Not My Life

*Thoughts from Erin's First Trip to Thailand*

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This isn't my life. Not really.

That's the thought that's been beating in my head, over and over like a drum since we arrived at Hotsprings Children's Home outside Chaingmai Thailand more than a week ago. The others unfolded themselves from their economy plane seats full of a joyful (if slightly weary) anticipation but I found myself stiff and nervous. Awkward and embarrassed before the beautiful children who greeted us at the airport and insisted on carrying my luggage and draping me with strings of fragrant flowers.

What am I doing here? 

The food is sometimes spicy, often strange and always wonderful. Filling our bellies 3 times a day with one decadence after another. French fries for breakfast, sticky rice and mangoes drizzled with some kind of liquid coconut heaven. Clear refreshing soups and every meal a platter heaped with the strangest most delicious fruit. And don't even think about trying to help with the dishes!

How strange it is not to do the cooking.

The daily 5:30 worship times where 25 children and a random spattering of others gather around one acoustic guitar, clad in hoodies and pajama pants to belt out their praises out to the Father. Even on Saturday.

I would never volunteer to get up this early at home. 

And the children. So shy at first, but now constantly grabbing our pale arms and leading us away to teach us a new game, a new word. To touch our strange-coloured hair or peer over my shoulder as I sketch their lovely faces. It's hard to imagine now the kinds of horrors that brought them to Pastor Suradet and Pastor Yupa's home. The hope and potential seems to shine from their lovely golden faces like the sun.

This doesn't feel like an orphanage. 

But of all the newness of my first trip to Thailand from the smokey sunrises to the oppressive afternoon heat, to the dried beetles that count as "snack food," I think the strangest experience I've had so far is myself. 

I'm different here.

So many of the things that are so central to my self-concept in my regular Canadian existence just don't seem to apply here. My way with words, my driving ambition, my sense of independence and competency...it all seems to just evaporate in the afternoon sun, and I am left with my naked and vulnerable self. Unable to "do something useful," unable to "be productive," unable to impress or push or advance. 

Henri Nouwen says that we have all fallen into the lie which says presence must be useful, and that in so doing, we have lost the simple strength of being with. Of loving and being loved. Of being together instead of being useful. This isn't really my life.

But maybe it could be.