I remember Kristina and our ministry contacts telling us, “If you get a connection with a child this week, don’t avoid it. Embrace it. Pour into that child. Give that child all of your love. Put it all out there.”
Well, Thursday started out much similar to the rest. We spent the morning and some of the afternoon with the kids. Rocking out, laughing uncontrollably and just watching them grow comfortable around us. After dinner, Kristina and I were in the kitchen when she heard a familiar sound from the gate and she rushed to it with an excited “Abbaba!” After a brief explanation, I was told that Abbaba hasn’t been to the center since January. He is deaf and probably twelve or thirteen years old. His face was shadowed by the big black hood that was over his head but his eyes gave his entire face warmth. The grin that crossed this little boy’s face when she unlocked the gate and wrapped him in her arms was as if he had seen an angel. The excitement that radiated off of both of them could be felt in the air. It was immediately decided that he needed food and we were taking him out to dinner. Although he is deaf, he communicated with actions or faces or simply in giggling or smiling at what we were trying to say to him or faces that we would make in his direction.
But when we returned home, we knew that he had no place to go. We knew that if we locked the gate and joined the others, he was alone again in his silent world. Instead, we stalled some time and took him next door to play computer games. Around 8:45 pm we returned to the center with the same dilemma. By this time, my team was upstairs worshipping. I couldn’t leave him. Kristina couldn’t leave him. Our minds raced for ideas. Normally, a child would just sleep with us at the center, but because he had not been seen since January, there was a possibility that someone was after him, leaving the center, him, and the team in extreme danger. He couldn’t stay. We couldn’t leave him. As Kristina walked inside and upstairs to make a phone call to one of the ladies in charge about our different solutions to this problem, I sat down on the inside of the gate as he sat on the outside peering in. We made faces. We poked at each other. I handed him some toys. I was not leaving this child. In the few hours I spent with him, he had stolen my heart and had all of my attention.
A few moments passed when I heard a noise that sounded as if huge tanks were crashing down our road. And then time stood still. At first I felt it through the floor and then I quickly realized my entire world was shaking. Amidst the screaming I heard arise from my team upstairs, the loud banging of the buildings that surrounded me and the shaking that made it hard to stand, I looked up and saw two eyes staring at me. He was looking at me for answers. His little white knuckles gripped the gate. His face was pale. His silent world was now shaking and I couldn’t even tell him it was going to be okay because I wasn’t convinced myself. I ran upstairs to my team, abandoning him at the gate and flew back down the stairs with one thing on my mind. “Get to him.” The shaking didn’t stop. Panic filled our team. With iron bars between us I squeezed this little boy so hard I could no longer feel the iron.
“God help us. Make it stop. Tell him it is okay. Hold him on the outside of these bars. God make it stop. “
Kristina flew up behind me with keys and as we got the gate open, we grabbed him and pulled him inside. Go inside? Or stay out? Tears. Panic. Fear. I could do nothing to pull myself away from him. Our nails dug into each other so hard that there were probably marks left. Tears streamed down my face as I imagined the fear he was experiencing was mine magnified by 1000.
It was decided it was safest outside. As we hovered outside, with nothing but the things on our back, we watched as the entire city fell to chaos. Cries of confusion, fear and disbelief filled the streets. Abbaba and I still hadn’t let go. Shoeless, tear stained and afraid, we debated where to go. And then the aftershocks began. Sending more terror through our bodies as we stampeded with the rest of Mae Sai into an open street area with more room from potential falling buildings or electrical wires. We prayed. And God whispered during the chaos. Fear was no longer in the form of life or death, rather in anticipation of when the next tremor would come. We could hear Kim Walker faintly still playing from inside the center where our team ran out of worship. God was filling this city with hope when everyone thought it was crashing down.
After five hours of running, it was decided we would leave Mae Sai and go to Chiang Rai, seventy miles away, seventy miles from the epicenter where we currently were. I can still hear the words. “Abbaba can’t come. Police Checkpoints are along the way. He has to stay.” The emotions that filled me were all across the board. Anger. Fear. Rebellion. Intense sadness. Hopelessness. God wanted me to trust Abbaba to him and I wanted to save him myself. The inward battle continued the entire way to our pick up point. How do I say goodbye? He won’t understand. I am abandoning him. Lord, please make this not work out. Lord, can’t we hide him in the car. Lord, what is he going to do? Lord, be with him all night.
As our truck pulled up, he walked with us with full anticipation of getting in alongside. And when we had to tell him he couldn’t come, the look on his face is still imprinted in my mind. Make him understand, Lord. Lord, protect him. As we drove off, the tears came. He stood in the street and watched until he slowly turned and walked away.
I am with him. I have him in my hand, Hannah. I am with him. And following those three phrases, peace fell over my entire body. Because I knew it was true. GOD was the only one to save him. And God was right next to him the entire time. It was time I started to trust that God, who made the earthquake possible, could protect little Abbaba. God had a plan. God was already present.
And two days later when we returned to Mae Sai, that same angelic grin glimmered at me from a little face shining back at me on the bridge. Imagine that, God provided.
In the moment of the earthquake, my potential entire purpose of being on this trip was revealed to me. If God brought me to Thailand to hold this little boy through an earthquake and provide him comfort and love, then I praise God for the earthquake. If through this earthquake, I was taught that God is SO MUCH BIGGER than any of the events that happened this night, than I praise God for the earthquake. Through this earthquake, God whispered. Through this earthquake, God PROVIDED for us. Through this earthquake, I learned to trust in a whole new expansion. I learned that in the big things, God is still whispering. In the silence, he is still there. Through it all, God is in control. Praise God for the earthquake, because in it, more of God’s identity was revealed.
