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Global Urban Trek 2008
Right to ComplainJuly 22, 2008
Last week, my roommate Leitia got lice from one or many of the children we work with at Baan Chivit Mai. It was quickly taken care of, but it annoyed me that there was no way of protecting ourselves from catching it because the children have no means of getting rid of it at home.
In my journal I became honest with God and made a list of all the things I was tired of here in Thailand. I was sick of rice, mosquitoes, dog poop being everywhere, flooded streets, people saying harsh things about my ethnicity, the heat, the language barrier, and more. I felt I had been here long enough to have earned a long list of complaints. 
That same week we visited the three girls on our team working at a church with children involved in Compassion International. I was fatigued, but our three teammates wanted us to help in their English classes.
Teaching these kids took a tremendous amount of energy and creativity. While playing with them, though, I realized that the girls never have a day where they feel like it’s their right to stop giving classes their all.
I reflected on my list of grievances and felt selfish. I’m tired, but those kids are probably tired of having to rely on a monthly check to survive. Klong Toey people are tired of living in filth, Praphadang people are tired of lepers being treated as less human, and God is tired of me claiming the right to not be tired for six weeks, when most people have no way out of this discomfort.
We’re in our last week at our sites and I’m still asking God to show me all He wants to in these last days. At church on Sunday, Matthew 7:14 was read: “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
When I heard this, I got a picture of a Klong Toey street – the street we took for our first walk in this neighborhood – the one I didn’t notice for a week, though I passed it everyday. This narrow streets leads to the slum.
It’s crowded with people and lined by still water and mosquitoes. Children sit in puddles and there’s trash everywhere. It’s the road Jesus called the five of us to when we were still in America. I wonder if that is the road God is calling me down to find life, a road I didn’t notice before because I walked too quickly.
That was the first moment I thought God may call me to live in a slum community again. It’s a lot to digest, and hard to put my thoughts into words. But there’s something about this kind of ministry that brings me life like I’ve never had. Jesus may call me down this road again.
- Jessica
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