Tracking the Trek 2003
Poor mothers love their childrenSaturday afternoon, 2 pm, Compassion site
This morning could have been a disaster if it had not been for a concerned mother and grandmother. We had arranged to take all of the kids from our home stays to the zoo. We neglected, however, to arrange for a Thai/English speaker to come along as well. All of the kids showed up bright and early to leave for the day.
My home stay mother, Nong, was there with Saam, and there was a grandmother of one of the other houses there with her youngest as well. They both asked the typical “parental-types sending her kids off for the day with perfect strangers” questions…when will you be back? and how are you getting there?... Our inability to speak Thai and their inability to speak English caused great unease, so we decided to call one of the church members to help us translate. Three phone calls later, we all left to get on the bus to the zoo.
We thought that the parents were just going to see us off on the bus, but everyone got on the bus. There were 21 of us in all—8 Trekkers, 10 home stay kids, 2 guardians, and a random older teenage brother. The route to the zoo that we had been told was wrong, so we would not have made it to the zoo without the help and guidance of the Nong and the grandmother. When we got to the zoo, the grandmother bought every pair of people a bottle of water.
Throughout the entire trip, Nong and the grandmother guided us and kept the group together. They were constantly aware of where each child and member of our team. It was a blessing to have two women who cared about the group and could speak Thai. We would not have made it without them…not to the zoo, through the zoo, or back home.
The image of parents who live in poverty is that they don’t care about their children; they abandon them, and they beat them. They stereotypically totally incompetent and selfish; they do not do what is best for their children and satisfy their own needs instead. Not once in the entire time that I was around these mothers and even as I watched them from afar did I see them raise their voices or their hands against their children. They were attentive and caring and not only to their own children. They sacrificed their days to lend aid to silly foreigners who were taking their children to the zoo. What a model of sacrificial love…When I am a mother, I want to care for my children the way they do for theirs.
In Him, who is the ultimate loving parent, 
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