INK ARIA

WHAT I KNEW WHEN I WAS LITTLE AND DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING

Renee Gehman

On a bead-strewn bedroom floor in Vietnam, my host sister and I quietly sort the pinks and the yellows and the rest of the hundreds she has just spilled, when out of nowhere 9-year old Thu Giang [two ZAHng] says, "Renee do you know that when I’m very little I’m not afraid of any animals?"

This invokes my skeptically raised eyebrow. After three months I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been clung to and whined at over the sight of not only a dog or a spider, but also a fish, an ant, and even a butterfly. But Thu Giang insists that her fear of the animal kingdom is only a recent development.

"Well if you weren’t afraid of animals when you were little, why now?" I ask.

"Because when I’m little I’m not know anything!" Thu Giang exclaims, in a tone that says, "Renee, I know you’re relatively new to Vietnam and still don’t understand a lot, but surely at least this should be obvious."

Often the younger we are, the less we are assumed to know. It’s nothing to be blamed for; it’s just that intelligence is something that’s supposed to grow over time, along with your feet and your hands. At age 22 I was born into Vietnam, and though both feet and hands entered this new world at their adult stages, my brain feels like it’s had to start from scratch. The best way I’ve managed to describe this cerebral diminishing is to say I feel like a child again.

Jesus’ disciples—frequent arguers over hierarchy in the kingdom of heaven—probably viewed children in a similarly derogatory light. Surely they were taken aback when, as they turned away some children, Jesus rebuked them, saying, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." He even went on to say, "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Luke 18:16b-17).

In some way, according to Jesus, we must be like children to enter his kingdom. It’s not an easy modification for someone like me, because while I have loved the Vietnam experience, I have not particularly enjoyed feeling like a child. But it seems that I—like Thu Giang, believing the development of an illogical fear coincided with her own personal growth and development of logic—am also guilty of backwards thinking. Several experiences here have reminded me of some important things I’d forgotten since I was very little and "didn’t know anything."

It’s Okay to Cry

In preparation for Vietnam, I challenged myself to see how long I could go without crying. Just in case I ended up floundering about in a sea of homesickness, I thought this precautionary measure might at least prevent me from speeding the drowning process with self-pity tears.

Then, less than a month into my term, the hard drive in my laptop crashed, rendering my 3-year’s accumulation of treasured pictures, music, and documents an amnestic plastic piece of nothing. I actually thought I was okay with the loss, but when Thanh, our master of technology at the MCC office, confirmed that all was officially lost, the salty waters began to rise upon my unsuspecting eyes.

I was immediately furious. Pull yourself together! I screamed inside me, frantically fumbling for a mental flotation device that would raise me back into the realm of logic, where I could believe There’s no point in getting upset; there’s nothing you can do now. But as soon as Thanh left, the levees broke, the waters streamed forth. And I got carried away with this metaphor in an attempt to avoid coming right out and saying it: I cried.

I was disappointed about giving in. I’ve always strived to be strong and practical and resilient, and here I was—weak, vulnerable, and pathetic. And even though it felt good to purge myself of that sadness over my loss, I still am a little embarrassed to share this story. Because I grew up and reasoned that tears were bad.

Children cry when they’re hurting. Unashamed of a tear-stained face, they don’t care about washing the evidence away before others see it. And God does declare that his power is made perfect in our weaknesses. "Therefore," says Paul, in response to this, "I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12: 9b-10).

When I was very little and didn’t know anything, I thought it was okay to cry.

It’s Okay To Be Dependent

Soon after the death of my laptop, I got sick. Unable to hide it from my hyper-concerned host family, I was immediately drowned in unwanted pampering. Convincing them that in fact I did not need to go to the hospital was almost more draining a battle than that against the vomiting, diarrhea, fever, and aching body.

In college when I was sick, no one took care of me. As long as I was physically capable of collapsing on my bed, holding a tissue to my nose, and opening the child-proof cap on my medicine, I had no desire to involve anyone else in my healing process. Now this too I wanted to handle by myself, with my little remedy: shutting myself in my room and sleeping it off.

But this was not to be so in Vietnam. Even when I finally escaped to bed, only thirty minutes passed before the knocking on my door. I ignored it, but my host mother came in anyway, holding a cotton swab and a small bottle of oil with the face of an old Asian man on the label.

