I won’t lie to you – I was super nervous to work at Sarah’s Covenant Home this month. Any of my friends will tell you that working with kids has never been my strong suit or first choice for ministry. And I’ve never felt drawn to working with the special needs demographic; in fact, they’ve usually made me feel uncomfortable. I’ve never known what to do or say around them.
When our contact at SCH, Erin, came to talk to us about what to expect at ministry, my anxiety only increased as I heard about the situations we might encounter working with these kids. She mentioned one boy in particular, Benjamin, who is severely autistic. She told us that most of the time, Benjamin was the sweetest boy who loved to lay his head in your lap and have his hair stroked, but he cannot control himself when he’s agitated. Because of this, he bites and pinches other kids who come into range. She described his face to us – scratched and scarred from other children trying to defend themselves from outbursts he couldn’t control.
I hadn’t met Benjamin yet, but he already scared the crap out of me.
After Erin spoke with us, we headed to SCH to meet the kids. We crammed into tuk-tuks and when we arrived, walked into absolute chaos. Kids were everywhere and very excited to see us. They crowded around us, grabbing our hands and giving us hugs, smiling and laughing as we waded our way through them.
We visited each of the five rooms and met babies, toddlers, kids, teenagers and even a few adults, all with various disabilities. Every single one of them was beautiful and funny and quirky and most of us fell in love right on the spot.
But it was loud and crowded and completely different than any place I had ever been, and I began to feel uncomfortable and wondered If I could work in this place for a full month. After about a half hour of visiting the kids, I found myself in the office, the only quiet room in the entire building, wondering if I could make it through the month or even just the day.
Erin wanted us each to be assigned a room so we could keep an eye on the same kids and caretakers every day and when she saw that I was feeling overwhelmed, she assigned me the older boys’ room because they don’t require as much looking after as the babies or toddlers. For this I was grateful.
The next day, we arrived for our first day of ministry and I headed to my assigned room to assess the situation. Most of mobile boys came up to me to say hello, each in their own way, and I smiled and shook hands and greeted them back. And as I made my way further into the room, I spotted a thin pale boy sitting on his bed, looking my direction with vacant eyes. He had scratches and scars all over his face and his lips were chapped. None of the boys paid any attention to him, except the occasional look of distain or shove.
Benjamin.
I avoided Benjamin all together for about three days. To me, he was a time bomb, ticking away and I thought if I got close to him, I would unknowingly say or do the wrong thing and he would explode, biting and scratching me to pieces. Even though I hadn’t see one yet, I imagined his outbursts turned him into something like a hippo from that old Hungry Hungry Hippo board game – blinding chomping away at anything that came into range.
But even though I avoided him, I still watched him from afar. He never spoke and when any adult came into range, he immediately reached for their hands to put them on his head, needing to be stimulated by fingers stroking his scalp. But most adults only stayed with him for a minute or two, then moved on to another task they needed to accomplish. So most of the time, Benjamin sat on his bed, watching life happen around him, unable to be a part of it because of his own social inabilities and the other boys’ intolerance of him.
The first time I saw Benjamin bite another child, I was standing across the room, holding a little boy who was particularly upset that day and just needed to be picked up. I watched as one of the other older boys came up to Benjamin and slapped his face, kind of hard, which is surprisingly an act of endearment in India. I watched as Benjamin got agitated and began to wail and I watched as another little girl, about three years old, tottered by him, completely in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I watched as Benjamin reached out and grabbed her arm and bit her and I just couldn’t move fast enough to pull her out of the way.
Luckily, she yanked her arm away before Benjamin could do any real damage, but the sheer shock of it made her cry, but as the caretakers pulled them apart, I heard Benjamin’s wails above the cries of the little girl. They were such unholy piercing sounds that permeated the room, the sounds of Benjamin crying out against the misfiring in his brain that made him hurt another child.
And in that moment I saw so much of myself in Benjamin that it broke my heart.
I thought of Paul and his words that I have read so many times in my life that I felt like I had written them myself:
I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do.
Romans 7:15
The gist is this:
I want to do good, I want to BE good, I want to follow the Bible’s instructions and make God my Father so very proud of me by fulfilling His commands. But instead, I sin. And I try and I try to stop it, but my human nature takes over and I find myself flat on my face before the Lord, crying out against my earthly flesh that causes me to do the very things I hate.
Like Benjamin, I am constantly fighting against the misfiring of my spirit and I find myself doing things, thinking things, that I don’t want to be doing or thinking.
After that first biting incident, I made it a point to sit with Benjamin each day. Sometimes I read the Bible to him, especially Paul’s letters, sometimes I sang songs and sometimes we just sat together. But I always stroked his hair and told him that I understood, that he and I were more alike than he knew, and even though he couldn’t control himself sometimes and hurt others, I knew that he didn’t mean to and I still loved him anyway. And more importantly, God still loved him anyway.
If you think of it, pray for Benjamin. I believe God can work a miracle in his life and heal him. I believe that he can live a normal life and play with kids without endangering their safety. I believe that there is so much more to him than the things he does that he cannot control.
And when you are thinking of/praying for Benjamin, remember this:
That we are all more alike than we think, that we have no room to judge, and that God loves us anyway, even when our earthly flesh causes us to do those things that we want more than anything NOT to do.
And thank Him for that.
me and Benjamin
