being Myint Mu's friend

I have come to savor the moments when Myint Mu’s world brightens for just a few hours, usually on evenings when her home is full of people and she has spent hours cooking for them. Last year, we celebrated the boy’s birthday Spiderman-style in my home, eating American and Burmese food, laughing and speaking with many gestures. This year, we celebrated in Myint Mu’s home on Wednesday night, when Soe Moe turned 8 and again tonight, when Zar turned 10. There are few things my dear friend likes more than having her house full of people that she can feed and entertain with her stories. In all of the lessons Myint Mu has taught me in the duration of our friendship, her joy in the kitchen and the hospitality she extends to all remains my top challenge. Much of her action, of course, is cloaked in cultural norms and mores, but there is a grace with which Myint Mu serves others, and I’ve been inspired and humbled by it again and again.

Wednesday night was fun--there were many friends, lots of balloons, plenty of laughter. Myint Mu outdid herself with food, and we all sat and enjoyed the meal together, listening to Myint Mu tell stories about her village in Burma and her refugee camp in Thailand. Tonight, though, was like many nights I’ve spent with the family alone, sitting with them on the mat, eating from mounds of rice together. It’s times like these when I feel like I have entered into their world, very much Harrisburg but very much elsewhere, and I can move past the role of guest and am part of the family. Myint Mu and I often share the same glass and sometimes eat from the same plate. She rests her hand on my arm as her face lights up and she tells me about some of the things she saw at the zoo on the summer school field trip. She so easily shares her life with me, this woman who I met only a year and a half ago at a food pantry--I gave her a ride home with boxes of groceries and she insisted that I come in and sit down with her. For weeks, I saw her everyday; she was my “translator” and introduced to me all the Burmese families. As an energetic duo, we worked hard together with a resettlement agency, my church, and the countless donations we managed in order to resettle a large family to the neighborhood. Fast friends, yes, but lasting ones. After several months, I moved into her neighborhood. I saw more of Myint Mu, grappled with some of the cultural differences when it comes to our perceptions of time, our concepts of privacy and welcome, and came to value her friendship more deeply. I’ve been to the welfare office with her on countless occasions, struggled with them to find Soe Win, her husband, work, and joked with and gotten to know each of her four boys. We've spent hours comparing prices at Price Right and eating together. She has become my sister, and she has been a really important part of my life this year, as I have tried to get to know my neighbors, live intentionally in our broken neighborhood, and befriend the vulnerable and poor transplants.

After a miscommunication last week, we both were so sad about disappointing each other and I woke up the next morning with a handwritten letter from her through my mailbox slot apologizing for not coming to my house to eat dinner. I went to her house later that day, and we exchanged hugs and words and bracelets. I sat with her tonight, digesting more news of Burmese families leaving--Indiana, Colorado, Wisconsin. The weather is better, the refugee services are far-reaching, the jobs pay more, there is affordable housing. In another month, Myint Mu's will be the only Burmese Muslim family left in Allison Hill. The grass is always greener, I suppose, and Harrisburg is not the easiest place for refugees; Myint Mu’s case is no exception. She has a part time job for another month, and Soe Win just lost his job. After that, the desperate hunt for jobs will resume. Myint Mu shared her fears and concerns, and I hear them and feel them. I only wish we could find a way to make it easier for her here, but I know that her road is hard. And because I can only walk so far on that road with her, I will be sure to walk on that road with her. Tonight, we sat and processed and thought about solutions, as we usually do, but we also let the sadnesses that are very real for us both to settle. She confessed her fears and explained all the reasons for her sleepless nights; I admitted my uncertainties about the future and my concerns for her well-being. We were both sad for all the Burmese families that have left. We were sad for her sick mother and her loneliness and her daily scraping by. Maybe it had been a while, or maybe we both needed a good cry, but for the first time in our friendship, we held each other and wept--for all the sorrows spoken and kept silent between us.

My thoughts have hung on what it means to really enter into another person’s world this week, to really be present and share in life with others. Jesus has challenged me again that entering into another person’s reality has as much to do with the sadnesses and hardships and tragedies as it does the sharing of joy and life-giving things and laughter. When Jesus walked the earth, he did not keep people at an arm’s length, being overly concerned with creating healthy boundaries and not extending too much of himself to the people he served. In his brief ministry, he walked around neighborhoods and entered into the suffering he witnessed to be a presence of peace and healing. His ministry of presence touched people, validated the human experience, and brought freedom. For all the war and sickness within and around us, I am glad God has written into us a need for Jesus and a need for each other. I will take hold of this challenge and live with its implications. I will always laugh with Myint Mu, but I will make space for crying, too--God knows there is plenty of both in the precious lives we live.