Before I could even protest, she pushed me down on my stomach, saying "Malaysia!" as if the bottle’s origin would suffice as an explanation for the invasion of my personal space about to take place. Next I knew I was being rubbed down by something that smelled strong as paint thinner. Too sick to fight her off, I silently endured the oil and massage. When she began to karate-chop all of my tender muscles, I used what little energy I had left to stifle a scream. Just let her do this. I told myself. It will make her feel better.

But then a funny thing happened—I started to feel better. The smell turned from tear-inducing to invigorating. The pain in my muscles started to evaporate as the karate-chopping of the oil into my skin created a cooling-burning effect that made my whole body feel stronger. Even the nausea seemed to dissipate. When my host mother entered my room, I was annoyed, because I was sick and wanted to sleep. By the time she left, I felt completely restored.

When children are hurting, they run to their parents who can fix them and make them all better. The second a knee is scraped and the skin is broken the instinct is to run as quickly as possible to someone who can help. There is no pausing to attempt to mend the wound sans human aid.

After all, Jesus never told us to carry our own yokes and bear our own burdens. He welcomed the weary and invited us to do the same. And for all he talked about humility, isn’t it interesting how much easier it is for us to see the spiritual value in serving than in being served? Because when I help others I usually feel good about myself, whereas the love and healing power of a helping hand that night was a humbling reminder that I can’t do it all on my own, that I need others to help me through more than I realize.

When I was very little and didn’t know anything, I thought it was okay to always depend on others for help.

It’s Okay to Still Have a Lot to Learn

For homework, Thu Giang has to read an English story aloud to someone every night. Since I am the only native English speaker in our home, this listener role tends to fall on me. It is an ideal task for me, because I love being read to, and I have to admit—it feels good when she pauses in her reading and looks up at me expectantly, needing me to help her pronounce "owl" or "Macdonald" or "Cinderella."

On days she doesn’t have school, however, there are no English books. One such occasion Thu Giang walked into my room with a Winnie-the-Pooh book in Vietnamese. She held it out, asking, "Can you read this to me?"

I hesitated, knowing my pronunciation would be terrible and my reading painfully slow. "Are you sure you don’t just want to read it to me?" I offered. "I’ll just read everything wrong."

Smiling, she said, "No, I want to hear you read it." I gave in, reminding myself that I needed all the practice I could get.

When I really wasn’t sure how to say a word, Thu Giang pronounced it for me. I was almost positive she would get impatient with how slowly I had to read and stop me before the end, but she didn’t. She patiently endured the entire 16 pages. When I finished, she asked me if I understood. I said no.

She answered, "Okay, I will tell you what happens." She went back through the entire book and explained the story in English

As much as I appreciated her help and patience, I was embarrassed and frustrated with my inability to read a simple children’s book on my own, when I had been taking Vietnamese language classes for two months.

Even more frustrating to me than how little I understand of Vietnamese words is what I still don’t grasp in God’s word. For instance, how exactly would a little child accept the kingdom of God? I don’t like the feeling of not knowing.

Then I watch Thu Giang, who plows right on through words she doesn’t understand, and when she makes a mistake and I point it out, she simply corrects herself and moves on.

I know there has to be a balance between the adult in me whose frustration with ignorance inspires me to continue to search for understanding and the child in me who doesn’t stress over the unknown but rather just continues to read and to live. But how do I find that balance, when my nature urges me to race as fast as I can from child brain to grown-up brain?

When I was very little and didn’t know anything, I was unashamed by how far along I was (or wasn’t) in the learning process.

Thu Giang, who wasn’t afraid of butterflies till she grew up and "knew better," has become a sort of role model for me. Because somehow I managed to grow up and "know better" too, because I was strong and independent and venturing out on this promising path where I would volunteer and endure life outside the comfort zone, and grow even more.

Yes, all this is happening, but in surprising, proving-me-wrong kinds of ways. Thank you, God, for my broken laptop, my overbearing host mother, and 9-year old Thu Giang, who hasn’t grown up so much that she’s too old to teach me about entering the kingdom of God.

—Renee Gehman, assistant editor and columnist for DreamSeeker Magazine is amid an 11-month term with the Mennonite Central Committee SALT program in Hanoi, Vietnam, where she is English editor for World Publishing House. She is loving Vietnam and feeling incredibly blessed to be a child in so many wonderful families (biological, Vietnamese, MCC, Salford Mennonite Church).