The Beach, Part 3

In the afternoons during our trip, we went and sat down at the beach so we could relax and put our feet in the water.  We ended up getting so much more out of the experience than we expected!  

There were so many children working on the beach, selling things to tourists.  Most of them could not afford to attend school.  Many of them did not have parents.  They worked 6:00 am to 6:00 pm, and made about 25 cents a day.  

I just loved getting to know them and hearing their stories.  Of course, they all wanted us to buy stuff from them.  And there were a few who just sat and begged at our feet.  But as we tried to interact with them, we just tried to shower them with the love and attention that they needed.  

This little girl is 17 years old.  I got to meet her 10 month old daughter.  She brought her to the beach on the last day we were there, so I could see her.  She just kept telling me,
"Please don't forget me!  When you come back, please remember my name!"  (In case you can't tell, she is selling shrimp.  I love shrimp, but I just can't bring myself to eat the ones that are still staring at me.)

Most of the boys were selling live crabs.  I could not figure out why in the world you would want to buy a live crab.  What in the world would you do with it?  And it seemed like the idea was to buy it and then let it go.  That made no sense at all.  But then, I saw a family buy a whole bucket of crabs and release them back into the ocean.  And then I got it--they were trying to gain merit.  It's a Buddhist thing.  Once I finally understood what was going on, I was able to explain a little to this little boy about why we didn't need to gain merit by freeing the crabs.  About the One who had paid for all our mistakes, who loves us no matter what, who has made salvation possible so we don't have to earn it by doing anything.  I'm not sure how much he understood, you could tell the idea was completely foreign to him--but a seed was planted.  And I was thankful for the chance to plant it.