“Teacha Em, Teacha Em!!!!”
“Yes?”, I answer to the grinning child in my arms.
“What is writing on your neck for?”
I laugh to myself. “It is called a tattoo, and it means that I love Jesus!”
“Teacha Em, I love Jesus too.”
“Me too”. “And me.” “I love Jesus”, the kids began a chorus of giggles and praise.
Well the squad finally made it to South Africa. New continent, new climates, and much darker skin tones. It is the only place I have ever been where everyone speaks English, but because of thick accents and mixed words from tribal tongues I usually don’t get the lingo. Team Wet Soles is based in Port Elizabeth where we are working with the Human Dignity Center (HDC).
From age 3 till about the third grade children get to come here for nutrition filled meals, to get an education, and learn about Jesus. Before we began our new found teaching careers the team was driven into the neighborhoods in which these kids live, (actually the outskirts of them because our cars could not make it through the dirt, pot holed, garbage filled roads).
Up to 15 people in a 10 by 10 shack.
Scrap metal, wood, some rocks. Anything and everything literally nailed together to make shelter. They have been living like this for years, just waiting for the government promised homes literally across the street. People just sitting around. The uneducated, and the malnourished, most carrying babies around their backs with scarfs. 15 high schools would need to be built just for teens to have some where to go.
85% unemployment is what this ethnic group faces.
HDC schools the kids with special needs. The neglected, and the abused. They all run up to the teachers just wanting to receive the love that they clearly are not getting at home.
Everyday my team comes home with tangled hair and often frustration because we tutor kids who are in the third grade and do not know their ABC’s. We get kids who do not understand us because our language does not click its tongue. Just about everyday our conversations go back to how good we have it because we were born in America.
In the middle of a vent session a teammate said allowed, “Look how good these kids actually have it, they are five years old and know Jesus. Would you rather have them be a privileged American who is lost, that can’t see the reason why they need God because of their own success?”
I look back at the Word. The kind of people who are running to Jesus are never the privileged ones who have it all together. It is always the sinners, the sick, the poor, and the broken. They run to Jesus not because He can heal them (which He can), but because they actually believed the words that He spoke.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied…”
Everyday I get to walk down the hallways of the HDC, I hear the sounds of children singing “yesterday, today, tomorrow, I will follow Jesus Christ.”
I have the blessing of watching folded hands and bowed heads pray to Jesus before every meal is given to them.
Yes, I came to the Human Dignity Center to teach children the basic things in life to be successful by the worlds standards. But instead these kids are the ones who are really teaching me.
