Love Your Neighbor

Whew, it's been a busy two weeks since moving into our new place!  I mentioned before that we have had a lot of people in and out, and that has continued. After referring to our house as a hotel, I asked Christa what we should name it...I jokingly said we should call it JC's Bed and Breakfast - JC being our initials (Julia and Christa for those of you who haven't had coffee yet this morning!), but also reflecting Whose house it really is and our continued desire to make our home a haven of peace, joy and laughter for our friends. Random fact...we calculated how many eggs we bought this week and realized we'd gone through about 50 eggs in less than a week!!

Our newest friends are the two little boys that live kat-a-korner (is that how you even spell that?!).  They live in more of a shack than a home with no electricity and we're guessing no running water.  I think I mentioned before that they enjoy playing on the swing in our yard, but we really had nothing else for them to do so this week Christa and I bought them a soccer ball. Since then, they've been over almost every day this week, kicking the ball in the yard. I played with them on Thursday for about an hour until my clumsy soccer kicking landed the ball smack into the bowl of rice the one little boy was eating. Oops. They were shocked at first, but once I started laughing at my unfortunate aim, their giggles followed. They are quickly winning our hearts.

If you see this picture, I'm sure it's not hard to imagine why.

We can only speak a little bit together, but with kids you often don't need words to have a good time. Here we are making strange faces.

 

Christa and I are asking for wisdom as we continue building a friendship with these precious little boys. We have often brought out mangoes or cookies or some other snack for them when they play in our yard and they always eat what we give them and politely return the plate. On Thursday they started coming to the door asking for food (hence the little one eating the rice until the soccer ball interrupted his meal). Thursday night I came back from dinner and was met by Tia, the 6-year-old, saying gin kao, which litterally means eat rice but is the Lao way of saying "dinner" or just a meal in general. I asked him if he'd eaten and he said no, so I made some fried eggs and toast for him and his brother. As they gobbled it up, the older one, Bee (pronounced like Bay, but a short vowel sound), picked up one of the eggs and ran to his house to give it to his mom.  It's heart-breaking and humbling as I look at my abundance and see their need, and ask the Father what my part in meeting that would be.  Dependence on foreigners can be a real problem here, so we are not wanting to get into that situation. But at the same time the words of JC ring in my ears, For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me....Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

And then, Let the little children come unto me, for the kingdom belongs to such as these.

We had hoped for children in our neighborhood, and the Father has answered that request in abundance it seems (our other little neighbor - 8-year-old Valisa still visits often:). I don't think they could be any cuter, more polite or better at winning our hearts than these are! So we are just daily asking for wisdom, grace and provision that we may love them in the best, most helpful and JC-honoring way possible.

On a random other note in regards to our neighbors...When we were considering this house, the biggest "wildcard" was the landlord. We'd heard many horror stories of landlords who seemed super-helpful and honest when you signed the lease but then didn't want to spend a penny on anything thereafter. So we were unsure if this was the right house because we didn't know anything about the landlord. One night though, as Christa and I were talking to the Father, we both just felt a peace that this was His house for us. And let me just say, our landlady (we call her Mee Noy), is one of the biggest blessings of our house. She lives about a 2-minute walk away and has been so helpful in fixing anything (so far!:) and helping us get settled. She loves to stop by and ma lin (literally means "come play" but is the Lao way to say "hang out"). The other day we went to her house to bring some banana bread Christa had made and we chatted for about 30 minutes (in Lao!!). We mentioned that Christa's friend was arriving in Lao that day and she asked how we were getting to the airport. We told her I was going to drop Christa off with my motorbike and then they'd take a taxi back. She immdediately offered to take Christa in her car (even though the airport is about a 30-40 minute drive away). We hesitated at first, not knowing if she was just being polite, but she insisted, and about an two hours later they were enroute in Mee Noy's car. I wish I had a picture of her to put up here, but maybe next time. When you "think" of me, be remembering Tia, Bee, Valisa and Mee Noy too! :) They are our newest friends, neigbours and ones who are on our hearts as we get settled into our home and neighborhood!