How Indonesia Almost Ruined a Thanksgiving

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She stuck out like a sore thumb, completely segregated from everyone her age. No one seemed interested in interacting with or even acknowledging her. Both of these things were very unusual in the Indonesian culture I observed.

After pushing the crowd away, I was able to sit with her. We resorted to counting on our fingers and vaguely waving and pointing at our environment. When that didn't work, we took selfies on my phone or I tried to teach her games that didn't require language, like "slide".

It seemed that the best word the kids had to describe her was abnormal. This is much like their word for pain, sakit. It’s so vague that I have a hard time knowing what they are talking about. With sakit, I ask what kind of pain they mean. Is it a sharp pain? A dull pain? Are you sore from a workout? Did your boyfriend just breakup with you? Because that’s all pain. This lonely girl was in the same boat. What do you mean by abnormal? Does she have a learning disability? Is she deaf or mute? Is she just weird compared to the rest of us?

I hated how the village never seemed to accept this abnormal one like they accepted me. Me, a foreigner and American, who lives in a two story house and drives a car to school and refuses to eat fish. But her, an Indonesian specific to their own tribe, who eats ikan teri and sleeps in the same shacks and walks on the same dirt roads. Yet I’m accepted and she’s an outcast. This bothered me. I desperately wished the little one had access to sign language. Then at least someone would be able to speak with her. At least someone could have the sense that she was a human being and deserved to be treated as such.

One of the children told me her backstory while I tried to teach her a secret handshake. Apparently she wasn’t born abnormal, but as an infant her folks thought she was dumb. They attempted to choke her out of her misery.

While this other child shared this story with me, I could tell that the lonesome girl understood exactly what we were talking about. After pointing to herself, the girl took her own hands and grasped them around her neck. She even made that “I’m dead” face. Honestly, her facial expression made me giggle a little inside. I almost forgot how tragic her story was.

Almost.

The last time I saw her, an older woman aggressively pulled on her arms, impatient to return home. I assume that this woman was her mother. But the calling of this girl’s name to get her attention? An absurd gesture, hoping she would notice? Even a quick glance at her face while being pulled away? All were absent. Sure, perhaps this adult was stressed or busy in the moment. But I had already seen other people behave in a similar fashion toward this abnormal one.

That was just a couple months ago. Now on Thanksgiving, people will say to be thankful because I'm not abnormal like her. At least I'm blessed with circumstances far better than hers.

I'm sorry, but I feel too much to do that.

How can I be thankful while remembering this little one? Are you that blind to her suffering? She's a neglected outcast, choked by her own parents. This kind of thanksgiving makes me feel a satisfaction towards our broken world. I can't stand for that.

Look, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be thankful, only that this girl (and those like her) cannot be the reason for our thankfulness. Scripture demands too much compassion for that.

And I believe Jesus does too.

Scriptrue claims that God "bears our burdens". In other words, whatever suffering and pain we feel, God feels too. He doesn’t lose us in a crowd, pretending to be blind to our sorrows. No, God's shoulders truly takes on the burdens we experience. Thus, I have to believe that Jesus is actively doing something about our broken world; I have to believe He’s coming back soon. Because if not, then He's not worth the little girl.

I can at least be thankful for that.