At the beginning of that new year, I was seeking God about how I should be stewarding my time, what activities or endeavors he had in mind for me. My heart was drawn to the refugees here in Nashville. I'd always had an affinity for a multitude of cultures, often curious to learn about their customs and food and, mostly, their stories.
There was a reason I had recently moved away from Cool Springs, the more affluent, comfortable, and predominantly monocultural suburb just south of Nashville. I'd originally been attracted to it, because it mirrors pretty closely the safe, family-friendly, and very convenient Phoenix suburb I grew up in. But the Williamson County bubble, as we call it, was bothering me, and I really missed the richness of being around people of different races and ethnicities, people who had points of view and experiences outside of what most in Brentwood/Franklin probably rarely even considered.
I knew that Nashville was a major refugee destination, that we had huge pockets of people from Sudan and Burma and Nepal, just to name a few, but I had never actually come into contact with any of these communities. So I Googled "refugee volunteer Nashville" and eventually found myself sitting in a small office talking with Robin, the volunteer coordinator at World Relief. She matched me with Par Te and her husband Tin Cung, and we made an appointment to meet up at their place that rainy evening.
I was nervous and excited and not sure what to expect when I pulled up outside. They were younger than I had expected them to be, a few years younger than my brother, and I could tell they were eager to learn English. Luri, their two-year-old son, was barely there, hiding behind walls in other rooms. I had no idea what I was doing, and I knew going in that it was going to be just me and them trying our best to communicate in whatever way we could to find a footing in this new country and develop much-needed language skills.
We started out with a lot of me utilizing my mediocre drawing skills to get across what I was trying to teach and a sort of illustrated Thai/English dictionary with phrases in both languages by topic. I remember thinking, Do Burmese people speak Thai? Par Te was very shy, and anyone who knows me is aware of my own painfully introverted self. I knew I was helping in what ways I could, but I often wondered how other volunteers grew into friendship more quickly while I just came over twice a week and taught an English lesson.
As the months passed, Cung got a job, Par Te had a baby, and they moved to a new apartment. I was often unsure how much I was actually helping and sometimes wondered if my weekly visits were becoming burdensome (especially with a new baby and a toddler who wasn't sure what to make of the new baby or the person coming over all the time and stealing his mom's attention). But we pressed on.
As we began a new year, Par Te started asking me questions every now and then, things like how to check the balance on her food stamps card or what the letter the apartment manager left on their door said. I was always delighted to be helping with something more than our ESL classes. By then we had progressed to Googling pictures of things on my Smartphone rather than me drawing everything, and I could tell we were making progress, even if it was slow.
I think it's only been in the last month, though, that I've been really encouraged. Luri, Par Te's son, started pre-K this fall, and so our relationship has shifted to one where I can step in to help on another level. Par Te and I attended the open house together, talked with the teacher, and even went to the library to get a library card so that we can borrow books to read to Luri. (If there's anything I enjoy, it's introducing people to the wonders of the library!) I also started bringing over kids' books from my company that our sales guy gets as samples.
And then last week, when we returned from the library, Par Te asked me to stay so that we could eat pizza together (I'd taught Par Te how to order pizza at one point, and she's loved it ever since). It was the first time we had done anything more social, and I was so touched when she told me that she really wanted to thank me for everything but that all she could do was offer me pizza.
Then tonight she called me to see if I could come over and read a letter she'd gotten from Luri's school for her. I was prepping dinner, so I impulsively decided to bring her some as well (since she'd recently told me she loved Chinese food). So we sat together, eating 皮蛋瘦肉粥, reading Luri’s progress report, and smiling at Luri’s exclamations of how yummy the food was. When I left, I was grinning at the way Luri, the kid who once seemed angry every time I came over, kept smiling and saying “bye” and following me out until his mom had to pull him back inside forcefully.
And so, as I look back over the past year, my heart is so full. I was not in the best place myself when I first met Par Te. I'd been struggling with being in Nashville, wrestling with work, wondering what I was supposed to be doing. But these weekly visits have been such a gift to me, a shift in perspective whenever I'm stressed by all the little things in my life and also something that touches me deeply. I am so blessed, and I am thankful for what began that rainy evening last year.
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