here am i; {why did you} send me!

I realized about 10:30am today that I hadn’t brushed my teeth.

A neighbor was shouting outside our window about 5:30am this morning, letting us know that a woman was in labor. She actually isn’t in our community per se–she lives about a kilometer down the road. But I rolled out of bed, threw on a tshirt and jeans, and used some mouthwash while I went to the bathroom (brushing my teeth while on the squatty seemed too risky). And then I left to pick up a woman and head to the Burmese clinic.

I dropped them off and returned home by 6:10am, just in time for my alarm to go off.

We read our Bibles, prayed, and had some breakfast before I left for another hospital visit.

In the midst of our community moving into more stable housing this past June, we have gotten to know more communities of Burmese around us. A man came to us with his eye significantly swollen–apparently for nearly a month?–and asked if we had medicine. I told him I didn’t know what to do, but I’d be happy to take him to the clinic.

As we headed out today, he showed me his ID card and asked if we could go to the public Thai hospital. Not only does this ID card allow you to legally live and work here, it also gives you access to the 30 baht healthcare program in Thailand–it’s healthcare for everyone, just $1 per visit, no matter what procedure you have done, medicine you receive, or doctor you see.

I agreed. I was a little hesitant, honestly–the Burmese clinic has a great eye department and we are friends with one of the volunteer surgeons. But since he had the card and requested it, I agreed. And since the Thai hospital is quite slow, I planned to just drop him off.

But by the time we got there, I could tell he wasn’t planning on me dropping him off. I went in with him to get him started, and then ended up sitting there for the next three and half hours.

Honestly, it was a hit to my day.  We are in a busy season, and I just can’t keep my head above water these days. My to-do list didn’t have a three hour hospital visit on it, I’m afraid.

As I sat there with building frustration, I asked myself: how do I love the person right in front of me? I’m already here, and if Jesus were here, waiting indefinitely for a doctor, how would he love this guy? How would he treat him?

And while this sounds lovely, that’s when I lost it. Because in that moment, I had no idea how to make the moment count.

After studying Karen language for over four years and finally, finally being able to carry conversations and make sense of it, I’m sitting in Thai hospital with a Burmese man.  And while I do know a few things in those languages, conversations about numbers, prices, & asking if you have eaten yet can only go so far.

And I just started to ask myself: why me? Why am I here with this man in this hospital? Was I wrong to come with him? I was only trying to help, and now I’m sitting here questioning my entire life and ministry in this little border town that no one has ever heard of.

We sat at the hospital until 11:45am, when we were told it was lunch and we should come back at 1pm.

I dropped him off at his house for lunch, promising to be back in an hour, and I was in shaking tears before I made it through the door.

I had Isaiah 6:8 running through my mind, just slightly reworded: “Here am I! Why did you send me, Lord?!”

After hours and days and years of studying language, I can carry myself in one. And now that I am no longer primarily working with that people group, it isn’t getting me too far. I need to learn another one, and kind of keep learning that one. And if we stay in Thailand too much longer, I will need a better excuse for how little Thai I know. Why didn’t He send someone who is good at language?

I thought of the needs around me: the medical needs, the financial needs, the emotional needs. Why didn’t He send a doctor? Why didn’t He send a businessman or just a benevolent rich man? Why didn’t He send a counselor?  Why didn’t He send a teacher?

Sometimes it feels like my days are filled with one thing after another that I’m not good at–driving in a foreign country (driving at all!), learning language, teaching English, awkward situations, eating spicy food, eating questionable meat, wiping up blood and bandaging up wounds. While I’m open to learning new things, its exhausting. Why not just send someone who is good at these things?

______________________

I picked him back up at 12:45pm to head to the hospital, this time with the intent to drop him off and have him call me when he was done. I had at least a few things I needed to squeeze into today.

But when I picked him up, he was obviously in more pain. His head was hurting. I just hurt for him, seeing his pain and seeing that he, too, was exhausted of the hospital.

So I parked the car and we walked in together, simply because I felt it was the right thing to do for some reason.

And honestly, it didn’t look much different. I sat there, he saw the doctor, and we were off to get medicine. Oddly, he had a follow up appointment for the next day for additional tests.

As he went to pay his $1 for treatment before receiving his medicine, a Burmese man next to me started talking to me in English. He asked if I was his friend, and told me he overheard the doctor talking to him. Apparently, the results aren’t good, and it looks like he may have cancer. He goes back tomorrow for more testing, and they were only giving him medicine to help his severe pain. The stranger encouraged me to go with him tomorrow and see the doctor to make sure we understood the diagnosis and options.

And so we waited for medicine today, and he was delivered home this afternoon. And either Stephen or I one will be with him tomorrow morning for a similar long day at the hospital.

I don’t know how this will end. I don’t know if I will get our finances sorted out and our Christmas cards ready to send this week. I don’t know why I was sent here. I don’t know how God will use my Karen language skills in the future, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to communicate in Burmese.

I’m not sure I ever cried “Here am I! Send me!”–but I do know I was sent. I do know that–today, at least, we are supposed to be here. I know that I’m thankful for the people that give to us month after month and believe that God is working in our lives here. I know that I am thankful for those praying for us and lifting us up, because this is way beyond me and way beyond us.

Here am I; {please make me thankful you sent me!}