Vitamin Stickers and Glove Critters

Our final day was split between two locations both full of little children! We spent the morning working at a refugee school where we saw both students and teachers. And in the afternoon, we went to the church where we had worshipped on Sunday.

My translator was AWESOME! We have pretty much had new ones every single day so this was the first time I’d worked with this translator. He was about my age and spoke very good English so we got to talking in between patients and it was so nice to hear his story!

He is a Burmese refugee who fled the country when he was twelve. He’s been living in Thailand ever since and currently holds a temporary visa. He married his high school sweetheart a year ago (ironically, she grew up in the refugee camp we served at yesterday, small world I guess!) and they are working to get permanent visas in either Thailand or America, whichever pans out first.

I asked him if he knew Jesus and the answer was an emphatic yes! I asked him how he first learned and he told me that his parents were Christians in Myanmar and taught him about Jesus. But there, he said that they didn’t have a relationship with Jesus, they just knew very little about him. When he got to high school, he started learning more about Jesus and fully trusted in Him. I asked him what he loves about Jesus and he said that he loves the resurrection story. It’s a very powerful message not only that Jesus resurrected from the dead, but that our souls are resurrected! Another translator said that he loves Jesus’ leadership, and how good of a leader He is for His people.

I love having Jesus in common with people around the world! It is so nice to have instant brothers and sisters and things in common! God is so good and so alive!

Another thing all cultures have in common is children!! Which we saw a lot more of today!! Additionally, a lot more of these children were in need of some entertainment today. I’m not really sure why, but there were definitely more kids waiting for their parents to be seen than on other days. Towards the end, they started to get a bit rambunctious.

At the school, we remedied this with bubbles and face paint (which was such a big hit, I think I’ll bring those little grease crayons with me on every trip!). We ended up leaving all of the face paint and bubbles and other toys with the children at the school.

At the church, we had to get a bit more creative with our entertainment!! We had no stickers, but we did have leftover vitamin labels! These were printed on address labels and had spaces for you to write what the medication was, how often to take it, and when to take it. I grabbed one of these and ripped them into smaller stickers and drew little hearts and stars and flowers and smiley faces on them. And boy were they a big hit!

After the kids warmed up to me, they wanted them on their hands and their cheeks and foreheads…. And then on my hands and cheeks and forehead… and then on my eyes and mouth and hair… and then we decided that was enough fun with the stickers for the day ;)

But parents were still being seen by providers and so we got out some faithful glove-balloon-creatures!

They were already laughing with my failed attempts of blowing up a glove and tying it without all the air escaping, but everyone quickly quieted down and gathered really close (too close if you ask me ;)) when I pulled out a sharpie to give the glove-creature a face. This quickly prompted many requests for more which I obliged, obviously.

By the time we were done with all our escapades, worship had broken out in the church and everyone came together to sing and pray!

It was such a beautiful way to end such an amazing trip, and definitely makes it that much harder to leave. I feel as though I’ve only just gotten here, and yet have been here for my whole life. Traveling really breaks your heart into a million little pieces and sprinkles them across the world. But it is so worth it, because of the friendships made and lives touched. Over 950 lives, to be exact!