A Small Person, A Quiet Voice of Hope

As we picked our way down the narrow wood path in the gloom between buildings, Linda turned back, pointing, “Watch that step!”

When I visited, the slum she lived in was a vast warren of shacks built on unclaimed swamp land behind the noisy streets of Bangkok. Everyone we passed greeted her. The street sellers, prostitutes and drug users slowed us down with questions about what she was doing, who I was. Sweating in the humidity for an uncomfortably long time, my stomach churned for lunch, while Linda carefully asked at each doorway about the family’s health and welfare.

Linda stopped at their shanties along the muddy trails, embodying love, always offering a hug of hope. This was Linda Herman’s neighbourhood for over thirty years. Her ultimate achievement was in helping these neighbours make a fresh start with job training in a new community beyond the slum.

I’ve often wondered about my Canadian friend moving to Bangkok so many decades ago. While I now live a retired life of comfort in Canada, there’s still a small woman in her late 70’s finding meaning in being a Khun Paa (“Auntie”) to so many of the unseen on the fringes of Bangkok.

She has no status with the government or within society. She’s not seeking to be known by anyone via social media and yet she’s truly a stream of hope in Bangkok's slums.

The way she lives gently prods me to examine my motives and values. It is in her quiet, steady ripple effect that I see her life lived with integrity, humility, and sacrifice. She helps me try to be more self-forgetful.

While my culture tries to press me into being an influencer, I want to seek out the little people, the unseen.

It can be incredibly grounding to shift our focus away from the loud, curated influences of social media and instead look toward the unsung heroes in our everyday lives.

Who in your community, unknown to the world, lives a quiet, consistent love that you can emulate?

A small person with a large voice of hope, like Linda’s.

Linda wrote to me recently “By the way, my slum is no more. A giant company bought the land, razed everything to the bare ground, filled in the swamp, and it is gone. Hard to watch my friends scattered all over Thailand..and to see 30+ years of memories disappear. It's hard to tell people what it was like to live in a slum when that slum is gone.”

Although all physical evidence of the slums is now gone, Linda’s life is still infused in her neighbours throughout Bangkok and all of Thailand. She continues to seek out the last, the least, those that culture seems to have “lost”.

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I would love to connect with you on LinkedIn or Facebook.

See you next week,

Grayson

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