I knew our last day at Joyella was going to be the hardest good-bye for me. That’s where my favorite kids are at and that’s where my favorite go-gos are at. On our last visit I shared the salvation story with these kids. As I told the story, other team members acted it out behind me.
Up until then it had been like any other visit to Joyella (which we had called School House). After the story, I asked for the children to raise their hands if they wanted to ask Jesus into their lives. As I looked around the room, little hands started to go into the air. One of those hands belonged to Tandy. (Tandy is the little girl with HIV who I’ve written about previously.)
After the prayer and songs were done we ended the day with ‘O lay lay’ which is a silly song that means nothing but kids love it and it has lots of hand motions that they get into. This song was Tandy’s favorite and that’s how I was even able to bond with her. So during breaks I would teach Tandy to lead the song so that when we left she would be able to lead the class by herself. As Tandy learned the song better and became more confident with it, I would have her come up and help me lead it although she always had to look at me out the corner of her eye to make sure she was right. But not on this day, Tandy came up and helped me lead it but she didn’t need me there. She could have done it by herself!
I don’t have kids so I don’t have any idea how it feels to be a parent and be so proud of your child that words can’t even express it, but I’m guessing it felt a lot like what I felt that day. Not only had she led the song she’s been working on for weeks but she made the greatest choice that she’ll ever make!
As I was saying good-bye to her I literally was choking. This little girl has been so shell-shocked by life and people and yet she always has a smile on her face. As tears started filling my eyes I knew I had to go. But on the way to the bus, Esther (the go-go who teaches them) stopped me to say good-bye and then said that we had to go because it was too sad. (Long good-byes are much harder then fast ones.)
Esther worries that we’ll forget them, but I don’t think that’s possible.
