Ulma-aeyo

“Ulma-aeyo? (How much is this?)” I ask, holding up a carrot.

“Ee Chun.” The old woman answers.

That is more expensive than the other venders’ prices, so I lay it back down and straighten up. This is Garak Market: a vast sprawling open air food market with vender after vender selling everything from apples to squid to barley to spinach. Each seller sits with their wares spread on the ground before them and hawks them loudly as trucks rumble by and the buyers straggle from one awning to the next. I take in the scene for an instant, but in my mind’s eye I am no longer in Seoul. The buildings grow poorer, the street turns to dirt, the chatter around me blurs into Spanish. In front of me I see a ragged boy with tousled, dark hair looking longingly at the fruit spread out on the sidewalk. “¿Tienes hambre? (Are you hungry?)” I ask him.

“Sí, Señorita.” He answers.

In my imagination, I turn to the vender and buy him something to eat. He smiles and thanks me for his new wealth. “Odiae-gayo?” The venders around me call the greeting in Korean, trying to get my attention. Once again the street is paved and the venders are oriental. The child has vanished.

“Martha, come on, let’s go.” Mommy tugs on my sleeve and we move on. “What were you thinking about?” She asks as we make our way past the grain section to the green veggies.

What was I thinking about? How can I explain that? “Nothing.” I answer.

I’ve always had a vivid imagination, maybe too vivid. I can really create a scene so real that I almost live in a different world sometimes. I feel as if I’ve really walked the streets of Chicago, wandered in the slums of India, lived in Morocco, visited Brazil, and (most recently) been to Colombia when in reality, I’ve only imagined it. Why these certain places? Street children. Los niños de las calles. Since I was a little girl of five or six I’ve dreamed of working with street kids. The country I’m thinking of has changed, the age of the children has shifted over the years, but the focus remains the same. For years I’ve imagined the city streets, thought up plans for starting farms for them to live on, organized feeding programs in my mind, and talked to imaginary children. “I’m going to start an orphanage” I remember telling people when I was five. “It’ll be nice orphanage with lots of games. I’ll teach them to read and all about the Bible.”

Now that I am almost ready to go out on my own, the dream has grown stronger than ever. The children of the street are calling to me. But here I am in Korea. Do I wish Korea had street kids? No of course not. But I know that somewhere there are orphans running the streets and they need someone to come and help them. How I wish I were there! Now, I bide my time and create dream scenes as I walk the streets of Seoul, but someday the dreams will be real. Someday I’ll get my hands into the work that God has raised me up for and called me to.

A memory and some thoughts...

My first bad bike wreck was when I was six years old. Not many people have the ability to hot-dog a bike at that age, but I did. The mountains of Japan afford many places to careen down crazily steep and windy roads – and that was what I was doing. I was having fun weaving back and forth as I flew down a narrow, mountain path between rice fields. Before I knew what had happened, I had lost control, flipped over the handlebars, and smashed by face into the road. A bike wreck can be traumatizing when you’re not old enough to really think it through rationally. In my mind, I had been doing just fine when suddenly the bicycle bucked me off. What was to prevent it happening again? For months I crept along the streets, refusing to go faster than a crawl and getting off to walk my bike at every hill.
My sister, Esther, who is six years older than me, liked taking me with her when she rode her bike to the store, but my fear of hills was rather cumbersome after a while. “Mommy, can I put Martha on my rack to go to the store next time? It would make it go a lot faster.” She said one evening.
Mommy looked at me, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t want her getting her feet caught in the spokes.”
Daddy glanced up from the helping my brother Peter with his math school work. “We could get her some boots to protect her feet. Maybe riding around with Esther will help Martha’s fear of hills.”
I wasn’t so sure. Riding on the back of Esther’s bike? Was it really safe? What if I fell off? Mommy went to the store and bought me a pair of black boots that zipped up the side to make sure my shoe laces wouldn’t get tangled in the gears. I put them on and with some qualms settled myself on the bicycle rack behind my sister. Esther pushed off and began peddling down the street. I discovered I loved it! Those became some of my favorite memories: Feeling the warm breeze in my hair while holding onto my older sister’s solid back and watching the neighborhood slide by. There is safety in not being the one in control – in just being along for the ride. I felt completely at ease. Esther wouldn’t wreck and I could hold onto her for protection.
I was reminded of this recently when I was worrying about my plans for the future. Which school should I go to? When should I go? But this picture of riding behind Esther rose in my mind – my safety is in letting God ride the bike. I’m just holding on to him and enjoying the scenery.

Forming Dreams (essay written for the U of A application)

“Either a nurse or a teacher” was always my answer when someone asked me what my plans were. That answer was fine until I entered my senior year and panic set in: “Mommy, I HAVE to know what I’m going to be, but how can I choose?”

I’ve loved anatomy ever since I can remember, but then I’ve always had a heart for working with children. Actually, I was on the job at the Drew County Boys and Girls Club when I got a call from my older brother, Peter: “Hey Martha, why don’t you come with me to an Urban Health Missions Conference in Los Angeles? Then you can see all the cool stuff you can do when you are a nurse like me.”

“How am I going to get out there?” I asked.

“I’ll pay your way.” He answered.

“Well, that sounds great to me!”

A few days later, when talking with my older sister Esther (also a nurse), I mentioned the travel plans. “Why don’t you stop by in Tulsa for a few days and shadow me at work? I can arrange it with my supervisor,” she suggested.

So a plan was formed for an amazing trip to discover nursing—from small-town Monticello, Arkansas to Tulsa to Los Angeles! I packed my bags in a flurry of excitement, impatiently waiting the three weeks until the travel dates rolled around.

For three days, I shadowed my sister in the ICU. I looked at chest tubes and saw blood transfusions in progress, examined heart monitors print-outs and x-rays of collapsed lungs, talked with confused old ladies and ultra-paranoid young men – and loved every minute of it!

Then the day came to fly from Tulsa to Los Angeles. Peter and I had tried hard to coordinate our arrival times, but I still had to wait an hour for him to arrive. Fortunately, everything went well (thanks to cell phones) and we were leaving in our rental car for our lodgings by nine p.m.

I live in Monticello, Arkansas—a small town of ten thousand people in the Arkansas delta. Exploring Los Angeles was an adventure from the start. “Hey Martha, look on the map and find somewhere to eat. I’m starved,” Peter ordered from the driver’s seat. The place I found was a Church’s Chicken in the middle of a downtown, rough neighborhood. “If we get mugged, it’s your fault.” Peter informed me as we looked at the bars on the windows and surrounding the cash register.

“Oh, thanks a lot!” I answered sarcastically.

The conference lasted for two days, but I would say that it was the conference together with the city that convinced me to be a nurse. I’ll never forget the experience of sitting through a session about healthcare for the homeless and then watching a ragged man panhandle outside of the Starbucks where we ate. Or listening to a lecture on gang youth and then wandering through the fringes of the tough barrios and seeing the graffiti.

That trip showed me the realities of life in the inner-city. When I told people at the conference that I wanted to be a nurse, but also wanted to work with children, the answer was “Why not both? Why not become nurse AND a Children’s Pastor? Both are desperately needed!”

So a plan formed to become a nurse to fulfill physical needs, and then go to Bible School to be better equipped to fulfill gaping spiritual needs. And that is my dream.