maybe a chicken tucked under someones arm or lots of bags of produce or whatever needs hauling from point A to point B for the people in the area.

Different colors of Song Tau's means a different route

I enjoy doing the public transportation very much. It is a way to connect with the people and be one with them. It is so interesting to see how people react to us, how they live, what is important to them, how they are dressed and if there is anyway we can communicate or if we just end up smiling and laughing at our attempts to bridge the gap with each other.

Bus station in Chiang Mai

The front view 

There are obvious drawbacks to public transportation: 1. You are on “their” schedule meaning you end up waiting or running a lot. 2. You go only where they are scheduled or willing to go and maybe not where you need. 3. If you see a perfect “Kodak” moment, you will see it disappear also, most likely. 4. You may see the most interesting market or   store to purchase that needed item, but if you are on a bus it is impossible to stop and continue with your journey without difficulty. If it is one of the smaller modes it is possible to stop, although you will either have to pay a larger amount to keep the, let’s say, Tuk Tuk driver waiting for you or hope you are not so far out of the main thourough fares that eventually another one will come along before to long of a wait. In our area you know you will most likely have at least another 1/2 hour wait for another Song Tau or more. And, 5. If you are riding in anything other than an air conditioned bus, it is hot, windy and maybe crowded.

The inside of one of many styles of buses-this was a single level one

Laren and Davis sitting together on a City bus - much slower, non A/C

A woman selling "spirit" flowers among the stopped cars

Last week we had to do our visa run. We had two options that we knew of: 1. Go to the Immigration Office and pay the 1,900 Baht each and also each one of us would have to show that we had 20.000 Baht to prove we were not working for pay while we were here. We could do this in Mae Sot, which means only 

a 4 hour round trip as far as traveling time is concerned. OR 2. we could get bus tickets head to Mae Sai (it took us 13 hours total travel time with layovers and rest stops to go from home to get to Chiang Rai which is 60 km from Mae Sai, one direction) for 2 - 3 long days of travel and border crossing to get extensions on our visa’s. We thought we had taken care of all this before we ever left. We had gotton 3 month visa’s for each of us, but when we got to the Bangkok airport they were scratched out leaving us short the time we needed by 10 days!). We have been told by numerous people that it is much cheaper to use US money ($10 each) and supposedly, we do not have to show any proof of Baht in hand. We found out that that was true! We opted for the what seems much more laborious and time consuming option for 2 reasons: 1. We just plain do NOT have 20,000 Baht each to show them that we are not working. Period. And 2. This way we were able to meet our new school principal at the Chiang Mai airport and introduce him to the bus system when we went back to the school together on that Friday.

Spiders & Other Interesting Creatures

When we first got to the orphanage/learning center I was a bit nervous about walking from our hut, say, up to Adams home, or to the outhouses. It was all new, and I knew there were such things as snakes, spiders, scorpions or other miscellanious and unfamilar creatures. I knew I really didn’t have to worry about anything like wild boars or even monkey's, as they are not around this area anymore. There are evidences of tigers though. One of the volunteers while hiking around in the area heard a tiger and there have been tiger tracks seen on the other side of the Moei River. Tigers like the water and to swim so we know they are in our area. We did finally get to see an elephant walking down the road and right past the entrance to the Adam's house. That was exciting! But so many of the animals, big or small, here have been hunted till there are very few if any around (there still are rats around, which the people hunt and eat them. They make a rat paste that they eat with their rice or they will place them on a stick like a Big Frank and roast them!). This hunting supplements what these poor people have to eat. I know many people that live here aren’t poor and yet they still eat these creatures but many of the people around where we are, eat these unclean creatures (rats, snakes, beetles, larvae, etc), and enjoy them! 

Patiently waiting by the footpath for the next insect 

But back to my walking around at night. The very first night we were here, I needed to go up to ask a question, so I grabbed by head lamp, put it on and cautiously headed up the steep path to the Adams home. On my way up, I saw a large toad sitting quietly by the trail. It never moved, just sat hoping I would not see it, for fear I was a toad eating human being, (he didn’t have any worries). On my way back down to my hut, in about the same area as the toad had been was a spider which was large in circumfrance, but skinny in body and leg thickness but looked like a tarantula. It was exciting, and fortuantely, neither toads or spiders scare or bother me.

