Faraway Kindess

I am naturally not a very open person. I don't show too much emotion most of the time, and I don't share things with others unless I really want to. As an introvert, I have more of a reserved personality. However, at the beginning of the summer, I read a chapter in a loaned book from my mom about being vulnerable and opening up to others. I stopped reading that book after that.

I knew right then that the chapter had been written for me. But I was having none of that. I don't want to open up! I thought. I'm fine just the way I am. Nobody needs to know about me.

Dead. Wrong.

This summer, God put me on a mission to open up, to reveal more of my true colors instead of the stoic personality that I wrap myself in.

I became a junior counselor at a camp, I went to a foreign country to supply clean water to a village. People wanted to know what happened to me there. They wanted my stories, my pictures.

I was scared. I still am.

But let me tell you a story. This story really knocked my world into perspective.

It was raining on the first night of the job in Cambodia. My teammates were giggling and running into the storm. Not I. I was curled up on a cot, shivering with fever. I couldn't move, my eyelids were fighting to stay open. Eventually, after a sponge bath, my fever broke. That didn't mean I was better. Oh no. I was bedridden for three days, to weak to do much but sit up and eat. Even stumbling to the doors of the girls room for a breath of fresh air was a challenge.

What saved me? God's grace, Tylenol, and a couple of ladies I like to call the Mings.

The word "Ming" in the Khmer language is a term of respect that you use when you speak to a woman of superior standing. The English equivalent would probably be "aunt".

But over the course of the ten days I was at the job site, the Mings became so much more to me than aunts.

These ladies didn't even know me, but they jumped to my rescue anyway when I first became sick. They were the ones who gave me a sponge bath that first night. They helped me with things that I normally could do myself: bathing, eating, walking, even going to the bathroom was a struggle, yet they were patient as I struggled with basic daily activities.

They even held me as I sobbed in frustration, shaking with the fever and the effort. But one more thing.

The Mings couldn't speak my language, and I couldn't speak theirs. 

Even today, the thought still blows me away. They loved me like one of their own, even though I had never spoken much to them before. Just the amount of kindness poured out amazes me. I was forced to open myself up to complete strangers...and I was blessed beyond all I could have ever expected. The actions of the Mings inspired me.

I shared more. I talked more. I breached the boundaries of my shell.

It still isn't easy to talk to people I don't know, but if I can bring comfort and peace into someone's life like the Mings brought into mine, I could consider my days well spent.

 I haven't seen the Mings since this picture was taken. I miss them both very, very much.