Jessica Wood

The end of my telescope

I have been trying to get my friends to watch the movie blood diamond, but no one is ever “in the mood” My human trafficking movies are also collecting dust on the shelf… “I just want to chill out when I watch a movie”, “Im not up for anything to intense” The first time I watched blood diamond I watched with my friend lydia. We bawled at the end of the movie for about 15 mins because they tell you that there are 200,000 child soldiers still in Africa. We had just seen, felt and were engaged in the story of one child, one family, But now 200,000. The thing I hate the most is not that it is happening, but that I am one of the white Americans they describe in the movie who will read a story and shed a tear but do nothing about it. I feel so distraught because the world is always at the end of my telescope, I can see everything that goes on around the world (news), it is very close to me, Poverty, Aids, Trafficking, Genocide, but my arm is always to short to reach their pain or change their circumstances. Somedays I get frozen in the head lights because I am so overwhelmed, Somedays I am lazy and selfish. Some days I am so filled with excuses because I am deeply afraid of the end of my telescope, But some days I want to rise up and bust out of this shell body and scream for revolution and revial, for good to win and evil to be crushed. I cannot live normal anymore, I have seen to much and cared to much. At least that this what I like to think about my self, but maybe its all just costume I have put on. So many times the evils of the world on such great levels seem unreal. his may be becuase I cannot touch or feel them or maybe it is that in the end I have become the unreal one by denying reality of all that is just at the end of my telescope….

some of my kids

Some important things...

So I was encouraged by my good friend Sam to update this blog (thanks Sam). I think it is just the thing I need right now.I have been a little discouraged lately (mostly because it is so cold!) I hate winter a lot… I had to keep saying to myself “Jessica your doing important things” so that I will keep working hard. I am doing some important things, I’m not tyring to say that to be prideful or whatever, but there are lots of times that I forget that the seemingly small things my job entails are huge in the lives of the people I work with. I had a crazy week, It all started with this really weird cab ride. I felt for some strange reason that I should take a cab (maybe it was cause I was freezing my ass off) So I jumped into a cab with a VERY friendly driver. I tried to ignore him but he kept talking to me. I told him about SAFEPLACE (the afterschool program I work at) and he immediately wanted his kids to come. I gave him my info and we went our own ways…. The next day he called me at work about 50 times and almost made Tammy our secretary go crazy…I had a taxi cab stalker….and i have heard those never end well….dun,dun,duhhhhh I hope this is the kind of stuff you write on a blog….anyway.. the next day he showed up at the church still a little too friendly, but it ended up that he wanted to know where he could study theology. He said he knew about the Bible but not to much and wanted to really know the Bible. He wanted his kids to know also. We gave him some ideas and invited him to church and sent him on his way. His 6 year old daughter faven will hopefully be at SAFEPLACE soon. I thought that was important.. We have this family at SAFEPLACE that I have been trying to work with for months. Here is a quick picture of her life No Job, No husband, 2 kids ages 6 and 8, her building is foreclosed so she has to moved out by the 16thof this month and her 8 year old boy has fainted three times in the past two months and they can’t figure our why…. I felt bad so i have been watching her kids and trying to help and way I could. About this time last week I started to get a little frustrated with the mom because she kind of just froze…It was like had to much to handle so she gave up and did nothing… she still has no plan of what to do. Yesterday her 6 year old daughter, Jazziya and I were talking about famous african Americans who did things to change the world. I asked her how she as an african american would change the world. She told me she would try to help homeless people. When I asked her why she said because she was afraid of being homeless, she new her mom had no money and she was sure they would have to live on the street. The next day I searched the web for an hour or so and got paper work for her mom to get assistance with her housing situation. she accepted my help and expressed how stressed she really felt. We called some places and looked into getting a storage unit. I hate not only that there are homeless children, thousands of them, but that there are so many kids with so many scary things facing them. A six year old should never have to fear not having a home… I had two kids up in my office a few days age because one had called a boy a nigger and the other had called a boy a Nazi. This is a very serious offense at SAFEPLACE. Not treating each other with respect gains severe punishment along with both of their parents being contacted. I sat there for a moment and tried to think of how to teach these kids the deep meaning of the words they had used. I explained about slavery and racism toward blacks and shared a little about Hilter and his murderous campaign. Does a five minute explanation do justice, NO…I am struck now with how important it is to talk about the evils of the past with kids who can make things different for the world in the future. Another mom from SAFEPLACE has had ringing in her ear for months, it seems to me like she is making it up but who am I to no whats going on in her ears. Her first language is Spanish, so I have taken her to the doctor and talked to him on the phone a couple of times. I can’t image trying to find out what is wrong with my health in another language. After talking to the doctor on the phone he told me she has tinnitus, which means ringing in the ears in doctor language… I looked it up on wikipedia to day and printed it out for her in Spanish.. I think it helped her feel a little more releaved … In starbucks yesterday there was a man limping. He looked maybe 60 and had a thick latin accent. He later on told me he was from argentina. I offered him a walker that we had at the church as he looked like he really needed it. He asked me alot about SAFEPLACE. He had heard me talking on the phone to my Dad about the family in the above story. As I was talking he stopped me and told me I was like a rose in the desert. I just stared at him shocked at being told such a nice thing by a stranger. He said the world need people like me…I felt like I wanted to cry right there. It was just a little thing but it meant so much to me. I am glad that I work at SAFEPLACE and live where I do because even if I never do something huge to change the world. I know that the small things add up.

