Compassion and a Cup of Iced Coffee

I stood there, clutching my bag of sticky rice and steaming hot chicken-on-a-stick. Sipping my iced coffee, I debated whether or not to pretend I did not see the half dozen street kids that had come running at the sight of a "farang" (foreigner). 

To these kids, White Skin = Money/Handouts. Tonight at the local festival was no exception. 

I turned around and faced the kids clamoring for our attention. Dressed in tattered, faded, ill-fitting clothes. Faces smeared and dirty, grimy little hands reaching out towards me, motioning to their mouths. Noting their filled out cheeks, I reasoned to myself, "Well, they certainly don't look like they are starving." 

Street Kids (photo compliments of Flickr) 

They implored me with their dark brown eyes. My conscience pricked me. "Look, I've already given money tonight towards food for another street kid. If I try to buy food for them all, I'll go broke before this internship is over!" 

But my conscience would not be silent. Almost begrudgingly, I wandered over to another stand to find pork-on-a-stick for them (It's cheaper, you know, than chicken). By the time I was ready to make my selection, one of my friends  had beat me to it with her never-ending generosity, and those kids were running off, shoving chicken into their mouths. 

I was half-relieved. Yet I felt like such a miser. In a further attempt to recompense for my selfishness, when I passed those same kids later on, I handed them my two leftover pieces of chicken and the ice from my now-empty cup to use for the soda they had begged off another passerby. 

The whole way home and later in my room that night, I kept replaying that scene in my mind...

For the most part, I would have considered myself a compassionate person. I mean, showing mercy even rated high on my spiritual gifts test, so that counts for something doesn't it?? But shame and remorse washed over me as I realized how far short I had fallen of true compassion. The kind of compassion that was modeled by my Savior to a world of people destitute in body and soul. 

What was at the core of my lack of compassion? What made me hesitate for those moments to go and buy these beggar kids something to fill their bellies? Nothing else but my own selfishness. I cared more about myself and making sure I was first fed and cared for than I did for these little ones. 

Iced coffee -- Case in point. I felt justified buying myself that iced coffee. After all, I had volunteered all day- for free!- at the local hospital, and at just 20 Baht a cup, that coffee cost me about 66 cents.

66 cents that if I was more concerned about others, I could have used to buy two bags of sticky rice for a gang of street kids.

Smitten, I asked God to forgive this selfish heart of mine. To mold my heart more into His image. To teach me to see individuals as He sees them. To break my heart with what breaks His. To put another's needs before my own wants. What do I really know of sacrifice, of giving until it hurts? I confess, only very, very little. 

In response, I felt like God was asking me to give up those little extras (like iced coffee and fruit smoothies) no matter how cheap they might be, and to be intentional about using that money instead towards feeding the hungry. Lest you think I am making some saintly sacrifice, I am starting out on this "coffee fast" for one week. After that, we'll see what God asks. :)

Genuine, Christ-like, agape-rooted Compassion is what I long for. Poured out as wine, broken as bread to feed the hungry: Those hungry for something more, something greater than sticky rice and chicken, something to fill the insatiable void of their soul. 

"Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the broken places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish... Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human." - Henri Nouwen

Perhaps it starts with walking by the street vendor selling Thai iced coffee.