Sunday, January 31, 2010

Who is the lamb and who is the knife?

Today I picked my parents up from the airport, as they came home from whats called a discovery trip with Samaritans Purse, Operation Christmas Child (the shoebox thing, but not just for the tsunami like that one time that they were really badly organised by some other group and never got there) in Vietnam.

For those of you who don't know a) I went to Vietnam for four weeks in Nov/Dec 2008 and b) OCC is an amazing christian mission thing that allows a fantastic organisation to get a foot in the door and brighten up children's lives, as well as doing other amazing work in the communities.

So my dad showed me one of the videos of this little boy, who got a cat in the hat toy in his box and for some reason it really got to me. I guess cos its such a simple thing that we take so for granted, and yet it was so amazing and beautiful to this little boy, that it made the whole thing become that way.

It reminded me of when I was there, I played catch with this little girl at a school we visited really briefly, her name was chai and we played catch for like, 45 minutes until we all had to stop playing with the kiddies, give them the tennis balls and footies we'd been mucking around with and head off.

Sounds simple enough I guess, but our guide had to tell her about three times (in their language too) that it was for her before it really clicked properly, and the look on her face was simply incredible.

Another time we gave away a football and had to tell the young boy three times (this time with us attempting his language with help from the guide) before he realised, and he cried. Our guide told us that this was one of the poorest villages around, and that he had never had anything like it, and may never have if we hadn't given him it. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

And then there was slum survivor a while back, I came back shaken up, convicted and actually kinda disturbed, I cried myself to sleep that night thinking of all the people who never get out of that situation.

Part of my point here, is that I learn so slowly. I think part of me is afraid of being passionate, afraid of the type of deep convictions that simply must be acted upon. Ok, forget 'I think', I know.

I get so many opportunities to be truly ignited for a cause that matters, and often I am, but never for long enough to do anything about it, and I bet that is a huge reason behind it, fear of action and its repercussions, fear of...
Well the unknown I guess. What a silly thing to be afraid of...

Only two options, Love and Fear.
Only two results, Love and Fear
(I should memorise this lol)

I'm always harping on about love, blogging, writing, talking, painting, writing songs, drawing, wasting time not actually doing anything at all...

So how do I get past the fear?

1 comment:

  1. 'Only two options; Love and fear.'

    how is that hard to memorise? :P

    and tbh i think getting past the fear is an issue for all of us.........

    i guess sometimes you just have to do the things you're afraid of even though you may not be sure of how they're going to turn out. and maybe one day we'll look back and realise we aren't so afraid anymore...

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