MISSION UPDATE: Return to Sender

I was born with the uncanny gift of awkwardness. Some gifts seem like they'd be best if you could return to sender. This one in particular, however, has seen me through every age and stage of life. And it's amplified itself as I live cross-culturally.

Being an extremely shy person who learned early-on to pretend I was an extrovert, I think I just didn't notice that I was teaching myself to do something I didn't know how to do ... and so I taught myself wrong. The result has been that when a situation feels uncomfortable, I talk too loud to try to drown out the inner-squirming I'm always convinced will be audible if I don't create a distraction.

When a situation is tense, I often try to lighten it and I end up laughing far too loud and for much too long. It's horrifying to hear such sounds coming from my own throat and I cringe even in the moment.

But living in a culture across the world from the one I was born into, and communicating in a language I've far from mastered, has created opportunities for awkwardness beyond my wildest imaginings.

As my grasp of the language has increased, I've tried hard to force myself from my timid shell so that I can make conversations with our staff feel more casual. I want to know them and intereact with them like I would within my own country, but it's hard when I hit so many walls due to language. Several times I've really put myself out there and made a little joke only to have blank eyes stare back at me. Hits you right in the pride when you realize that your "joke" not only fell flat but it also caused confusion and furrowed brows as your audience is now scrambling to figure out what you're even talking about without hurting your feelings.

And so on and on goes my life. I'm a slow learner but I am slowly learning. Smile more, talk less. Check.

With the kids, on the other hand, I try to talk to them in Thai now because I've completed 6 whole months of instructional training in the language and I think surely I should use it, right? But mostly, the answer seems to be 'no' because they laugh nervously and sometimes just boldly tell me to "say it in English". It's fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings at all and so I just laugh and say it in English and they generally say something like, "ahhhh okay, now we understand" and life continues to roll along again just as if I'd never interrupted things with my attempts to speak Thai.

But then we got a new child. I can't say his Hmong nickname very well (and forget about trying to say all the REAL names) so I kept asking if there wasn't a different nickname he also goes by and his sisters finally said we could call him Chai. Chai is 6 and quite possibly the most adorable scrap of a boy to ever walk the planet on the tiniest feet with the sparkliest eyes and the most charming personality that could possibly fit within such a small frame. Chai, here already for two full weeks, believes he can speak English. And so he does.

He cups his impossibly cute hands around his cute little mouth and says, clear as day, I seeeeeeeeeee youuuuuuuu and then runs like lightening.

Or he makes a heart with his fingers and then motions you to come to him and plants a kiss right on your cheek and says, I loveeeee youuuuuu.

As for the remainder of his extensive English vocabulary, it sounds a lot like gibberish but he speaks it with such confidence that I couldn't dare take to the internet to say it is gibberish. Especially since, if Chai could write about me speaking his language, it would probably include something about it sounding a lot like gibberish.

To which I would awkwardly laugh too loud and for much too long even though I'd know it was true.

Today I decided to push through the noise and chaos surrounding me and sitting on me and talking to me and enquiring of me so that I could write a post here so people would still know we exist. "No news is good news" doesn't always prove true and so I wanted to reassure the faithful who support us through the noisy, as well as the silent times, that we're still here and God is still putting out our fires.

But it looked a lot like this.

Not included in this photo representation of what some might mistake for an attention or distraction disorder, is roughly a dozen other bodies swirling inside my office as well as all the sounds from the kids working and playing outside my window.

I wanted to tell you what's happening with my adult sons, and about Kwan just about to start her "senior" year of "high school", and about how Wind and Sky are here for a two week visit and how we're loving every second of it, and about how few cobras we've seen lately, and the changes that are just ahead. But now I'm exhausted from the effort of trying to type and I don't have enough words to write with any detail about those things.

But I have enough energy to tell you this ... God is good and He is faithful. He takes us as we are but never leaves us in that condition. He takes our pitiful, sometimes childlike offerings, and exclaims over them in what I imagine is similar to how we fuss over the half-dead flowers the kids bring us. We see their hearts and not the wilted petals of a gift squeezed too hard before being handed over.

God keeps picking us up and dusting us off and setting us back on the path with a gentle admonition to stop falling into the ditch on either side when He's right there perfectly willing to hold us up.

As I walk my quiet path around the moonlit rice paddy in the pre-dawn hour while I pray, I sometimes hear my awkwardness leak out as I talk with the One who knows me best. And then I laugh a little too loud as I tell Him how silly and small I feel. I'll hear Him speak so clearly that sometimes it literally makes me jump as though I've just realized He's actually there with me and I'm somehow startled that He can make Himself known so audibly.

I recently started to sing a hymn of praise while I'm out there with Him and the first few times I squawked out the words I was so embarrassed that I said aloud, "I'm so sorry I sound like that!" and then I laughed into the darkness as tears filled my eyes because God's response was so gentle.

He scrolled images of my children singing their songs of praise through my mind, a little off tune but with purity of heart. He showed me how lovingly I hear those sounds and the joy it elicits within me.

You can't be in God's presence, truly seeking His heart, and not end up in tears. I just don't think it's possible. He's my undoing (in the best way conceivable) and He's also the One who puts me back together.