always enough

     Today, I wasn't feeling so great. We're in the process of scheduling classes for the kids and we're just really confused about what to do with them. Not sure if teaching English would be the best for them right now.. Should we just make a program where we play together and teach them related words and do it in a more natural way? If so, what exactly should we do? It has to be somewhat concrete.. Then the staff's so busy that we don't have time to really sit and talk. One teacher thinks one thing and another thinks another thing.. And then there's the possibility that we won't even teach.. We're just.. confused. And then that led back to thoughts of me not really doing anything here. Learning more than I teach.. Wasting money being here.. Just a lot of junk. I talked to 주연 teacher about how I was feeling and being the angel that she is, she told me that me just being here is helping. That the kids ask for me when I'm not around. And I felt better but I was still feeling pretty lost.. I hate forgetting why I'm here.
     After dinner, it's study time. Teacher had to go downstairs with one of the students to take care of something, so I was in charge. They were doing everything but studying.. I was not happy with them. During study time, I usually sit with them and read the Bible or one of my books. Today, read Jeremiah.. And Judah's being so ridiculously stupid.. As usual.
After nine chapters, I open Always Enough by Rolland and Heidi Baker. It's hard for me to read too much of this book at once.. It's just so much good stuff and I end up bawling or reevaluating myself for hours on end. Today was not so different.
While they were "studying", one of the girls, 미혜, who's really well-liked and carefree, started talking about her emos (mom's sisters). Which led to talk about her mom. The whole time, she was sort of laughing like she always does when she talks.. She said that she hasn't been with her mom since she was maybe 4. She says her mom doesn't answer the phone when she calls. The other girls were saying,"Maybe she changed her phone number. Or maybe she got a new phone." and she just said," No, it just rings and rings and that doesn't happen if the phone's disconnected. Or someone would answer and tell me it's the wrong number. It just rings and rings and then you know when you can hear someone pick up and hang up real quick? It's like that." She didn't seem sad at all talking about it. But my heart broke when I imagined my own mom ignoring my phone calls for years. And she calls her still.
     Still feeling discouraged, I started to read. This book.. Seriously.. I can't even get through one chapter in peace.. Heart starts pounding.. Hands get sweatier than they already are.. Shaking.. Anyways, i'm reading a part Heidi wrote about when she first moved to Mozambique. When she arrived, it was like hell.. And she asked herself," Would there ever be enough love, food, healing and life for such a miserable place?... Do something, God! Do something through me!" That's how I often find myself feeling here. Seoul's no Mozambique but the spirits are just the same in this place. And I ask God the same things.. I kept reading, and the way He worked through her blew my mind. This is an excerpt from the book:

...Rachel, one of our early helpers from England, found Beatrice walking along the road, weak, grotesque and almost dead. She might have been ten or eleven at the time, but it was hard to tell. Her belly was big and bloated. Flies attracted to fluid crawled around her infected eyes. Open, running sores twisted her face. Her feet were full of worms. Lice and scabies covered her. No one wanted to get near her anymore. 
     She had been raped many times, and her mother was dead. Her father was an abusive, uncaring alcoholic. He lived in a hut, so consumed with his own misery that he was oblivious to the suffering of his only child. 
     Beatrice took refuge alone under trees. She was losing her struggle for survival. When I saw her, my heart broke. I felt an overwhelming love for this wounded child. I saw Jesus in her eyes when I looked at her. I held her close and brought her home. 
     Rachel and I got live and scabies, too, but that didn't matter. More important was holding Beatrice close and letting her know she was valued and loved. She so desperately needed to be touched, cherished and hugged. Our daughter, Crystalyn, just ten at the time, said, "Mom, Jesus wants Beatrice to have my best dress." She gave Beatrice her most delicate dress, flowered, with lovely puff sleeves. Beatrice treasured that dress and wore it until it was threadbare. 
Beatrice responded to the Lord instantly with tears flowing down her deformed face. She was so delighted to know that Jesus loved her, that we loved her and that she wouldn't be raped anymore or live another night on the streets. Doctors said she probably wouldn't live, but she did. The Lord healed her, and in six weeks she was completely whole. 
     Another girl, Constancia, was abandoned on our bakery stairs. She might have been five or six. She was so traumatized that she couldn't speak. The Lord told me to chase her. I would, and she'd let me catch her. She wouldn't scream or cry out, but tears would silently flow down her sunken cheeks. I would hold her until she fell asleep. I understood the Lord's heart. He wanted to chase her with His love and hold her in His arms. She was filled with inexpressible grief, a most broken child. 
Understanding this grief and what it was to be unwanted and unlovely, Beatrice reached out to Constancia with love and compassion. Even though Constancia couldn't speak, Beatrice would talk to her all the time, holding her hand and taking her on walks. 
One day I was amazed to see Constancia standing in line to be baptized. I thought,"How am I going to baptize a girl who doesn't speak? How can she understand?" I asked her, "Do you really know what this means?" There was a line of over 120 people that day. I was standing in an old laundry tank. By this time the water was a murky green from all the people who had been immersed in it. I asked Constancia again,"Do you really know God is speaking to your heart? Do you really want to be baptized?" She nodded. 
     I simply picked up this frail, broken, beaten little girl and placed her in the water. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I baptized her. When she came up from the water, she smiled for the first time among us. Her face radiated the glory of God. That day she suddenly began speaking again and told me she wanted to lead the children's choir. 
Later she told us that she had seen her parents shot and their heads cut off. Until then we had no idea what horror had so frozen her spirit. But Jesus came to her in that baptismal water and turned her mourning into joy. Both Beatrice and Constancia want to be missionaries and lay their lives down for Him.


     I know that was so so much.. I feel like I say this with every post. So I give up. But wow. wowowowowowowowowowowowowow OWOW. This is all real life. It's all possible. And there are so many similarities between my girls and the ones Heidi encountered. The part about the head lice and the scabies got to me. (you feel me Cathy Kim?!) Some of the girls here have head lice. I even saw it in one of their heads the first day here.. freaking freaked me out.. I knew I was going to be sleeping right next to these girls you know? But then I see them sleeping and I cannot help but get close. Heh. But the problem was, I needed Heidi's heart.. No, God's heart, from the very beginning.. That desperation to love them. There are so many kids here with one parent dead and the other a drunk or a gambler. So many kids whose parents abused them. So many whose parents won't speak to them. They all suffer with the same feelings, with spirits that tell them they're unloved and unwanted. This is my mission field. And my job here is not to teach them English or to play with them and teach them related vocabulary.. My job is to be in God's heart and to love them, madly. The problem is that I forget what His love is like.. or maybe I lack that understanding. So pray for me! Please. That I would experience His love even more deeply.. That I would become more sensitive to the Spirit and be able to feel what He feels for them always. 
     You guys must be like "what is wrong with this girl.. She writes like one week ago about her awesome grandma and vows to love these kids like a crazy person.. and then now she's all discouraged and annoyed???!?!" YES.. it's always a little bit of a rollercoaster here.. a little bit.. like jaguar at knotts berry farm.. but I realized yesterday that maturity is Philippians 3:12-16.


"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those thing which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus..."


So pray for us, that we will always press on and reach forward and grow! 
Thank you! 

hannah 

"But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus- the work of telling others about the good news of the wonderful grace of God." 

- Acts 20: 24