I'll start off this story simply. Our first reaction when we hear heartbreaking stories is to take the person away from potential danger in order to protect them, and this isn't a bad thing - in fact this was my first reaction after I went to visit June when she was born and saw that her mother Grace had an untreated mental disorder and wasn't really able to look after herself let alone her daughter. However, I was challenged to instead of breaking Grace's heart, breaking relationships we had formed in Noom's village, and breaking June's ties with her mother, I should be reaching out to Grace and helping equip her to be the mother she needs to be. Those who have seen the movie "I Am Sam" will know that a mental disorder does not take away the love one has for their child and is not a good enough reason to take a child away from their parent.
Oh yes, it's MUCH EASIER just to take the baby and send the mother to an institution to get better…but how is this going to help???
So I started in a journey where I challenged myself to step out of my comfort zone and visit Grace whenever we were in Noom's village in order to encourage her in motherhood. I noticed that the women who care for her in the village often came onto her quite hard and made her feel intimidated - and what they were saying was good and true and things that Grace needed to hear, but I wanted to complete what they were doing by giving her the other side of what she needed: a friend. And I didn't visit her half as much as I should have. Her mental disorder was worse by the time that June was 2 months old. Grace refused to take her medication, refused help from people in the village, in what I thought may have been trying to prove to herself and others that she could mother her daughter. Why does it have to come to the point where someone feels like they have to PROVE this? Her mental disorder got so bad that the last time I visited her in 2012 I could hardly communicate with her. She would come out talking in a weird language that no one else could understand. I also noticed her daughter had cuts on her head from Grace cutting her hair and accidentally cutting her with the scissors - and that made me feel again like I needed to "bring her daughter to safety"
By "bringing her daughter to safety" I mean taking her away from her mum, from her village, and placing her in a foundation where she goes from person to person and doesn't really form a real, loving, healthy relationship with one or two permanent guardians. Safety? Physically - yes. Emotionally - maybe not.
After the last discouraging visit in 2012 where I couldn't even talk to Grace and was a little freaked out by her disorder, to be honest I really didn't have the guts to go back there by myself. I just asked other people in the village how her daughter was going and constantly got back a positive answer - so I didn't really bother going to see Grace. After all, she was handling it, right? She didn't need me.
In May/June 2013, after not visiting Grace or June for many months, I heard that Grace's mother who also has a mental disorder came to "rescue" June and left her in a random children's home in order to force Grace to get treatment at the mental hospital in Ubon. Again, I was convinced that taking June from the random children's home, bringing her in to live with us, and taking her to visit her mum in the hospital weekly, would be much better than her being isolated in a place that she didn't know. And this was the first decent idea that I'd had. However, it still wasn't meant to be. Grace's mother told her that if she went to get treatment, she would return her daughter. Grace's love for June was strong enough for her to go and do what she was so scared to do, and after getting an injection at the mental hospital and improving her condition, she went to get June and travelled back home. I wanted to visit Grace but missed her by a few hours.
The next time we went to the village was last week. Mid July 2013. I put off visiting Grace because again I was scared. I was a coward, honestly. I told myself that she could do it and she didn't need me. On Tuesday morning (we got to the village on Monday) I woke up with feelings of unbelievable loneliness. I cried out for God to send me a friend who I could really connect with. The truth is, in Ubon, I have a whole team and I'm physically not alone at all. God asked me "Karis, if you have people by your side and feel so lonely, how much more lonely do you think Grace feels?" God was challenging me in the commitment that I'd made, and not continued to do, to be Grace's FRIEND. After I got up that morning, I heard the news that Grace had given her medication, along with sleeping pills, to June (who was now 1 year old) to get her to sleep. Grace was too tired to look after her. June had a huge reaction and almost died. She was in the hospital in Ubon city. Again, I was angry. "How could Grace do that?" I asked myself. This time, I was truly going to get her daughter and "rescue" her from her mother before her mother could do something worse. Grace's neighbours also told me that another time Grace had fed June bleach.