One of MANY spiders with the beautiful eyes!

One evening Davis came into our hut after evening worship and asked, what were all those shiny things on the ground at night? Lexi promptly answered him, telling him that they were all the spiders that come out at night. And she was right! Those spiders have the most beautiful eyes! They sparkle just like little blue or white diamonds! I was walking around with someone one evening and I was commenting on all the beautiful "sparkles" and asked this other person if they could see them. They answered that they didn't see anything like I was describing. I gave them my head lamp to put on to see if that would help them to "see" them better. There was a gasp and a quick return of my headlamp. They did NOT want to see all those eyes or even know that they were there. I guess they didn't see them as beautiful like I did. Different perspectives I guess.

One evening after a very long, busy, hot day when I never had a chance to get down to take my “creek” (it isn’t a shower, or a bath), until it was very dark after worship. The nights are warming up as we near the wet season so although I didn’t get in the water, which still would have been cold, I did take a creek side wash. All along the way to and from were those beautiful glittering “diamonds”. 

One of the small, poisonous kind of spiders that are found here

There are poisnous spiders here too, very amazing. The ones that have points all over their backs. Miles has seen two of them so far. He says they are pretty neat lookng. He took one picture of them, but unfortunately it came out blurry. I will see how bad it is and see if it is worth showing you or not. He showed me a different kind that was in one of the lime trees between our hut and his, just hanging out along the path. I had walked that path many times as that is the way I go to get to worship every morning and evening, but I never saw it! I do not know how poisonous is poisonous about these spiders, but I do know I had walked past that spider by inches for many weeks and never knew it was there. How many other times has there been something potentially dangerous that God has kept me or my family safe from or you. Only when we get to heaven will we have that answer!

A brown scorpion commonly found here on the border

Another member of the arachnid family are scorpions! One night as I was needing to use the outhouse (as I frequently do), I headed over to the 6 block cell of them and went in one of the 6 options. I try to always check and make sure there is plenty of water in the container to be able to flush the squat toilet when I am done before I use the toilet. As I was looking in the direction of the container, there on the wall was a 1 1/2" - 2" brown scorpion. The brown scorpion's give a bad sting something like a Bald Faced Hornet (if you have been stung by them you know how painful they can be), but it is not deadly. There are black scorpions that are much more poisonous and deadly but I never did see one of those.

Beautiful but poisonous

One day, I was trying to find a good cell phone signal so I could call my dad, (“Hi, Daddy!”).  But no matter where I moved to, before I could ever get the call through, the bars on the phone would decrease and disappear altogether! Never was able to reach him that day. But while I was “hunting” for just the right spot. I saw this very interesting catapillar on a plant near the rock by Adams home. Lena was also trying to call someone and saw it. She told me it was a poisionous kind of caterpillar that causes a person to break out in bad hives all over their body and other issues. Not long after I saw this very attractive, white catapillar Miles told me a little girl from one of the local villages came to get treated from touching one of these catapillars. She was in a lot of pain and her hand was extremely swollen. She had come in for treatment 2-3 days after it had happened. Since we didn’t want that to happen to anyone here at the school, it was put in the fire, don’t worry we didn’t eat him!

So many interesting creatures that God created! They aren’t still as beautiful and safe as they once were, but they are so very interesting to look at. It would be fun to study each of them and their habits but we certainly don’t have time for that.

I am so thankful God doesn’t shudder or shriek when he sees us and what we do or don’t do. He isn’t disgusted or even thinking we are untouchable at all. He loves us so, even with our weak, sinful natures. He sees us as the "diamonds" He died for! With all our wicked ways, I could easily see how he could think of us as terrible spiders, like some people think of spiders but He never does! We serve such an amazing and patient God, longing for us to have that relationship with Him He longs for, but never impatient or forceful. What a blessing it is to be loved no matter who we are or what we look like or even what we have done. It just makes me fall more in love with Him doesn't you?!