When I think of a proverbs 31 woman, several woman come to mind. However there is one woman in particular I want to talk about. This woman clearly brought to life for me the vigorous, energetic, and joyful side of the Proverbs 31 woman. For the sake of this post, I am going to call her Abigail. I have chosen to call her Abigail for several reasons. First, because Abigail means “my father’s joy.” Although Abigail and her father didn’t always have the best of relationships, I would be surprised to find out that her father didn’t consider her his joy on his death bed when she was his only child who cared about him enough to spend weeks at a time by his side at the hospital. Even if her earthly father did not consider Abigail his joy, I know that her heavenly Father does. Second, because in the Bible Abigail was a godly woman who was described as both beautiful and wise.
To start off with, Abigail’s life story is bitter-sweet one. She grew up in a Hmong Village in the mountains of norther Thailand. Her family was typical. Her father was a village shaman (witch doctor) and had two wives. Her mother was the first wife, and as she grew older, was not treated well by Abagail’s father. Abagail’s father hated Christians. Abigail never had an education any higher than the 6th grade, but she was a hard worker. She moved from her rural mountain village into the city of Bangkok, Thailand’s capital. She found a good job, worked hard, and despite her low education, was a highly valued employee. It was in Bangkok that Abigail met her husband, Sian.
Sian had grown up in a Hmong village just above Abagail’s. His parents were Christians, but in name only. His father was a drug dealer, and his mother died in a fire when he was very young. Every member in his family, except his father, was in that fire and not one of them escaped it unscathed. One of his sister’s died in the fire, another sister lost several toes. Of all the survivors Sian got the worst. His legs were severely burned and had to be amputated just above the knees. After sian lost his legs, his father declared he would have to remarry because he needed a son that wasn’t worthless. Sian has spent the rest of his life trying to erase the image of being useless.
I met Sian when I was a little girl between the ages of 6 and 8. He was one of my favorite “big kids” (aka. teenagers). Sian lived with us for a few months, and I found out pretty fast that he was a genius. He could fix anything we needed fixed. He even fixed stuff the mechanics couldn’t fix for us. But it wasn’t his genius that made him one of my favorites. It was his heart. He was very kind to me. I remember him racing me around in his wheelchair and popping wheelies. I loved it.
Years later I still remembered him and would wonder where he was and what he was doing. Sometimes I prayed for him. My family had heard that he got a high paying computer job in Bangkok, and I was very proud of him.
Abigail’s brother had married Sian’s sister, so when Abigail moved to Bangkok she had already heard about him. They met there and married. Abigail’s family told her she was foolish to marry a disabled man, but she refused to listen. In their marriage life, Abagail’s greatest fear was children. Sian wanted children, but Abigail did not because she had a disabled husband, and she feared the responsibility of raising them on her own. They did, however, have children. Abigail gave birth to a little boy that I will call Joseph. A year later Abigail discovered she was pregnant again. She was absolutely sure that this time her baby was a girl. At this time, tragedy struck Abigail’s life and her world was turned upside down. Two weeks before she was due to give birth, Sian had gone home to visit his family without telling Abigail and had gotten himself arrested. He had lent his car to a friend, who, evidently without Sian’s knowledge, filled it up with drugs. Someone tipped off the police and they arrested Sian and his friends. His friends testified that Sian did not know the drugs were there, and the police acknowledge that Sian was not physically capable of loading the car with the drugs. Despite all this, Sian was sentenced to 50 years in jail because he would not cooperate with the police and the court and reveal all who were involved (we suspect his father was).
Abigail was stripped of her husband and was left 9 months pregnant with her year old son to fend for herself. Abigail went through months of court hearings, in the midst of which she gave birth to her second son, not the daughter she wanted. Despite the turmoil into which he was born into, the second son was a great comfort to Abigail, because he daily reminded her that she was not alone. Abigail was not a Christian, but prior to the boy’s birth, Abigail had had several dreams in which a man came to her and said “this is your son. I am giving him to you.” Abigail did not know what these dreams meant, but when she gave birth to a boy, she believed that those dreams were not coincidental. Eventually, Abigail was forced to leave Bangkok and return to her village. She could not afford to live in the city with two young children.
For two years after Sian’s imprisonment, Abigail lived in the village trying to find work so that she could raise her boys. In the Hmong culture, her husband’s family should have taken care of her, but they refused to. Her own family only let her live with them as long as they did because of their self-image. Her family and friends were pressuring her to divorce her husband and remarry. In the Hmong Culture, divorcing your husband means divorcing your children. If you remarry, then your children stay behind with your family. They are no longer your children. Abigail could not do that. She wanted to keep her children.
