Grace has gone...

Eve

I will do a post tomorrow (hopefully!) about the last few weeks...the craziness that they were...but today I will grieve a little and post about a friend who recently moved - while we were on vacation!


I wrote once about my Thai friend, "Grace," who lived next door.  She was very pregnant and having the most horrible time sleeping because of her constant aches and pains.  After praying for her, her aches and pains went away for a few weeks!  God is good!


Well, just a week or so after I posted, she delivered a beautiful nugget of a little girl - without a name.  
Here, it is quite common to wait a while to bestow a name on your child.  Also, most people have a more formal, long name and then their "play name" (usually short, easy to say, and most of the time, very quirky).  I have friends named Rain, Blue, View, Little, Turtle, Eye, Branch, Tree and Air, to name a few.  I love Thai names.  I wish I had one!


So, the little nugget that became my newest next-door-neighbor remained nameless for the first few days of life.  Low and behold, my sweet friend, View, informed me that they were waiting for ME to make my first visit in order to ask me to help give this child her new name.  Me?  Are you kidding?  I was deeply honored.  Then, a huge weight of responsibility fell on me to come up with the perfect name. 


After a few weeks of praying, brainstorming, sharing, offering ideas, names being rejected, and thinking some more...they finally named her Eve (pronounced more like "Ae-wah" because Vs are quite impossible to say for most Thais).  This little cutie will grow up to be a mother to many, a giver of life; and the story of her name will include a quite random account of a white foreigner, a follower of Jesus who helped to shape her destiny, even with just a small thing like a name.  I am thankful for her today.


With this joy comes sadness...


We left on our travelling excursion two weeks ago (see last post), and over the course of our absence, our sweet friends moved away.


The lonely "For Rent" sign hangs in the window of their apartment, and makes me sadder by the day.  I will miss my friend Grace, her little Evie nugget of a newborn, and her two boys that broke my own boys out of their shells and gave them confidence to actually play with Thai nationals.


Hopefully, we will meet again one day!  I am just glad that I have no regrets.  I have shared about the Hope I have in the King of Kings.  I gave.  I loved.  I reached out.  I simply tried.  


And, now, I am letting go...and will dare to start again with new neighbors, with new friends, and with the great possibility that they will lead to new "goodbyes."  

Taa, Huy, Tun and Run