Bringing it all back to the point...

Today, during our weekly team meeting, we were encouraged to find a quiet place and silently reflect and pray. We were at a place called "Potters Hands" which is a place set up with small nooks and crannies to go be alone for a while. All this reflection was really good for me and I wanted to take a moment now, as I've just crossed the 2 month here mark to reflect again on just "why am I here?" (I'm thinking more generally here. If you want to see why I chose to do this HNGR program and what it's all about, read my post from a few months ago).
The truth is that I can't answer that question. I'm partly here because God has drawn me here and I probably won't know why exactly for a long time, if ever really. There are reasons that God has used to make me want to come, so I'll try to share a few of those to remind me about why I decided to come in the first place.
I came because, as most of us do, I recognize that there's something wrong in this world. Everything is not alright. Maybe those of us who have been born into wonderful families in very comfortable situations can forget that at times, but that realization is always waiting for us if we will open our eyes to others in the world. I came then, because I wanted to immerse myself among those who have gotten the rotten end of the deal. I wanted to be with those who are broken, to be with those who suffer. The truth is, however, that I didn't need to come to Cambodia to be with people like that. They're all around us whevever we are. In the West, we tend to be very good at blinding ourselves to the needs and hurts of those around us and those of us who have needs and hurts strive hard at covering them up and pretending they aren't there. But we know that there are many in our society without real fathers and mothers and who have never had the love and encouragment that we were meant to have.
So I suppose there must be another reason. I came because of my hard heart. My heart tends to look at my own needs and my own wants and doesn't look at those of others, so maybe if I surround myself in human suffering, then I will wake up for just a second and realize that I need to serve others more than myself. Following that, I suppose, I came because I knew that if I was here I would see just how weak I am to be able to serve others more than myself. It's true, I've been making a right mess of it. I've been getting frustrated at other people because they're stepping on my pride. I've realized that it's really hard to serve others when you're in an uncomfortable place, sweating uncontrollably, wearing wet clothes that won't dry and feeling sick. I've seen here that my own love is not big enough. It's things like that which help me to appreciate God's wisdom in the bible, in that he acknowledges that OF COURSE we can't do it by ourselves, but that it has to be God working through us, his love and strength don't dry up the way that mine do (I know that probably sounds trite. But it loses a bit of its triteness when that's what you need to get you through your next day and not pack up and come home).
The final reason that I came was to know people who have had such a different experience of life than mine, and to be known by them in return. This is turning out to be the key to all I've been learning here. Think when we're in Dublin, Chicago, Ventura, wherever, how difficult it is when a beggar on the street asks you for money. Most of us have a real dilemma, we think "What's really best for the person?" "Maybe they'll use it to buy drink or drugs." That dilemma (because it's been ingraned into us westerners since we were kids) doesn't suddenly go away here in Cambodia. Here we might think, "is this kid that's begging being forced to because his parents know that he is profitable and so don't let him go to school?" There's all sorts of things that we can ask ourselves, and they're probably good questions to ask.
BUT when you Know the person that's asking you, a lot of those questions go away. It's not a random person that just came up to you, now it's your friend, or someone you see every week, or maybe even the father of one of your kids' friends. Taking time to live in this slum is also helping me to see the needs of the poor that don't go out to beg but who might need my help just as much. When the non-poor come into relationship with the poor, everything changes. That doesn't necessarily mean that everything get's easier. Relationships - as I'm finding- are extremely complicated (especially when you don't speak the same language very well) and bring a lot of their own problems and pains. But I'm starting to feel that the relational element might be what's been missing in my dealings with a lot of poor people before.
There's a lot more that I'm thinking about and learning, but I wanted to share just few thoughts about these things. The reason I'm here is not to eat "crazy" foods or have "weird" experiences, those are really a byproduct.
Please keep giving me feed back about what you think I'm saying. I've enjoyed writing back and forward with some of you about the issues I'm meeting here and the issues you're meeting where you're at too.