The plague.

I think it's time. I've been avoiding it like the plague. Trying to pretend it didn't happen. But the truth is....it did. It happened.

I left.

I said goodbye.

I actually had to do it. I got on the plane. I watched the small town that had become a part of me get lost in the darkness as it faded out of my view. All that was left were the occasional twinkling street lights and shadows from the green trees.

And of course all the memories. The people I fell in love with. The fruit that made my mouth water. The screams from creepy critters and laughter at...everything. The kids who changed my life. The group who became my family. All of it sat there, in that small town, with those small street lights, disappearing before my eyes.

My heart ached. My throat tightened. My body felt heavy.

How could this all be over? How could I possibly leave this place that has become my home? How could I have really hugged all of those little ones for the last time?

For the first time in my life, I didn't want to go home. I wanted to turn the plane around.
For the first time in my life, I actually felt like I was losing a part of myself.

That place changed me.

So many nights spent here....

...swinging in our "front yard" in the warm (okay... hot) night breeze (if I was lucky)  thinking about life. About what I was really doing there, in Thailand, in that very moment. So many moments of discovery. So many limits pushed and expanded. So many moments of reassurance that God knows me. How He knew I needed to meet her, or hear that advice from him, or laugh with them.

So many people. So many experiences. So much love.

So many challenges. So much heat. So many lesson plans. So many different personalities. Such hard "beds." So many mesquitos. So many huh?'s and what?'s. So many long, windy, van/bus rides. So many... "If I eat any more rice I'm gonna.."'s. So many... so many's.

Yet I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

I will never, ever forget this place.

For all the so many's, and not enough's. For the last 2 1/2 months of my life. For the person it helped me become. For the lessons it taught me. For the challenges, and for the joys.

I will carry those experiences, that journey, with me throughout my entire life. And it's not over. I've turned a whole new chapter in this book of life. With eyes just a little bit more clear and a heart just a lot bit more full, I will continue on this road of adventure. I'll take the bumps and dips with a heart ready to bear the burdens they bring.

Because Thailand taught me a little bit about life. About what it actually means to need something. About what it actually means to have a family who loves you and wouldn't give you up for anyone or anything. It taught me what innocence is really all about. It taught me that the "challenges" I face in my life are trivial compared to the ones they face every single day.

I never had to worry that at age 10 I could be taken and shipped across the world, for someone else's pleasure.
I never had to worry that no one would buy the little trinkets I was selling to earn money for dinner.
I never had to worry about anyone in my family laying on a hard, flat, hospital bed surrounded by flies and mosquitos wondering if and when she would ever come home.

Thus, I will never take for granted those things I have never had to, nor ever will have to, experience. Because those people still are. I saw it. Every single day. I saw the heart break in the eyes of hospital patients. I saw the wounding effects of the sex trade in the lives of 14-year-old girls.

So yeah, maybe teaching English, singing songs, and playing games isn't putting an end to poverty, or eliminating the sick minded heads of the sex trade. But it is restoring happiness in the lives of those who may have lost it.  It is educating those who would have otherwise gone without. It is giving them hope and confidence for a brighter future. One far from brothels and blankets on the street. One filled with education and friendships.

Because those changes are the ones that will stick. In both their lives...

 

  ...and mine.

So to that far away land and those far away people...

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your everything with me, and allowing me to share my everything with you. I'll never forget it.

R