August Post

In order to keep my sponsor letter short, I'm posting here the rest of what I wrote to share! 

Cultural Note

Being in Asia, I am learning about saving face. In terms of being tardy or late for a meeting or for class, the standard is at least a courtesy phone call, and a meeting isn’t really set unless you confirm at least three times. But upon arriving, just to smile and greet your friend or business partner. You may apologize, or not--no big deal either way. The key reaction of the person waiting for you, on the phone and when you arrive, is a smile with the phrase, “mai pen rai”! This means, no problem, no big deal, don’t worry about it, I don’t have an opinion about it, and “I may be mad, but I’m not going to lose face or cause you to lose face”.  I am more accustomed to arriving, after calling, to arrive, sputtering profuse apologies, or trying to invent an understandable excuse for my tardiness. 

Tiaw!     

            Every couple of months we try to have a tiaw (trip) with the kids from the neighborhood. We like to go somewhere beautiful, and where they can also learn a little about their culture/city/Buddhism. In July, we invited 12 kids--giving a perfect 2:1 ratio of kids to adults. We told the kids to come to the house at 8:00 am that Sunday morning. At 6:40am, I woke up to the voices of Ket and Ai waiting at the door, all ready to go! They waited the entire time. By 7:30, six of the kids were sitting in our house, eating their breakfast, waiting for 8:00 to come. We went to Chang Saam Siang, the three headed elephant, “Museum Erawan”. It is a beautiful museum built to preserve the tradition of Eastern Spirituality amidst a world of science and technology. There is a gorgeous park, full of ponds and waterfalls, with plenty of fish to feed. The kids were so well behaved all day, so happy to be out with us, I could see it in the face of each child--the joy, the feeling of being loved!    

Ai & Ka, two of my faves, were my charges for the day :)

Make a 'wish' and float a flower! Our kids loved this :)

Ploy watching! Love this girl!

Ka trying out the bells

Pan and Ohn eating lunch at the museum--we brought bbq'd pork satays and sticky rice.

Going crazy over feeding the fish!

Gotta love the teeter totter!

Thuy leading the kids across the water into nowhere. haha...

Katie with the kids on the dock.

A New Apostolate, New Friends
    I spent one afternoon with Anita, a woman who volunteers with an organization to help asylum seekers (those not yet granted refugee status) by giving some basic food and toiletries. I was in her small office with boxes of food and bags of rice, and met the people who would come in, one by one. My heart was burning with love and compassion as I heard their stories and looked in their faces as they came asking for food.

One Somalian boy, 12 years old, came in. He has two sisters and his mother is paralyzed. He is clever, and learned English by asking someone he saw speaking English to teach him a little bit. He comes into the office after taking three buses to get there, and must take four buses to get home.

    A Sri Lankan came in. He is Tamil, but is fluent in Sinhalese, the language of the majority, and was able to work as a translator. He worked in Malaysia and then was arrested as a suspect of a terrorist group. He was detained for 23 months in prison and tortured until the International Red Cross was able to help get him released. His wife and three children were still in Malaysia, and he went to get them, returning to Bangkok, where they must reapply as refugees. The status already granted in Malaysia does not transfer as granted if they live in Thailand. He is home schooling his children, trying to find appropriate books to use.
    Anita shared that many of the refugees sleep very late in the morning, until 9, 10, or 11. They know what it means to live hungry--so if they sleep late, they wake up close to lunch, and drink water. Then they have more time until they can eat their one meal of rice. They often are achy, painful, and sick, so the refugee center has hired a physical therapist in their clinic to give them exercises.

Once a week I meet with a young couple from Pakistan to teach Catechism. It is quickly becoming one of the best times of my week. This couple are newly Christian and are showing me what true love is for each other and for Jesus Christ--they have literally risked their lives to be together and to be Catholic. They shared with me, “When we first arrived in Thailand, we were hungry for money (they were cheated on the cost of their visas and the money they came with disappeared quickly). God is answering that prayer, and now we are hungry for Jesus in the Eucharist.” When learning about the saints, I was sharing about what makes a saint and how we are all called to be saints. He looked at me and said, “It’s hard to be a saint, isn’t it?”

I spoke with this Pakistani couple after my experience meeting more refugees. To clarify: You left your country, your home, so that you could, 1) be together and, 2) be practicing Christians? They said, “Yes.” These are people who had homes, communities, jobs, education, livelihood--and for most of them, for reasons out of their hands, they are waiting in this limbo, surviving on maybe one cup of rice a day, and hiding from immigration police (thus unable to work) until they are granted refugee status and given a host country.This is an experience that has completely struck my heart. I am discovering a deep desire for friendship with these refugees. I find courage and heroism in the face of these struggles in their lives.

Anita gives rice, oil, some canned fish, crackers, milk, flour, Mama (thai's version of ramen noodles), and then some laundry detergent, soap, and toothpaste. This is for one month at a time.

A couple coming for food, with Anita (seated).