I know, we haven’t been writing recently.
Well, I haven’t been writing recently. Stephen never really made it a regular practice.
And now I’m really here just to tell you how much I was won over to the Canadians in the last ten days.
Our last team was pretty incredible. They were a team of eight “young adults” and two leader, which really meant they were all our age and then two leaders.
We knew they were great early on, when we told them Thursday that we’d be planning activities with 500 children for 90 minutes on Friday afternoon. When we arrived at the migrant school, we found the plans had changed, and they’d be breaking up into groups of two to help with various classes that included art, primary school aged kids, and violin–to which they were told, “Don’t worry. They’re not very good anyway.” And as the team patiently prepared for a new plan, they were escorted into a different room. Here they were given a group of about thirty kids and told to “talk to them until someone comes to get you for the classes”. And then no one came, the group grew to about 100, and the time was extended to about two hours.
And they still left smiling.
They were unbelievably flexible, and it could not have been more necessary. Nearly every plan we made was changed in some way. Their “encouraging word” at church became a full-fledged sermon and five songs in the service we arrived early to because it started at 11:30 instead of 10:00 “because it rained”. (Please note that this Mae Sot and we are in the midst of rainy season. It might have been expected.)
We loved opening up their eyes to Burma, praying with them, and singing with them in our home. It reminded us of why we’re here and why this role appealed to us. We love sharing our hearts, sharing about the Karen, enabling people to serve wholeheartedly, and praying for people to go home changed.
We loved laughing with them, too. I looked over in the car so many times to find Stephen laughing harder than he has in so long. They were great.
I actually found myself wishing that some might stay. I think we could be friends.
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