Being loved

*The original names of the women have been changed to preserve confidentiality

A little over two years ago, I landed in Thailand and for the past year I have served as the Coordinator of the Women at Wildflower Home, a shelter for single mothers and pregnant women. After this year of experience, I can say that Asia has certainly disoriented all of my understanding of relationships! Although I have tried to remember to focus on relationships instead of on principles, I remain confused and very frustrated. I made mistakes early on and, in order to avoid making more mistakes or hurting anyone, I entered into a very deep silence where God was my main interlocutor. I was overwhelmed by a world where the dialogue was so different from what I was thinking and I did not know with whom I had a deep and sincere relationship.
The women at Wildflower Home welcomed me well. But I was just a new foreigner among them. At the beginning they were quite enthusiastic since they knew how to make any newcomer feel at home. But after a few months, they started to become tired of me, especially because I was also in charge of the routine and the discipline. Then, even when I thought I had a good relationship with two of my Thai colleagues, I simply felt that I could never fully be a part of their world. I tried to be more calm, more quiet, softer, more inviting…I definitively tried everything, but nothing seemed to work or give the desired result. And what was this desired result? I realized that I wanted to be loved by them, or at the very least feel loved by them. Is this strange? I was the one who was supposed to come bearing the love.
One day, one of women got sick from stress. Sa* is a very brilliant student and has a good heart, but she does not have any self-confidence because her father has been violent to her on many levels. So, she has learned how to try to please others and do everything perfectly to avoid this violence and get just a little shred of love from her father. She repeats the pattern in other relationships. Recently, she got so sick that she was in the hospital for over a week. Few women took the time to visit her. One of the simplest women at Wildflower Home, Nappa, went to visit her. Nappa is illiterate; she speaks broken Thai because she is originally from the Hmong tribe and has spent her life in the mountains. Some women laugh at her and look down on her sometimes because she is different. But Nappa has a simple way to enjoy life: she is faithful and sincere with her feelings, has a pure heart, where malice never set its foot, has a great sense of humor and a thirst for learning.
Nappa and I went to visit Sa and, during most of the visit, I sat there talking, asking questions, and tried to make Sa laugh. After twenty minutes, I said to Nappa that we should go. She said, “Maybe we can stay.” With her eight-and-a-half-month pregnant belly, she went to find a chair, sat at the side of the bed and said nothing. The was full of her presence and her compassion for Sa. I admired her for a moment. The day after, she wanted to come again to visit Sa and prepare a bag with rice and other food without saying any word to explain why she was doing that. But just in observing her hands and how she prepared the food, I understood all the heart she put into that simple act. It was not the first time I noticed this gentle and silent way of taking care of others here in Thailand. Probably, if I had stopped myself from being so busy with carrying out my duties, or trying so hard to be in relationship with them and had been less concerned about myself, I would have felt this love in the silent encounters with these women.

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