The Sound of God’s Heart Breaking
I had to do my border run today, so I caught a bus to Mae Sai, the Northern most point of Thailand, and crossed the border into Myanmar. The poverty… the deprivation… the desperation… all evident at once. Within 50 meters the standard of living dropped to that which you would expect from a war zone.
Thai is not the primary spoken language, but being so close to the border, many merchants spoke it. I discovered this as one merchant after another offered to sell me cigarettes, then knives, then porno dvds, and finally, a girl. Each time this happened my spirit broke a little bit more.
I met a man who spoke perfect English (including, of course, obscenities) without a trace of his native accent. He told me bits about his life, that years ago he worked with Australians and New Zealanders as an interpreter, and that he fled his village because, in his words, “things were so f—– up.” I didn’t push for more detail. Looking at his scorched, scabby lips and his tattered body, I didn’t have to. He told me that the largest denomination of the country was 1,000 kyat, which was the daily wage of workers, and the equivalent, he told me of about 27 baht (though tomorrow it could be less, as he told me inflation was out of control). This, of course, made me feel terrible later on when I made the discovery that one young merchant had given me 20 baht too much in change, a mistake that I discovered only when buying some food for one of the many, rampant street children.
I naturally find myself now on the look out for children when I am out, but even a blind man could find them there. How they were brought to such desperation. How they had nothing. These were not scams being run on tourists either. Nor were the kids being used by adults for commercial gain. They had nothing to sell, though some would try to earn 5 baht by telling border crosses what side of the road to walk on. No, they were just hungry… And all alone in the world… ‘What is in their future?’ I pondered to myself, ‘besides the promise of grace and salvation’, all that there was that could comfort me away from breakdown.
Today, I heard the soul deafening sound of the heart of God breaking. I looked into children’s eyes and saw futility. I held back tears as I had to apologize to one young hungry girl that she would remain hungry, because I had not brought enough money to buy her a piece of fruit. And with each of these, I looked back into my own heart only to see weakness, impotence, a shall of a man, and how much I need God.
Oh, Lord Jesus, come…
