From my VAST experience here, they seem unavoidable for very
long: that’s right, the poohs. The
combination of irregular sleep, my natural tendency to dehydrate myself, and
the different food caught up to me today, first relieving me of my (pretty tasty,
really) breakfast this morning from one end and then the floodgates ensued out
the other. Just what you were hoping to
read about, I know. Kellie and Daniel set
me up with some doses of ORS, an electrolyte-laden re-hydration drink mix sort
of like Gatorade and Charmaine, the Compasio grandma (her words, really!) sent
me home to rest for the day, which sets me up well to sit around and write for
a change. The only other thing I’ll say
about this episode is that I’m operating out of a household of Burmese dudes that
DOES NOT USE TOILET PAPER. What??! Luckily I found some and was invited to keep
it handy and didn’t have to explore any alternatives. Sheldon would not approve. J
I missed a portion of class that I was really enjoying,
too. We divided into four smaller groups
and put together action plans for different hypothetical situations in Mae Sot
based on what we’ve learned so far in the Compasio Training School. My group had a situation where a 6-mos pregnant
woman with an 11-year old daughter needed support after her husband was
murdered in a field near the garbage dump.
Only thing is that these weren’t hypothetical situations at all, and we
got to hear how Compasio dealt with the situations, loved the people involved,
and helped provide hope and healing.
Just after my group presented (John Stephen and Eh Htoo Shee were
awesome), my day got all digestive on me.
I’ve had the good fortune to visit all of our children’s
homes by now, and the kids are healthy and happy and awesome! Su Su especially is a miracle baby and will
turn three in Oct, walking around quite well despite her issues and babbling
playfully like a happy little toddler.
It’s almost tear-jerking when I think about how far she’s come! The new babies in the infant home are
ridiculously cute, if headstrong sometimes, and I have really enjoyed my visits
with them. The safehouse and grace home
(formerly prison baby home) kids are also looking great and have been a joy to
reunite with. Saturday night, I played
an exhausting version of ping pong with Siri and the three elder safehouse boys
that involved running around the table and hitting the ball in turn to keep the
volley going. Sorry - I’m not quite in picture-taking mode yet, as I’ll wait
until these relationships build a little more before becoming my normal
paparazzi self. I’ll have a lot in my
facebook album before too long, but If you want to see pictures, there’s lots
on the Compasio website at www.compasio.org.
I’ve also visited the dump a couple times (a new thing the
kids love are these wet colored pencils we use to draw temporary tattoos, glasses,
fu man chu beards, etc), helped lead
worship for our Wed evening get togethers, refinished some poorly built tables
we use for class with a couple other guys, charged up a car battery with the scariest battery charger I’ve
ever seen (I don’t blame Bob at all for not wanting to touch it) in our Mitsubishi
wagon that might eventually need replaced (the battery and the car, actually),
and handled a bit of a broken wheel issue on our old Land Rover. Do me a favor: go outside and tighten your wheel lugnuts. Right now.
Preventing your wheels from falling off should be among your top
priorities as a responsible motorist.
Just sayin’.
At the dump, we ran across a woman whose husband has been at
the clinic for four months with some kind of infection or disease going on in
his arm. We haven’t seen it firsthand
yet, but it sounds terrible and is progressing up his arm with seeping sores – whatever
treatment they’re going for at the clinic doesn’t sound like it’s working, and
for a garbage-picker to lose an arm would be devastating. Another woman has a staple inside her from a
C-section EIGHT YEARS AGO…she will need a surgery to remove it and we’re
working with her to defray the costs.
So, yeah, there’s lots of stuff to pray about and do around here, and
your support is so much appreciated!
Every day is a gift, even the ones that ravage your
intestines. Hope you’ve had a good week!
Oh, and I’m feeling much better – it’s evening now, raining
softly (earlier it was a crazy windy downpour) and should be a good night for
rest.