One day Abigail remembered a white Christian teach her husband had talked about, and she decided to find them and ask them for help. This is how I met Abigail. One day she suddenly appeared at our gate with her older son. She told us her story and asked my parents if they knew where there was a hostile where she could leave her children while she went to the city to find work. All the hostiles she had been to only took children ages 5 and up, and her children were two and three. We did not know of any hostiles that would take children so young, so we offered to hire her as Bobby’s nanny and as a house worker.
Once we offered her our home, we had to figure out where to put her and her boys. I offered to share my room with them, which was the most sensible place to put them, so they moved in with me. I had just turned 14 at the time, and I have to say that my 14th year was very life changing. When Abigail came to us, she was very angry, hurt, bitter, and sad. She placed her value in her ability to work hard, and tried to prove herself to us through her work. We had to show her through our actions that we loved her for who she was, rather than for what she did.
I learned a lot that year. I learned a lot about patience when I had two little boys running around my room yelling and giggling at midnight. I learned a lot about forgiveness as I watched Abigail let go of her anger and bitterness towards those who had hurt and used her. I learned about unconditional love when I watched Abigail care for her dying father, the one man in her life who should have been her protector and encourager in her time of need, but who was not. I learned about ministry as I watched my mother talking to her and I saw her soaking up everything she heard, and then watched her pass it on. I learned about parenting as I saw one mother counseling another mother. I learned so much that even today I am sure I don’t fully realize all that I learned.
One of the first things that I realized very quickly that I would have to deal with was discipline. The Hmong people I grew up with tend to threaten to discipline their kids, but they rarely followed it through. I learned very quickly as a child that my friend’s parents only disciplined their kids when they were angry and fed up with the child’s disobedience. As a teenager I came to see very quickly that if they would only follow through with their threats, they would not have nearly as many problems with their kids.
Like other Hmong mothers, Abigail did not follow through with disciplining her boys, and I found myself kept awake all hours of the night while the boys played to their heart’s content. Abigail was so eager to learn about God’s word that she would collapse on her bed and read her bible and sing hymms as soon as it was bedtime. Her singing didn’t bother me; I could sleep through that. I couldn’t sleep with two giggling boys running around the room playing and, occasionally, whining to mommy when something happened that they didn’t like. We had a dresser, a closet, and two single mattresses in the room, and that was our only furniture. We chose to lay our mattresses straight on the floor, rather than having beds, and we had a mat and blankets in between the two mattresses. Abigail took one mattress, I took the other, and the boys slept on the mat and blankets. When they first moved in with me, I had two toddlers (2 and 3 yrs old) running over me in my sleep, giggling and wrestling, at 10 or 11 at night. They learned pretty quick that my mattress was off limits. Eventually, I learned that Abigail wasn’t going to do anything to put the boys to bed. They only went to sleep when the lights went out, and that was not because the lights kept them up. That was because no one made them lay still any sooner than that. I decided that since they were in my room, I could tell them to lay still after 9 o’clock at night. Once I established that rule and they learned I wasn’t just saying they had to lie still and that I really meant it, they did really well. Abigail caught on fast, and pretty soon she was making them go to bed right away. So these two adorable toddlers taught me about patience and discipline.
Abigail and her sons arrived a couple months before Christmas, and we decided that we needed to find a way to teach them about Christmas. We felt like it was important to teach about creation, the fall of man, and the key stories in the bible that led up to Christ’s birth, so every night I would teach bible stories on flanograph for the boys. The boys could have cared less, though, about the stories. They wanted to play with the phlanograph, but Abigail soaked up every story I told like a sponge. It was both fascinating and very encouraging to watch her as she took God’s word to heart and applied it to her life. I feel very privaleged to have been able to see her grow like that.
Abigail’s greatest contributions to her growth, though, was her daily study of God’s word. After Abigail had lived with us for several months, another missionary offered to take Abigail in at her bible school. Abigail could enroll her two sons, Joseph and Emanuel, in the local school and study while they were at school. Abigail would have lodging, and the ability to grow some of her own food as well. The bible school system was rotating between two months at school, and then a month at home. So Abigail moved about an hour a way, and we saw her every two months when she came home from Bible school. She grew a lot at bible school.
