The story so far...

The reason I am here: Miriam came out to Sri Lanka in October ’08 with a vision to start a children’s home and to work with children and women orphaned and widowed by the war (which officially ended a year ago, six months after Miri arrived). She got on the plane with a handful of addresses of people she didn’t know, given to her the day before by a friend who she just happened to visit on her last day in the UK, not knowing where she was going to stay or how she was supposed to begin. The first step was the plane ride from UK to Colombo.

All of the addresses she had been given proved to be out-of-date because of the war and tsunami. Despite this, one of Miri’s letters made its way to the person it was addressed to after the postman recognised the name. That person then contacted someone else who then contacted Miri and brought her up to Colombo from Galle. The tamil couple who made the 8-hour journey (8-hours due to the state of the old road) once to visit her and then to fetch her had not been South for 25 years because of the tamil/sinhala conflict. Despite this they still wanted to help.

After six months living in Colombo volunteering and teaching English, she then felt like she should start visiting the East of the country (the tamil North and East being the regions most-affected by the war) where she taught English, moving around different villages in the Batti region. All the while she was met with confusion from Sri Lankans themselves as to her reasons for being there (why come to work as a volunteer over here when you could get a job that would earn you money and a nice lifestyle in the UK?.. Many Sri Lankans aspire to be like the West or even go to the UK for a ‘better life’, so why would an English girl want to come here? Especially a young English girl on her own!!). While this attitude was frustrating for Miri at first, Sri Lankan hospitality has made up for it. One family offered to make lunch for her everyday (a promise they still keep more than a year later! We either go to theirs for lunch or they send lunch in a lunch packet if we can’t go.). It’s very rare for a young girl to be living on her own and they find it unimaginable that she shouldn’t have a mother or some other family member to cook for her and look after her! Not only that, but hospitality is part of the culture. If you’ve not eaten when you go to someone’s house, they will feed you. Those who can afford it always make sure their family and friends are well fed and those who are not so well off share what they have.

So, to set the scene: Miriam gets a vision to start a children’s home in Sri Lanka, she leaves for Sri Lanka in October ‘08 – she is on her own, with no organisation to back her up, no plan and no secure funding, other than what people feel led to give her. To add to her frustrations in the face of people’s incomprehension, the government has brought out new regulations which could present some interesting obstacles, e.g. A person starting a children’s home must have a degree-level qualification and must be married. To add to these new regulations the government has been pushing to close down all non-government run non-Buddhist children’s homes.

In the meantime, Miri is introduced to the village we now travel to every week and seeing that it is one of the neediest decides to start teaching English at the school there. No big plans as to how she will reach her goal, just taking one step at a time...

There have been many frustrations and answers to prayer along the way and sometimes things which seem like answers to prayer are instead distractions to draw her away from her focus, which is just to love people. So she needs wisdom to suss it all out and strength to let God guide her, to have faith and to hope in what is unseen, as of yet.

Last week we were stranded in Wattala by the rain and we needed wisdom and cake! We visited friends and made the most of our free time (we also found a bistro in the posh bit of Colombo that serves real coffee and real cake – very exciting!!).