November 15, 2011

Take A Walk With Me: A Typical Day In My Bangkok Life

Though every day is different (both in intentional planning and our openness to whatever may come our way), here is the schedule for one of my days this week and some pictures to help you walk through it with me! Thank you for walking with me in prayer every day…. now you can have some idea of what it looks like J

Thursday, November 17
5:15 Wake up and seize the day! (because of the current flooding, we get up 30 minutes earlier than usual to get to Mass)
5:35 Leave for Mass (we walk, catch a ride in the back of a truck called a 'rot song taew', and then ride a bus to get there)
6:30 Mass in Thai (thank goodness for my Magnificat)
7:00 Breakfast (from a street vendor or from one of the 9 billion 7-11’s on our way)
7:30-9:30 Thai Language School (community members finished with language school visit the Immigration Detention Center)
10:30-12:30 Visit daycare for babies and toddlers of our slum
1:00 Lunch at the House
2:00 Rest/Laundry/Study
3:00 Open the house up and pray a community rosary in Thai (a handful of children often join us- awesome!)
3:30-6:00 Play with children at the house and cook dinner (others in the community go out 2x2 to visit neighbors and a day center for children with disabilities—we rotate who stays in and who goes out each day, and which neighbors and organizations we visit)
6:00 Pray evening prayer with the community
6:30 Dinner
7:30 Hour of Adoration
9:00 Night Prayer
9:30 Relax/Read/Write Letters etc
10:30 Bed!!!
It's usually not this light when I wake up, but here's my part of the room anyway :) Fan, mosquito net, and decorations are all equally necessary. I share a room  with Thuy (44, from Vietnam) and Eva (24, Argentina). Erika (24, Wisconsin) and Marie (24, France) share the other bedroom. 
The bathroom. Flush by pouring a bucket of water down the squat toilet and don't you dare flush that toilet paper! The shower is the bathroom itself- try to get clean using a hose and/or a bucket, then squeegee the floor dry so the next girl doesn't slip! 
Crossing a rickety bridge we walk across every day on the way to Mass and school. 
The houses on the other side of the bridge. Some of the friends we visit live here.
And here.
Holy Redeemer- the Thai/English Parish. We also celebrate Mass with a Hispanic and a French parish through the course of each week. 
Train tracks we walk along on the way back home from school.  More friends live here.
Marie and I found some of them on our walk back and stopped to play!
Noi, the girl in front, spit the largest child loogey on record on me the first time we met. Now we're best friends.
A beautiful woman who lives along the tracks. The door to her one-room shack is always open and she's forever frying fish, and we always stop to say hello. She is deaf and cannot speak so we don't know her name, but she likes to show us her pictures and loves to have her picture taken with us.
Continuing our walk home. Motorcycles constantly pass through these narrow pathways between houses-- how more people have not lost toes in our neighborhood I really don't know! 
Some land that's become a dump. 
Woo! We've arrived at Munity Daycare-- time to help feed, bathe, and give love to the little ones :)

One of the 'playgrounds' on our walk home. Surrounded by homes, it doubles as a laundry drying rack.
Eva with some neighborhood friends we found on the playground. Free hugs are a daily perk.
Almost home! Stopping to greet some neighbors. 
A regular visitor to our house, MoMai jumps into my arms to welcome me home :)
Erika and Eva unlock the door. The bikes stored out front are the neighbors', but we've been approved to get two of our own this week!!
Biw, a beautiful little boy and regular visitor, helps Eva set the 'table' for lunch. Here in Thailand, it's all criss-cross applesauce on the floor all the time. 
Laundry time. 
The laundry area doubles as a wonderful toothbrushing and sponge-bathing location when one of your sisters of community is taking too long in the one community bathroom!
Afternoon playtime with Ploy :)
Hugs with Ploy and Kahn in front of our Thai Mary and Jesus mural in our multipurpose playroom/dining room/meeting room.
Typical.
Smiles! 
I told you Noi and I reconciled after our spit encounter :) Don't let Bem's tongue fool you!  
Our kitchen (minus the stove and food cupboard, which are upstairs during flood precaution time), complete with water filtration system.
See! Erika and Marie cooking dinner on our 2-burner stove in the upstairs hallway. Though we have no oven, we recently received a donated toaster oven that will let us bake! 
Eva, Erika, Thuy, and Marie enjoy some delicious dinner, accompanied by the ever-present rice cooker.
Our chapel with our sweet Thaibernacle.

October 20, 2011

A School leading to the Cross

Standing with Mary at the Foot of the Cross

At the shrine of Our Lady of Compassion at the ICCC with Annie (staying in New York), Courtney (leaving soon for El Salvador), and Lisa (just arrived in the Philippines!)
Our Lady of Compassion (more commonly known in the Western Church as Our Lady of Sorrows) is the patron of Heart's Home. We try especially to emulate Mary standing at the foot of her Son's Cross as we reach out in compassion (meaning literally 'to suffer with') to many who are isolated, forgotten, or rejected by society. We try to give that fullness of presence to those who suffer most, which Mary gave to Jesus throughout His life- most especially as He suffered to the end for us on the Cross. As I begin this intentional walk with Our Lady of Compassion, several recent encounters continue to resound in my heart and give me light for the next step:

When I moved from Indianapolis in May, I said an emotional goodbye to one of the most courageous people I've ever known- a woman in her fifties who battles five different forms of cancer, along with epilepsy. Her husband passed away many years ago, and her three grown children have all but abandoned her. I had the privilege of spending many hours visiting her and going to Mass with her each week this past year. As I expressed how badly I wished there was something I could do to alleviate her pain, Susan took my chin in her hands and said, "Honey, sometimes, your greatest gift to people is just to cry with them." And we held each other and cried- the same tears we've been crying together all year, through the many ups and downs, the joy and the pain.

