“Sometimes I think God is the loneliest guy in the world. No one ever asks God, ‘Hey, how you doin'?’”-The Tao of Steve
The older I get, the more I can’t shake how lonely it is to be a kid.
When people want the 30-second version of what I learned on the World Race, I often tell them how being on the road exposed me to how much kids experience loneliness.
This isn’t a teen-angsty “I feel so alone”. Rather, it is more a profound awareness that something is missing.
I am taken back to being en route from Tanzania to Kenya when we stopped at a private Christian school for a few days to rest from having an armpit in my face. If you ever want to feel like the odd man out, try being the only white person in a hot moving metal box for 15 hours.
Every two hours, child vendors selling peanuts and other useless paraphernalia banged on my window, “Hello… how-are-you? Give-me-money.”
I arrived 57 hours later feeling like a walking ATM and miles away from familiarity.
When we finally arrived at our lodging, I collapsed on top of my sleeping bag, tired of the road and dreaming of the familiar sound of angry car horns and no one wanting my wallet.
Sweat drenched my face as foreign birds chirped me awake. Almost falling off my bed, I grabbed my bible, went outside, and sat on the rocky ground. I stuck my nose in the book of Isaiah, half reading, half sleeping. After five minutes of reading I heard some rocks rustling behind me. When I looked up, a little girl wearing a tattered plaid dress sauntered over to me. She stared at me with fascination.
I smiled and showed her my bible. She backed away, still grinning. Two of her friends came out from behind her and gave me a crude wooden stool (complete with American graffiti). I tried to show them I was okay, but they kindly refused. Reluctantly, I eased by big frame over the stool and smiled. A small group of teenage African girls giggled and ran back into their classrooms.
After a few minutes, the teacher came out and asked me to “teach the kids something”. Totally winging it, I think I taught them nouns and verbs. They all applauded me and we went out to play recess.
A girl, no older than 15, with long legs and a short torso, came over to me with a piano key grin, “Mr. Chase, do you have an African name?”
I shook my head, “Naw…”
She pressed her lips together, “Mmmm… I give you one. Your name is Wafula,” she finished the last syllable with finality and gave the biggest hug. A number of kids sang it back, “WAH FOO LAAH!”
Later, I found out my name meant “rain”. These Africans believed all wisdom comes from God, raining down on the people, making them grow. I was humbled.
Part of me really is shocked at how well I connected with the kids. But really, I don’t think they connected with JUST me. I think God connected us both through our loneliness. As strange as it sounds, I think the kids just knew that a “mzungu” (“white person”) had come to love them.
In a place where kids are allowed to wander the streets at all hours, I think we saw the same loneliness dwelling within.
And in the end, we saw the God that heals loneliness, through His Spirit, and each other.
Isaiah 11: 6 “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”
