I
was last weekend.
At
first, I was just so mad I couldn’t think about anything else except for being
angry… I WAS LIVID! And then I started feeling bad for myself. Later the only
thing I focused on was how I could teach this kid a lesson. I felt like this
was the worst experience I’ve had so far in Armenia in the past two years and
didn’t realize that this would also be one of the greatest learning experience
of my time here. God really put me in a tough situation to see how I would
handle it, and sure, at first, I didn’t handle it well, but as soon as I saw
God in the whole situation, I was at peace, happy, and full of love for this
kid. God knew I had the strength to overcome it.
So
here’s the story:
Sunday
afternoon my volunteer friend, Cortney, and I decided to walk from one village
to the other just to get some exercise in. We met up at the store by my apartment
complex and started our 1.5 hour walk. A couple young boys saw us walking and
decided to follow us. At first they walked from a distance and didn’t bother
us, but as soon as we were out of the village and on the road, they began
asking questions and being somewhat rude. I asked them to leave us alone
because we were having a serious conversation and that they shouldn’t be
walking this far out of the village. Long story short, they wouldn’t leave us
alone, walked for about 40 minutes behind us, and during this time would ask
ridiculous questions and be, like I said, very rude. Asked if Cortney and I were married, if he
could have my phone number, if I smoked (offered me a cigarette!), and tried to
take my water bottle out of my hand so he could have a sip. Cortney and I,
early on, decided to answer some of their questions, but if it got out of line
we would just ignore them and continue doing our thing, which is exactly what
we did. That must have aggravated this one kid for some reason and he tried to kick
some rocks at us, started running in-between us, laughing behind our backs, and
make spitting noises (at least that’s what I thought he was doing). Finally,
they flagged down a car driving by, got in, and left. As soon as they left, I
looked at Cortney and said, “I don’t think it’s possible, but I have a weird
feeling about something, can you check my back to see if they spit on me?” She
looks at me in disbelief, “OH MY GOSH! SERIOUSLY?!?! They spit on you! Three
times!,” she grabs some tissue from her pocket and wipes my back.
The
rest of the day I was just angry, upset, sad, and disappointed. I have been
here for almost two years and I have never once had an incident like this. This
feeling must have been a lot stronger than I realized because it just DEVOURED
my whole spirit and attitude and lingered onto Monday, and then Tuesday…
finally Tuesday night I said to myself, “OKAY, I need to fix whatever this
slump is because it’s eating at me way too much and my poopy feeling is
obviously showing to my students and people around me.”
I
talked to Meghan, who’s my accountability partner here in Armenia, and ever
since the incident she’s been telling me to pray and to really leave it up to
God. I heard what she was saying and I knew she was right AND I really did want
to do just that, but something was stopping me.
Later
that night as I was laying in bed, my Whatsapp application on my iPhone starts
buzzing like crazy and it’s Dasom responding to my “venting ramble” I wrote to
my girls back at home on Sunday after the incident. From here on out, thing
just clicked, my eyes were opened, and I was free…
Dasom:
Wow Andrea. When I was reading this, I felt like you
were being persecuted like Jesus. Not for the same reason but still. And
you got to experience a little bit of what He must have went through for us. I
thought it was a huge blessing for you. Not that I'm happy that those kids did
that to you but how God gives you a chance in every situation to see through
His eyes. Forgive those poor kids and thank Jesus that He chose you to have
this experience. I love you so much.
Me:
Dasom, you responding to me now is such perfect
timing. I was just telling my accountability here, Meg, my situation and now
here you are responding to me two days later but it's so perfect and it
was like your words were exactly what I knew in the back of my head but
couldn't hear it from myself.
Dasom:
Don’t you think there were kids in the crowd mocking
and trashing Jesus?
So when he tries to get you like this again, take a
breath and send him away!
Me:
Seriously. And ever since the incident I've been
like plotting how I can catch this kid and teach him a lesson and figuring out
how I'd say ‘this and that’ in Armenian.
BUT NOW! When I was laying here listening to Him,
I know exactly what I'm going to say to him. And in
Armenian too!
That I know what
he did to me and that I forgive him. That he is special and I don't hate
him. I'm sorry if he felt ignored or threatened by me.
And that I love
him and so does God.
I want to call all those people that I know are
looking for him now and tell them not to do anything to him if they find out
who he is and that I want to deal with it in my own way. They're all so angry
for me you know. And that’s great! I love knowing I have people who care about
me and want to protect me. But the thing is, he gets that treatment all the
time. Words of love and kind actions will do so much more that scolding and
hitting.
AHHHH! I'm so much happier and lighter now.
I haven't felt "right" since then but now
I know…
It's cause it was Satan and instead now it's God!!
Kids!! I mean what has happened to these children
that they feel the need to be mean like that. It's so sad.Children are supposed to be children.
Innocent. You know?
Ahhh now I probably have to give this kid a huge hug and some cookies.
Dasom:
But seriously, I
teared up at your story because you’re my first Jesus that actually got spit on
and ridiculed like Him. And I thanked God that you were my friend over there.
In Armenia, experiencing this.
Who would have thought a terrible situation like
this could turn out to be one of the greatest learning experiences of my
life?!?! Who would have thought that I could be so happy about being spit
on?!?!
The next morning I went to school feeling a lot better, less burdened, and more patient with my students. It was a good day and so was the next and the next.
Now it’s Saturday morning and I’ve written this
blog, watered my flowers, got a call from the post office letting me know a
letter has arrived for me (yay!!!), decided I’ll be making some carrot cake
later tonight, and am on my way to do some laundry at TWO different families
houses because they both invited me to use their laundry machines yesterday and
I have so much laundry piled up I’ve decided to take half to one family and
half to the other family! HAHA it’s going to be a splendid day J !!
.
.
