Blur...

This week was really tough on me. It got to a point where the exhaustion, the emotions and the interruptions were unbearable. I spent my few moments of silence wishing that I could just be at home. In my comfortable life. Where my shower is clean, I don’t have to watch my every step, a place, where I can fully be myself and feel perfect bliss.

It’s funny, though, because the more I thought about it the more I remembered my conversation that I had with my mom when I told her I was coming to Thailand. I told her I didn’t want to be comfortable anymore. I was done with the mundane life I was living and I was ready for a good challenge. Something to wake me up…help me to feel alive again. So, here I am complaining about being uncomfortable, when all along it is what I wanted. I know, I know, so just stop complaining Laura…

I wish I could say it was that easy. I have been reading this book called Secondhand Jesus. (thank you Vickie and Jackie) It is a book that really questions if you know where you stand in your own faith. If you have been believing someone else’s’ idea of who Jesus/God is or if you have built enough of a relationship with Him to really know for yourself. This week I was reading about the rumor that God wants us all to be happy and live lives of success and joy. I realized that it was in perfect line with how my week was going. It was a struggle, this week, and all I wanted was to feel comfortable. Isn’t that what God wants too? He doesn’t want me to suffer right? He doesn’t want me to feel exhausted every time I wake up? He doesn’t want me to see women getting abused and being disrespected to unfathomable degrees? Right?

It all brought me back to something that I always say to people…especially when I feel they aren’t walking the walk. Hah, but really I should take my own advice. I mean I kinda believed it before, but now, it seems so real, so truthful and something I should be acting on everyday. God calls us to take up our cross and follow him. The cross is a symbol of suffering. Something that is heavy and hard to bear, and yet, we are supposed to pick up our heavy cross, each day and follow Him. Experience a life that isn’t easy. That isn’t comfortable, that isn’t always filled with success and prosperity. Sucks, huh?! Well at least that is how I felt about it this week. God was asking me to pick up my cross and continue to serve the people of Thailand, and I was stuck thinking of ways to make myself more comfortable. Ways that I could serve myself and feel good about myself. It was a fight…and when you’re already tired. It is a battle you are bound to lose. I broke, I surrendered my desires, my wants, my hopes, and dreams all to God. Told Him to take it all and I would follow Him. I would be willing to bear my cross and continuing serving the people here. Don’t get me wrong, it is the farthest thing from easy to surrender, but the joy, the hope, the peace amidst the rough week seemed to settle in. I started to realize what it meant when my pastor said that we are to rest with God through the storm…..Life will rarely be easy….how will you react to your lack of comfort, your lack ease?...

The Bars this week felt heavy and it took everything in my not to go and yell at the foreign men I see in them weekly. To tell them how destructive they are being to themselves, these girls, and their families at home. I have to restrain myself sometimes….bite my lip and pray that I don’t punch someone. It’s awful. I am there to love the ladies in the bars. To talk with them about their families and portray the care that Rahab as an organization has for them. This week, maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe the heaviness I felt, I’m not really sure, but I cringed at every man in the place. All touching the women in horrifying ways, asking favors of them that I had never in my life seen or heard of, asking them to really work for the money they were about to spend on them. Ahhh!! It is killer to hear…especially when you recognize it as an American accent. The reminder that I live in the country and love the country that these men come from. It is a harsh reality.

I was feeling the heat and anger build towards these men, and I realized that I had forgotten to pay attention to the women there. I was sitting with 3 women that spoke a few phrases of English and they were all so beautiful. When the women of Patpong smile, and I mean really smile…not the seductive smile they use on the customers, but smile from deep within, it is the most beautiful thing. One of them was having a deep conversation with my Thai outreach partner. Now, I wish that you all could know what it is like to see emptiness in someone’s eyes, maybe some of you do, but this girl…she started the conversation with the same blank stare you get from all of them…and then a spark lit. I am not kidding. Something had grabbed hold of her attention. Something that made her feel. Feel emotions she hadn’t felt in a very long time. I don’t know a word of what was being said, but I could tell, something was said that began breaking down the wall she had built up for herself. The wall that had created a numbness in the midst of intense pain and suffering. She had to leave us to go up and dance for her 15min shift. I watched as she barely moved. Her mind was elsewhere….feeling, thinking about the things that had been said. The spark in her eye was so evident though…something made her different from the other girls now. It was awe-inspiring…we hope to return and see what continues with her.

The rest of my week was a blur of craziness and so much multi-tasking I thought my head was going to explode, but I made it through. I even picked up an accounting duty where I get to organize all of the donations into excel spreadsheets. Funny thing is, I actually enjoy it. I guess I just like a little variety.

My hair class went well this week. I can’t believe I have only 3 weeks left. It is insane. Where did time go? I love seeing the ladies grow in their confidence and I challenge them to help each other learn as well as try to broaden their skill set with my own knowledge of updos and makeup. It is fun to see them being creative. Thai culture teaches you to not be creative. You are only there to soak in knowledge, to soak in your surroundings…you don’t really create anything on your own. Not saying that never happens here, it is just that they have been brought up believing that they can’t be creative or really think for themselves. It is sad. I have to say hairdressers can’t be like that though…that is why I am trying with all my might to get them thinking again. To allow them to figure out the way they think they would do things. It is really fun to watch.

My exhaustion leaves me with not a lot to say…I don’t remember a lot of the week. It was jam-packed and I was tired. I spent the majority of the weekend resting though…ready to conquer another week…or at least I hope…..