Five Years!

As I sit in the airport in Chiang Mai, I watch the sunset.  Another day has been lived here and for some this day was better than others.  Some learned how to live more fully, some learned how to love God better, some spent more time with a loved one and some laughed.  For some the day brought hardship and tears, some are happy to see the sun set on another day because they forgot how to live today, they forgot how to love one another and didn’t love themselves very much.  For me as I watch this sunset I am filled with utter gratitude.  I don’t know if I fully lived today but I can't imagine being so full.  I had the opportunity to spend the day with some incredibly special people.  I got to talk to people about some things that I’m passionate about.  I got to facilitate people's learning and self-discovery.  In Buddhist terminology, I must have done something right to have a day like I did today. 

This week, I was given the privilege to facilitate training for CHE, Community Health Education, for the Barefoot Doctor program.  The program teaches participants from all over Burma, from different tribes, to come get trained in healthcare to help their villages.  CHE is a community development program that focuses on a train the trainer model and really focuses on the learning process to facilitate the participants in self-discovery.  It’s really a great model.  I took my CHE course last year and never really thought I’d be facilitating and here I am at the end of the week, watching the sunset on the day and on the training.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude to be a small part of these 21 student’s lives.  To hear the students struggle with what it means to have community own its own problems AND solutions.  To hear them wrestle with how to find local resources to decrease dependency.  To hear them wrestle with how to do preventative measures when they go back to manage the expectations.  This as a trainer is overwhelming.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I got the opportunity to see them make this journey.  I also am humbled because most of the learning, they discovered on their own. 

In a way, this training and this opportunity to reflect has some poetic symmetry to it.  Five years ago, in my DTS I first heard about conditions in Burma.  I heard of tribes being stripped of every kind of dignity.  I remember crying.  I remember wanting to really go there, not just cross the border.  It always seemed next to impossible because things were so tightly controlled.  However, I prided myself that I at least knew more of what was happening then some.  Five years later, on my anniversary of joining YWAM, Burma has a face.  I realized I have no idea about Burma.  I had no idea how fun the people are.  I have no idea how living really is.  Some of the participants had to walk for a week to get to the training.  How many of us would walk a week to get anywhere?  It was so humbling.

As the sun sinks behind the surrounding mountains, I think about my journey to this point.  Earlier in the week someone asked me how I came to live in Thailand.  Today is my five year anniversary in YWAM.  It was five years ago that I first went to Australia, for six months.  Looking back on my journey, the things that lead me to stay, the things that lead to the next big thing, the groups and ministries that I worked with and why I do what I do, I can't help but be grateful to them.  I thought this morning about what this has really taught me.  YWAM has taught me how to live, really live.  I have seen amazing people rise up against obstacles that I can't even imagine.  I've had conversations with people who love more deeply then I know how.  I have seen places that I didn't even know existed when I lived in DC.  I've gotten to see the darkest side of humanity and the brightest.  

The reflection makes me tear up because it has been a tough journey, many high mountains, and many very low valleys.  I've had times where I counted down my commitment to ministries and prayed that God would give me a good excuse to leave.  I've had times where it felt like I had an elevator up to Mount Sinai to see the Lord.  Funny part is the times where I got that elevator usually coincided with the hard times.  I have had times when I love everything about my life and would change nothing and times when I’m not so content.  However, the thing that strikes me the most about my journey is I've seen some difficult things.  I've sat there while a child tells me they don’t think they will ever be able to be in love because they are HIV positive.  I've had to cry with a little one as they scream and yell at me because they are so broken they want to know if I'll still love them if they are as mean as they can be to me.  I've had to trust God to take care of little ones that I have loved and cared for as I felt I needed to move on.  But as I think of today and how great of a day it was, would I recognize it for what it was without those really tough times?  Would I know that this is really my niche if I hadn't spent so long doing other things?  Would I know that there is an elevator to the presence of the Lord if I didn't desperately need it? 

I had a conversation today about children’s homes in Thailand.  I am so grateful for my time there.  Do I believe there are different ways we might be able to care for kids?  Absolutely!  Those kids made me who I am today and they are my reason for doing what I do.  Yes I do it for the Lord, because He called me to it but they are the face to why I am doing what I do.  Those 12 kids touched a deep part of my heart and it is for them that I think toward a different future for others.  I think about what life might look like beyond the need of homes away from families and communities.  I think of healthy family units, strong parents that care for the little ones and aren't as vulnerable to the darker side of humanity. 

So I am overwhelmed at God’s goodness.  He led me away from my job in HR, from the office and all its comforts.  He led me to this organization that frustrates and excites me.  He brought me out of a place of comfort to a place of challenge, a place of deep pain and exposure to hard and heavy parts of life and gave me a highway to his presence.  A few months ago my cousin-in-law said I would get a “well done good and faithful servant.”  However, when I really look at it, I just want to keep the elevator.  So on the eve of five years, I sit here and think about all the up and all the down and am overwhelmed at how good life has been and how much I have been given the chance to live.