New Eyes

New Eyes

September 14, 2011. Perched next to Beth in a seat made for two of me, I leaned over and looked out the window of our green bus.

At Mae Sot.

I’m trying to remember what I saw that day.

Everything was blurry. I remember that. Or maybe it’s just that everything is clear now.

I remember being rather unimpressed. “Is this all there is to this town?”  Coming from Chiang Mai, my standards were tuned a little high.

I thought Mae Sot looked small.

How could I know how wide its boundaries really spread? Like fevered arms opened wide to a far-off loved one, Mae Sot beckons thousands. People displaced, homeless, lost, searching. They come here to start over. More than 100,000 migrants from the Burmese homeland have fled to this border town.

Mae Sot is not small. It embraces a vast multitude.

As I leaned into the dusk of my first eve in Mae Sot, I thought I was prepared. I wondered if Mae Sot was prepared for me.

In the beginning; in the moment that I stepped off of the bus; in the days and weeks that followed, Mae Sot looked like a dirty city with dirty people. They stared at me endlessly; I could not communicate. To me, they were nameless faces and empty eyes. It was a world I could not understand or even place my hand inside.

When I climb on the green bus and leave, I will lean close to the window and see Mae Sot again. It will be different this time, because I will see it through different eyes. New eyes.

Oh Mae Sot….dear Mae Sot. What secrets you have privileged me to discover within your borders.

In the beginning, you looked empty and lonely. Today I know that you hold the most beautiful mysteries of relationship—deep like a mountain spring; warm like the flaming sun; blue like jazz. Somewhere along the way, I have seen the soul of your people, and discovered a treasure.

Your people have faces. They have names. They have beautiful, vivid souls. In their eyes I see stories that would excite the world if only they could see them too.

Time has unveiled a secret that only time can: that within the migrant heart pulses a passionate vitality; a will to survive. At first, I looked and saw overwhelming despair.

Today I see hope.

These are a people who have lost things precious to them and experienced griefs that I probably never will. They have walked hard roads and endured deep pain. Their faces seemed to me etched with sorrow. It seemed impossible that hope could dwell among them.

But then…

I saw Apwa  [grandmother] laugh. She threw back her head, and the work lines disappeared into creases of joy. Apwa has had no easy life. She works hard, every day, to support a disabled husband. Her face is worn and her back bent under the strain of many burdens. But, somewhere, among the sorrows, she has discovered joy.

I held a beggar baby in my arms; felt her lay her head on my shoulder, and sleep. Her days are spent on the streets, sitting in a tattered sling on the thin back of a child who uses her to bring in more money. We were surrounded by chaos—children shouting, fighting, playing. But she rested in my arms; the world far away for a moment. In her slow, gentle breathing, there was peace.

I found Ta-waay, a tiny baby boy, lying so still on a rice mat in an upstairs room at the clinic—his home for the first 3 weeks of life. I held him close, whispering into his ear that he is loved and he is not alone as I carried him outside into the bright sunshine of a new life. In a world where he was meant to be lost, Ta-waay has been found. One day he will have a home; a forever family all his own. When he squirms in my arms and giggles at me, I am reminded that innocence remains.

I met the woman whose husband was brutally murdered. She is the mother of two; the youngest still an infant. They live in the Garbage Dump slum and have no means of support besides what Compasio and other generous people contribute. Her life has been characterized by horrendous grief and struggle. Yet there is something that sets her apart. I watch her tender care of her children—so beloved to her—and the way she loves them openly. There is a light in her eyes that, proportionate to what she has gone through, should not exist. It is the light of hope.

I saw the look of pleasure light up the eyes of an old woman in the dump when I complimented her on the wonderful care she had been taking of her grandson’s wounds. “You are a good nurse,” I told her, and she laughed, “You are my teacher.” She has faithfully administered medicine, changed bandages, and supported her young grandson as his arm heals. In a community where we face a lot of obstacles in teaching even the most basic healthcare, her conscientious care was exciting and encouraged my spirits. I was reminded that positive change is always possible. Hope is always present in unexpected, out of the way places, no matter how dismal the big picture looks.

I danced with street kids [yes, and even did a catwalk for them. How cool am I, anyway?!]

I held a tiny, beautiful girl in the dump community who never said a word, but clung to my neck, and cried when I had to leave.

I sat with Unoh’s grandmother and listened as she shared her struggles. She spoke with deep emotion that reached me even when the Burmese words could not. I felt her intense love for her family. And thought that even in this slum, loyalty runs deep and fierce.

There are dozens of faces, just like these; Burma’s children who have pulled me, irresistibly, into their world, and imprinted themselves upon my heart.

When I first came to Mae Sot, I saw filthy children. Beggars. People with missing limbs from land mine explosions. I saw houses built among reeking heaps of trash.

I saw pictures of ugly, dark despair; even hopelessness.

But now I see people. And what is inside of them is beautiful. I see them laugh, play, explore, and hunger for something more. There is a fire of hope kindled deep inside them; it is what makes splendor arise even across the aged, wrinkled, tired, grimy, and sad faces.

They are longing for Jesus. They are ripe for change and for real answers. They are a fighting people—who do not give up easily, but will to overcome. These are the beloved of the Lord.

To me they are no longer empty faces. They are individuals; priceless, precious children of God. Something inside of me connects with something inside of them. I long to love them as Jesus does, for the beautiful people that they are.

In the beginning, Mae Sot was just another Asian city. I came expecting to change it. Maybe to like it. But not to love it.

It hasn’t worked out the way I planned.

When I climb on the bus and watch this city and its precious people disappearing behind me, I will leave embracing them with all my heart. When I came I saw faces; today I see friends. And as time moves slowly on, I know that my eyes will keep changing. I will continue to see this people and this city in new and beautiful ways.

It will be a marvelous journey.