The Angels of BHJ

I love these little girls. I have been thinking about what to blog, and as I was hugging one of my best little friends, I knew that there wasn’t a whole lot more that I could be blogging about. The girls at this orphanage have captured my heart. When my team and I travel to other parts of Thailand and leave them for a week or so, I come back awaiting their hugs. I come back excited for the language barrier, as long as I can just sit and laugh with them. Fyodor Dostoevsky said that “the soul is healed by being with children,” and I think that is true. I have learned a lot of lessons in the time that I have been in Thailand, some of them fun and exciting and some of them difficult and requiring a lot of hugs and support. Everyday that I walk out of the guesthouse, whether my lesson be easy or my face be smiling, one or more of the angels of BHJ are waiting to share their love with me.

I haven’t spent a huge amount of time around children in my life. I babysat here and there growing up, but I have always been the young one. My two older siblings and their friends were the cool big kids and I was the silly young one that followed them around. Living with children is living an entirely different life. Living with children in Thailand is like living on the moon and hanging out with aliens, but in a positive way. I really feel like it is that different to me. But I love it. Going back to Dostoevsky’s quote, I really do think that their presence is healing. It is peaceful and light. There is so much brokenness and sadness in the world that we live in, and these girls have swallowed a good mouthful of that too, but still, their presence, the aroma they put off into the world is sweet and welcoming.

I have talked a few times on here about a little baby named “Lydia.” She was the first girl at BHJ to steal my heart and replace the empty space with fresh air and toddler hugs. She made the America fast (fasting media, comfort, regular tasting food and a dry climate) bearable. About a month ago, a little girl named “An Chili” re-stole my heart. I didn’t know I was capable of falling for another tiny infant baby girl, but apparently I was. She was playing on the slack-line that one of my teammates brought and wanted to hold my hands while she bounced on it. Her creative little mind started a tradition that would be carried out every night for the next few weeks. All the little girls would hop onto the slack line, the interns would hold their hands and they would jump on it and bounce and laugh. We started to add in the detail of them jumping off the line into our arms and about the time that our biceps were growing the girls were getting bored with the game, thankfully. Since that point, we have learned new games and new ways to connect and get the girls to laugh and have fun.

With that in mind, I wish that I could lend people just a glance of tiny Lydia, or sweet sweet An Chili. As I read updates of the world around me, I wish I could share the purity of the presence of these children, or ask them to give the sad and hungry people a hug. I have gotten to experience love in a beautiful way these last two months in Thailand. It has opened my eyes to a preview of parenting, an appreciation for my own parents and the parents around me, and the innocence of a seven year olds heart.