There began a 2-day journey of praying for wisdom. Should our foundation take June? If so, how? If someone was going to take her, we would be the best choice as we were from that village and could bring June to visit her mother every month. But what if we did take June and she was too much to handle? Would we send her around to stay with different families in our foundation, cutting off any chance that she would form a close, healthy attachment with an adult? That surely wouldn't do any good. Or what if she was going to be permanently damaged from the reaction she had to her mother's medication? Are we equipped to take care of her? Or if things got hard would we just "hand her over" to someone else? Do we REALLY love her more than her own mother?
The truth is, Grace loves June. Grace wants the best for June. But like any other new, young mother - like me when I started out - she just has no idea how to take care of a child. Put that together with an untreated mental disorder and you have disaster. But it doesn't have to be that way, with the proper help. Is the best solution really to take her child away? How will this teach her to be a mother? Or is the better solution to help the MOTHER so that she in fact can help the baby? Bethany Home doesn't just reach out to babies, Bethany Home has a vision to help whole families. Bethany Home has a vision to help MOTHERS.! When praying and seeking God's wisdom for this situation with my team on Thursday morning, I received a picture of a dying tree. The tree was then surrounded by water and it came back to life. When we come across a dying tree, do we de-root it and place it in water? No!! How would taking a dying tree out of the dirt help it in any way? Instead, we take the water and use it to water the dirt where the roots of the tree are. We use the water and other nutrients to improve the soil, roots and eventually the tree - bringing it back to life. I had my answer. I was to take the living water and bring it to Noom's village, and use it to reach out to Grace and June there. The rest of my team all had peace accepting June but one of our staff members felt we should wait for God's timing and not try to make it happen ourselves. I couldn't believe it…because before then I was convinced that God would have us take June away from the "danger", and away from her mum. But He had other plans which I didn't yet want to accept because I still wanted to get June OUT!
We went back to the village and on Thursday afternoon I met with the women in Noom's village who take care of Grace and June. They explained that, although earlier they had wanted to have us take June out, now they believed they should give Grace another chance and just give her stronger boundaries. They would confiscate her medicine and act as the nurses, to give her one tablet every morning and evening - just as the doctor prescribed so that she didn't have the whole lot and couldn't give any to June. They would talk to Grace's dad and try to encourage him to become a stay-at-home work-at-home granddad, in order to help Grace when she was tired. I still don't know if any of these plans will go ahead after the novelty has worn off. I don't know if something will happen and Grace will do the wrong thing and put June's life in danger again. But I DO know that this time, God needed me to be Grace's friend, not an "authority" that would take her child away. I know that God wanted me to allow the women in the village to wake up to the urgency of the situation and move ahead to look after Grace and June, and again I don't know if this will continue to happen once the novelty wears off. But we need to go one step at a time. This time I will be Grace's friend, I will be June's aunty, I will be a helper in her situation and work alongside the women in the village to help this family - I will not work against them.
All that said, in the future there may be a time if things get tough where June might come to stay with us, but I will make sure if that happens that it happens because God has made it happen, not because I have tried to make it happen just because "I" think it's the best thing. I will try to visit Grace EVERY TIME we are in the village, not just when bad things happen. I will allow God to continue to challenge me to step out of my comfort zone and go to reach out to people in THEIR place, NOT reach out to them after I have them come to me. In the last week, month, YEAR of helping this family I have grown and learnt so much to step out of my comfort zone and look outside of my box of how I think people should be helped and what I think they need. Only God knows. Only God sees peoples hearts. We have to trust Him if we want to reach others.
Last night I asked my husband "Do you think God calls people to be missionaries just to reach out to people, or does He also see a huge importance in calling people into mission so that he can change their own life and perspective?" We think the second is just as important. After all, how can we reach out to others if we don't allow God to reach out to us first?
Please pray for Grace, for June, and for June's safety.
This piece of land is in Noom's village, right next to his family's house, a little less than half an acre (1 rai) and selling for 50,000 baht ($AU 2,000). We've had our eyes on it for months and are currently raising money to buy it as an investment to plant these tapioca trees and help support the ministry in Noom's village (planting and harvesting happens once a year). In the future (5-10 years) when we move to Noom's village we want to use this land to do a children's home and medical clinic. If anyone would like to have a part in this investment project please contact us!
