As you all know, I have been attempting  to pretty much hide in my hut, so to speak, trying to learn Karen and Thai as fast as I can….which is pretty slow. But, through an innocent incident, that no longer seems to be possible!

Jason was on his way to town when the neighbor lady, Kingsay, stopped him and asked to be taken to the hospital. Jason talked to her for a little bit and found out that her son had accidentally dumped boiling water on her leg, giving her a large second degree burn. He decided to bring her right over to me. As I treated her burn, she asked Woot all kinds of questions, and seemed totally wonder struck with my little arsenal of medicines and dressings. Having a burn of that kind in a jungle village calls for diligence to keep it from getting infected. So, I asked her to come to my house every morning, every evening, and after each and every bath.  She was thrilled! She comes faithfully as many times a day as possible, and I go to her place to visit in between times. ( Woot told me that I have to, he says that I am too shy!)

We have managed to somehow carry on many interesting conversations. This morning she told me about other injuries that she has had. She showed me some really nasty scars on her leg, and then told this story. When she was small, she lived in a village in Burma. One day while she was eating rice, she heard machine gun fire very close to her. She ran as fast as she could to get away, but they shot mortars very close to her, and she got two huge pieces of shrapnel in her leg. She somehow managed to get away, and then went to a medic who sewed up her leg. She tells me this quite naturally, as if this happens to everyone.  She is very intelligent, but she never had an opportunity to go to school. I am amazed at how fast she is learning  English, since she cannot even write down what I tell her.

Then last night I went to the caretakers house to visit with his wife, since Woot and the caretaker were both gone, and it gets rather lonely when you are by yourself. Another neighbor girl came over, and we entertained each other by trying to learn each others language. This girl is really good at drawing. She would draw a picture, and then ask me the names of each thing that she drew. While we were thus entertained, her little brother came over to watch the proceedings, and he was sick  with a fever, a bad cough and congestion. The caretakers wife asked me to go and get some medicine for him, while she yelled to his parents right across the creek that the foreign lady was going to take care of her sick child. The response must have been positive, since another even sicker little girl appeared out of the shadows and perched herself on the porch, looking scared and expectant at the same time. I ran and got my meager supply of medicine, my wonderful new thermometer, and a stethoscope. Neither one of them had anything seriously wrong with them, but I gave them the last of my childrens  paracetemol to bring their fevers down, and a vitamin C tablet each. I sure did wish that I had more medicines! They could both use some vitamins!

Then today, while I was sitting here visiting with Kingsay, I saw a new delegation coming across the meadow towards my house. This time it was a little boy, maybe about 1 ½ years old with definite growling sounds coming from his lungs. I really don’t like it when lungs growl! I was so glad that he didn’t have a fever since I was out of that medicine! But, I did just so happen to have good medicine for lungs, so I gave him a dose of it, and had them wait for it to start working. God blessed the little bit that I had, and the growling went away. I will check on him again tomorrow to see if any further action is needed.

It is so amazing to me how the people just come. They are like lost sheep, having no shepherd. I wish I could really explain to you how wonderful it is to be used by God to help those who have no other help. It takes a great deal of courage for them to come to me at all, but they have nowhere else to turn, so they come.

I thought that this was the end of my article for this week, but things just keep happening! The next evening, I was sitting in my hut, all by myself when I heard someone enter my house. It was Thai, the 13 year old girl that I had been practicing language with. She had her notebook and a pen and sat down in front of me, and started chatting away. Of course, I could not understand a word that she was saying, but I finally figured out that she wanted another English lesson. Pretty soon, Woot and the caretaker joined us, and that is when she told me why she was really there. She likes to watch movies, and she had seen a movie about the end of the world being in 2012. This movie really scared her, and she wanted to know what I thought about it. Our conversation lasted late into the night, with Woot and the Caretaker also asking questions. The caretaker told us that his people are like people who are dying of thirst. When the land for the training school was bought, they saw a pitcher of water, but then it was taken away and they were still thirsty. Then, when teams from American came and built the buildings, it was like adding juice to the water in the pitcher, but again the people went thirsty. Now that we have come, they want to drink large quantities of water, they are so thirsty.

Now, each night Thai and the caretaker and his wife come over and learn English and the bible. Then, yesterday I went to a birthday party, and while there I talked with a girl who speaks really good English. She told me that they are just waiting for me to build the dorm so that they can come and learn. There are 5 people waiting for me that she knows of, and the neighbor man also said that if I have a school, his children will come. One girl is planning to come next week, even though I am not ready…the people are thirsty! This girl is 13, and is not a christian, but she wants to study the bible, and is not willing to wait any longer. She said that she will help me to get things going. They cannot understand the delay.

You might wonder why I am not ready. Mostly, it has to do with the dollar bill and maybe a lack of faith on my part. I know I must move forward, but when I do I have to feed all these children, and provide for their needs. Where will the money come from? We are not rich! We were hoping to be able to rent out our house so that we could support the school with that money, but it does not look like that will happen. So, please pray for me that I will have the courage to move forward in Faith. It is easy to talk about Faith, but stepping into the water is one of the hardest steps that you can take.