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"HOW DO YOU SPELL RELIEF?" a note by friend Paul Buchanon about his experience from last trip
"Many of you are old enough to remember the commercial that asked, "How do you spell relief?"
R-O-L-A-I-D-S
With all medications, there is a WARNING LABEL.
This journal comes with a warning label - "NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART"
What is the answer to PAIN?
Don't just read the question and move on to the pictures... ask yourself, "What is the answer to PAIN?!?!"
"Can you interrupt the ten other distractions that are competing for your attention (cell phone, computer, TV, etc.) to stop and meditate one of life's most difficult and misunderstood questions? I realize when you open an email journal from Robert, you are looking for what you and I have all come to enjoy and love. We are looking for what I term "serious fun". Positive and uplifting stories of the many situations that GIBTK faces each day... lots of cool pictures and smiling faces wrapped around tons of pain and hurt (but we don't really see that hurt in the pictures).
So, back to my original thought, "How does one endure grief and pain? How does one manage it in life? Where do we go for answers when we suffer ourselves or when we see those we love suffering?" Those are some of the deepest and most challenging questions that we will ever face.
To those of us who view life through the lenses of Western Culture, we find it all too easy to displace and distract ourselves from pondering these difficult questions. We wish and dream and hope for something to get our minds off of the difficult realities of life. We often don't talk about our feelings or address our deepest pain but instead we put on our "mask" that says this is just part of life and we try to move on. Thus, by not truly addressing our pain, we simply suppress it deep in our souls only to have it manifest later in ways that often cause more hurt and deeper pain to ourselves and others. And so, the cycle goes on.
If you have not stopped reading this by now, you are either someone with deep rivers or you are simply curious to know how my ramblings will end, either making sense or crashing off a cliff.
So, as you know, Giving It Back to Kids works primarily in Vietnam with tentacles extending into Cambodia. The many children and families that Robert and Dorothea endeavor to help, encourage, and rescue all ask these same questions. They may be worded a little different but I assure you, they are asking the exact same question: They may say, "Why do I feel lonely" or "Why am I hungry?" "Where are my parents?" "Why am I sick?" Different words but still the same question: "Why is there Pain?" and "What can I do to eliminate this PAIN?"
Sound familiar?
When we experience pain and begin to ask those questions, we are often tempted to apply the ever-available balm of electronics (ipads, cell phones, TVs, computers, email, Facebook, etc). Or, maybe our soothing cream comes in the form of food, alcohol, drugs or other remedies which then serve only to enslave us further to the pain we are actively trying to avoid.
But wait! Are we not living in the "Age of Enlightenment" where society is supposed to be more advanced and more intellectual than any civilization before? Hold on...I digress...that's another message for another day!
So again, what do we do with our pain? In Vietnam, these questions increase in intensity and become magnified to a larger degree because, to most Vietnamese people, there is little-to-no balm or medication to apply, just the sheer cold, lingering, unanswered feeling of their PAIN.
Ho Chi Minh is considered the George Washington of Vietnam. He led his people in a revolution to create a unified and independent country apart from the prior control of French colonialism. It is presented much like George Washington leading America away from England's control to an independent state offering freedom and solidarity. For HoChi Minh it was a forty year journey to accomplish this goal.
GIBTK has been operating in Vietnam for 14 years and can easily point to over 100,000 people impacted and changed. Evidence of this was grandly on display during my recent visit to DaNang. I saw children as young as four, adolescents, teenagers, college students, many families, House Mothers, and the GIBTK staff all showing the positive impact that GIBTK has made in their lives. They called it a year-end celebration. However, I saw it as "Celebrating the Past with an Eye on the Future." With over 125 children in the room eating, laughing, singing, dancing and then eating again, I couldn't help but think about where these same children would have been without GIBTK. Some come from severe poverty, others with health issues, many orphaned, all looking for a solution to their PAIN. GIBTK was, and is, there to administer pain relief to these select ones. They offer pain relief not by adhering to the cultural norms but by introducing proven emotional health programs coupled with a safe environment and caring touch. They challenge and teach their "GIBTK family" to break the cultural norms and become -extraordinary. Robert and Dorothea, along with the GIBTK staff are teaching and apply valuable life lessons at a very early age. They teach their children skills and lessons that we, in our Western Culture, rarely subscribe to. They are changing a new generation as evidenced by earlier journals of Huong & Nguyen.
Fourteen years ago Robert and Dorothea began a Revolution much like Ho Chi Minh. However, the GIBTK revolution is spelled r-"EVOL"-ution, because in their revolution the main and central ingredient is "LOVE".
Earlier I asked, how does one endure grief and pain? How does one manage it in life? Where do we go for answers when we suffer ourselves or when we see those we love suffering. GIBTK has answered that call in Vietnam. They are the healing balm applied to thousands of lives. Over the next 10 years, I can see that GIBTK will be as the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill. It won't just be hundreds of thousands touched; it will be millions of lives changed. Thus, the course of individual lives and a nation redirected with what started as pain relief but grew into a "r-EVOL-ution" rooted in deep LOVE and compassion.
Vietnam, take comfort in the fact that the future belongs to those who train up a child, as Robert and Dorothea have done. That is a lasting legacy for generations to come that will not return void.
If you ask doctors and therapists, they will tell you that there are many ways to deal with PAIN. Some are good, and some may not be so good. But, I do know that one way to help spell RELIEF of our own PAIN is to apply some healing balm to someone else in need. Often we find strength and purpose when we pour ourselves into someone else...when we do our part to help someone else, we then find that we ourselves have been helped and maybe even healed from some of our PAIN. So, to all of you who are already a part of GIBTK, "thank you", and I hope that you feel the benefits of your contribution. If you are not a part of GIBTK, consider being part of the pain-relief efforts of GIBTK. I assure you, you will find immeasurable benefit as you help administer pain relief to those in need."
Thank You,
Paul Buchanan
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