The ultimate test came when her father was diagnosed with cancer. Even though all of Abigail’s siblings had their own homes and their own land, and Abigail had very few earthly possessions that could be fit into a few sacks (bags/suitcases,etc), her brothers and sisters threw the burden of caring for her father onto her. The rarely went to see him at the hospital (which was five to six hours from where we lived) and expected the single, practically penniless Abigail to care for him. She did. She left her two sons with us for weeks at a time while she went and cared for her dying father in the hospital. She truly loved him, and had she not cared for him he may not have been cared for. Not only was he diagnosed with cancer, but he also broke his leg (I don’t remember how), so he was incapable of visiting the bathroom. Abigail was frustrated with her sibling for their heartlessness, and a little hurt by her father for his thanklessness. But Abigail proved invaluable to her father, for she told him about Jesus everyday, and only a few days before his death my father had the privelage of leading him to Christ. That would not have been possible if it had not been for Abigail.
Right before we returned to the U.S, we helped Abigail find a job for another missionary, and while working there she made enough money to build herself a house in her village. She lives there now with her two sons and her mother. Not long ago, through the kind donations of children in a VBS program, Abigail was able to purchase a sewing machine, a motorcycle, and secure sewing lessons. At the end of six months of lessons, Abigail will be able to open a sewing shop of her own. My father visited her recently and saw her handiwork, which he said was absolutely amazing. I remember very well that while she lived with us, Abigail was always coming up with ideas on clothes she could sew and sell. She had beautiful ideas, and I am confident she will do well.
Everything Abigail does, she does with energy. Abigail was always energetic and always smiling and laughing. She was a bubbly person when she came to us, even though she was burdened and sad. But now she is just overflowing with joy. She is very diligent, very determined, and very reliable. Whatever she sets her heart to, she accomplishes and accomplishes well. She grew up in a community of farmers, and she learned at a young age that if you don’t work hard, you don’t eat.
I would like to share several things that God taught me through Abigail.
Forgiveness: I saw forgiveness displayed first hand. I’ve always thought that if anyone on this earth had a reason to be unforgiving, it was Abigail. Abigail, however, made the ever difficult, but freeing, choice to forgive the people who had hurt her the most. Abigail’s forgiveness was was shown very clearly to me when she chose to set aside her life and spend several months in the hospital with the one man who was not there for her when she needed him most. Abigail had been deeply hurt by her father’s conduct towards her mother and towards herself. Even in the hospital when she was the only one to truly care for her, he would say hurtful things about her. Despite all this, Abigail did not let the hurtful and unkind words and actions of others to dictate her own actions.
Discipline: One thing I learned from Abigail, Joseph, and Emanuel is that Solomon wasn’t kidding when he said in Proverbs 13:24 that if you spare the rod you hate your child. The transformation that took place in the boys’ hearts and behavior before and after they were disciplined was truly amazing. I saw that discipline is not simply punishment, but a form of guidance. My mother made sure both Abigail and I knew that when we told the kids what not to do, we needed to explain to them what they should do. It was a lot easier for the boys to stop doing one thing after they knew what they could do. Once the boys were consistently disciplined (not to be confused with punishment), their behavior displayed more security and joy.
Work: There are several people in this world that I can name off the top of my head that really displayed the meaning of a “hard worker” to me, and Abigail is one of them. She was a hard worker, and she taught me a lot about work through her examples, though she does not know it. The Hmong woman in general work hard, but not with the joy and energy that Abigail displayed. When someone give Abigail work, they know it will get done and it will be done well.
Missions: Abigail taught me a lot about missions as well. I had been imersed in missions work my entire life, but up until that point my involvement was limited. When Abigail and her two boys entered my life, I was forced to be intriquitely involved. I coulnd’t be a bystander or even partially involved, because I had offered them my personal space. For a little over a year, I had no personal space. Abigail taught me that the some of the best ways to reach out to people is to build a relationship with them and to show them God’s love. My family embraced Abigail, Joseph, and Emanuel and essentially made them a part of our family, and in doing thus we showed ourselves as set apart. No one else, not even her own family, had even come close to helping her, and some strangers opened their homes to her. That showed her a love she had never seen before. I can’t speak for my family, but I can say for myself that it was not selflessness that made me offer my room to her. It was pure ingorance and spontaneity, and it was partially selfish. It sounded like fun and somewhat adventurous to have a strange woman and two strange boys living in my room with me. But I soon discovered that God had brought Abigail and the boys to us for better reasons than to satisfy my love for spontaneity and fun. I don’t know how much of a difference I made in their lives, but I can say that they most definetely made a humungous difference in my life. By bringing Abigail into my life God taught me several things. First, that life is not all about me. Second, that my problems paled in comparison to hers. Third, that putting others before yourself can be most satisfactory and edifying. Fourth, it gave me a different perspective on God’s love, his unconditional love. Through Abigail, God showed me the extent of His love for His foolish, sinful children.
I still am not able to comprehend and communicate all that I have learned from God through Abigail, but this is just the start.