While on a morning walk in Los Angeles (during my quick trip there to get my visa) on none other than the Feast of Our Lady of Compassion, I was moved by a woman standing next to me and waiting for the 'walk' signal to turn green. She was muttering mostly unintelligible things as she alternately looked up to the sky and then down at the ground, motioning to someone unseen with both her hands. I was able to make eye contact with her, and offered a simple but genuine, "Hi, how are you?" She seemed startled for a moment that someone was addressing her- she first looked behind her as if to see if I was talking to someone else- and after turning back to face me, stood there studying me for a second. Just as I began to regret my question, she decided to tell me. And tell me she did. I think I heard the medium-length version of her life story in those 6 blocks we walked together, including that she was an alcoholic and the thing she had gotten up for that morning was the bottle of Vodka she was on her way to buy. As we reached her destination- the liquor store- she paused, and then gave me a long hug. With tears in her eyes, she said, "Thank you for the company.... I'll be praying for you." Now with tears in my eyes the whole way back to my hotel, I thought, "What did I even 'do'?" Walk next to her and listen as she talked a mile-a-minute about people I don't know and events I don't understand? Pretty much. And her prayers for me- are these not the greater gift? Will not God surely hear her cry, her prayer that is so naked, so stripped of pretense, so in the heart of His Son- first? In sharing herself with me, she reminded me why I wake up each morning. And this, again, is the greater gift. I pray that our brief encounter kindled at least a small glint of hope that she's worth it; that she's loved; that her story is worth listening to.  

I had a very similar experience on a subway in New York last week during my orientation with Heart's Home. Through a ridiculous turn of events including me sitting for 30 minutes a broken down bus and then chasing down another one, I ended up having to take the subway by myself to meet everyone back at the house. Since it was between the 3:00-8:00pm rush hours (I think that's actually just called 'rush day,' people), the train was packed from wall to wall... except for one seat. Next to this single unoccupied space sat a man who was harmless-looking enough from the doorway of the train. Upon pushing closer, though, I could understand why people had opted out of sitting next to him. He was mumbling to himself, stomping his foot, and didn't exactly smell like roses. But after two weeks of talking and praying about compassion, I figured trying to live it right now couldn't be bad idea. So I squirmed between a few layers of people and sat down. "How was your day today?" I still can't get his look of utter surprise at being acknowledged out of my mind, in the same way that I can't with Marianne (my Los Angeles walking companion). How many times has the seat next to him been left open on a packed train? Has he just come to expect this? David and I shared a wonderful conversation during our fifteen minutes together on the B line. He moved to New York recently looking for work and his family is all in Florida. He doesn't really know anyone and is in real need of companionship. I was genuinely sad when I had to say goodbye to him at my stop. As I got up, he grabbed my arm and thanked me for talking, a look of pure gratitude piercing my heart. I hope that our time together reminded him of the dignity of the humanity we share. I know it did for me.

These 18 months will be an opportunity for me to be available in a radical way to these callings to compassion. With God's grace, I'll cry and laugh with people who have no one else to do these things with them; accompany strangers to the corner store; seek out the empty train seats... without having somewhere else to be or something else more important to do. For that will be my purpose. Yet, simple as this mission is on the surface, I know this will be no small task. Much of my daily strength as I battle my own selfishness, fears, and fatigue will be the selfless sacrifices and prayers of my family and friends. Let's do this.

My New Life: At the School of Mary

Saying 'yes' with Mary 
When I arrive in Bangkok in a few days, it will have been 9 months- nearly to the day- since my miniature annunciation last January. Only instead of an angel proclaiming "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you... you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus", there was Sr. Regine on the phone revealing in her charming French accent, "Hi Natalie? So... actually... if you give your yes, you'll be going much... further... than we had discussed. We would like to send you to.... umm... BangkokThailand." And I'm 100% certain I didn't respond with anything resembling "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." I think it was actually closer to "[nervous laughter]... Really?... [more nervous laughter]... Yeah, can you explain that to me a little bit?" Teach me your ways, Mary. I've got a ways to go. Needless to say I did, indeed, end up 'giving my yes' that night- a small yes enabled by and tied up in Mary's surrender to God's plan. Though my fiat will not bring forth a child, it will bring forth unique and abundant new life; it's how God's calling me to bring Christ into the world right now. And my response 9 months ago will only continue to be a yes insofar as I continue to surrender to God and choose love in every moment. To make my very life, like Mary's, a yes.

Canoeing with Sr. Regine, my favorite messenger of good news, at the International Center for a Culture of Compassion during my orientation in New York
Waiting with Mary
I'd be lying if I said this long wait to begin my life with Heart's Home hasn't been painful. Besides the excitement and anticipation of the new, there's also the fear of the unknown. Will I be able to learn this crazy language? Really be myself? Be of any true consolation to anyone? Weather the loneliness? It's made me really wonder how Mary felt as she waited for Jesus' birth. What was her advent like? I mean, she knew she was saying yes to God, and she probably had some ideas about what that might look like concretely, but there was certainly more unknown than known at that point. What were her conversations with God like as she waited and longed those nine months? What did it mean for her to treasure all those things she didn't know or understand in her heart? While she's teaching me how to say 'yes', I pray she'll also teach me how to wait with hope and patient trust.

Living humbly with Mary
By and large, life in my community in Bangkok will be a humble, simple one- with much more mundane than spectacular. We'll shop, cook, clean, bathe, and dress as our neighbors do, as we try to authentically enter into and share life with them. Like Mary's mostly hidden life in Nazareth, ours will be one of prayer and simplicity, doing many small things with great love and trusting the fruit they bear.

My Heart's Home rosary- a daily companion