We went back to the bars tonight and we had some REALLY great conversations, I met a girl named May and her sister Yun. I talked to May for a while and then bought her a drink (the girls have to sell so many drinks a night and it gives them the time to talk to you). She was very open with me telling me that she loved to draw because it helps her to forget all the bad things that have happened to her. She told me her boyfriend used to hit her and cheat on her. Drawing made her feel free from those things. I want to buy her a sketch book. I know so many people might think that the best thing to tell this girl is to repent or she will go to hell because she is a prostitute, and i know she needs to be aware of how God feels about her actions, but I also feel like i want to talk to her about drawing and how she feels when she does it and how a realtionship with jesus is truly the most satisfying freedom….please pray for her….We will see each other again on Wednesday, but this time we are going to the salon to get our hair done together. I am very excited to meet with these girls out of the bar scene, we will see what happens. I am starting to realize it is going to be really sad to leave…jessica see everyone soon!

kids in the slums

So this is Dao, we took her and her four children out to get ice cream yesterday. It was probably my favorite day so far, I have really been asking God to speak to me on this trip, im just hungry to hear something new, real and life-changing. I know all his words are supposed to be this way, but I have been having trouble lately praying, i feel like i have had all the conversations i could think of… then I came to Thailand, everything is new and different. There are so many new things to pray for so many things i never realized i really need to thank God for… God spoke to me through Doa and her children. Dao’s story is horrible, she was raped by her brother all her life which gave her three children, she did not want to leave her kids so she stayed in an abusive relationship with him for years, she worked in the bars, she had many customers, but she knew her heart was empty. She ran away from her brother only to fall for a drug dealer who died a few years into her relationship, she had another son with that man before he died. One night at the bar Jim Larson (the missionary here) came into the bar, he talked with her, cared about her and invited her to well. That began a long journey for her of change.

As we waited for our ice cream we told Dao that she must laugh all the time because her kids were sooo funny, making jokes, little smiles and funny stuff only kids get away with. She pointed to the air (her english is not the best :) “God came into my heart, i used to be sad but God made me to laugh with my kids” Before we ate her oldest boy about 8 year old prayed for his ice cream, all the other kids listen and prayed, we could not understand the prayer but we heard both of our names! He prayed for a long time and they all shouted “Amen!” before the ate their food. Right then it hit me, there was something very real to them about God. I rarely (though I do at times) doubt that God exsists, but i often find myself not truly living, i live like life is normal, not hating God and not really loving him…that way of life is not enough for me…I want to know God’s forgiveness and joy like Dao does, I want to pray like her son, I want to smile like her daughter. I know it sounds cheesy but thats ok if its all true, right?

Jessica

Today we went to the grand palace with June and her two children. Today is mother’s day because it is the queen’s birthday! They do not have a lot of money so these kind of trips are not an option for them usually so it was very special to be able to treat them. June’s testimony is amazing and the way that God changed her life is drastic. She, as do all of we, has a long rode ahead but is making amazing progress in her spirituality which has flown over to other aspects of her life like being a mother.

So, at the palace Thai go for free, but us Farang(foreigners) had to pay 300 baht(7 dollars?) to get in which I thought was funny. Jessica got to wear this nice wrap around skirt they handed out because her ankles were showing, the heathen. The palace was overwhelming:statues, temples, incensce, gold! The biggest temple was interesting we sat in there for awhile and watched all the thai bow and pray to the buddha statue. No pictures of that because we were not allowed to use cameras. It was pouring rain and most of it is outside so our trip was a little dampened, but what we did see was amazing.

The day ended with mcdonalds because thats what June’s youngest daughter loves mcdonalds :) The food from mcdonalds here is the same price as in the states, so thai see it as very expensive… It kind of is considering that we can usually get a meal for 20-40 baht (50 cents-1dollar), and a big mac meal is 160 baht(4 dollars)! So here Mcdonalds is a classy restaurant! Ah, culture is a funny thing.

Elaina

PS Jessica’s eyes are healed!