I know that I’ve said this before, but I just want to reiterate how I was not at all a “kid person” before the Race. Aside from my siblings’ kids, whom I adore with a level of love that cannot be explained, I never truly felt connected to children.
When I saw kids out in public I usually wondered what kind of shenanigans they were about to get into. Or I just kind of disregarded them altogether, because, let’s be honest, some kids having staring problems. And since when was I expected to entertain all the kids with funny faces (or at least that’s how it felt)?!
Clearly, kids ministry on the Race was not something I looked forward to. While most of my squad mates were pumped at the idea of working with children, I was secretly lamenting my own inevitable future of having to work with kids.
Come South Africa, I’d worked with children for five of the six months I’d been on the field, and I found myself exclaiming to my teammates that I hoped we’d be working with kids the next month in Swaziland. Me? Excited to work with kids? Yes!
We’d spent our Saturday morning playing with children who struggled with addiction, and as we began to drive away, one of the girls I’d met that day chased after our car. When I reached my arm out the window to give her a high five, she took my hand and kissed it. I was in love, and I had no idea how I’d gotten there.
Beautiful girls from South Africa
The girl that ran after my car to kiss my hand 🙂
The next month, I chose to work with Treasure, a woman with a beautiful heart, and her small class of rambunctious (and sometimes seriously defiant) six-year-olds. But let me tell you, these kids. Man, oh man, did they love well. Their own desires to be loved were so great that they would go out of their way to give me attention. To hug me. To hold my hand. To smile at me. To meet me at the road and walk me to school. To carry my lunch for me. To simply be with me.
I knew during this month that God was showing me what it meant to love as he loves. The things I felt for these children in those moments (and even still) took me by surprise! The Lord surfaced parts of my heart I didn’t realize existed – parts that were made to love and adore children.
The biggest turning point came during my first week in the Swazi classroom when a girl named Gilda came to be with me during her play break. Gilda is a very timid girl, and I could tell that the attention I gave her meant something. When I smiled, she smiled. And though she rarely spoke back to me, I could tell she liked me.
We were enjoying each other’s company that afternoon with lots of tickles and giggles when I noted a large pile of ants near the wall of the room. Without saying a word, Gilda went to get the broom and began to sweep the ants out the door. As I sat in awe at her eagerness to help, it hit me like a sack of bricks that Gilda could be one of the three children in the class positive with HIV.
My eyes quickly filled with tears that I couldn’t choke back. That I didn’t want to choke back. I tried my best to stay in the moment, to simply appreciate the task she was completing for me, but my heart was aching. I looked at her sweet face and prayed that she wasn’t positive. But then I thought of the other children and how I didn’t want any of them to be positive. It wasn’t fair! It isn’t fair.
It was in that small moment of compassion that I realized just how much God had changed my heart. I realized then that I loved Gilda. A stranger’s child that I’d known for less than a week, and I loved her.
Gilda (and Wonderboy) and me spending time together. Look at those faces!
Gilda hanging on as the other students stole some camera time
It was estimated by the teachers at my care point that as much as 30% of the children there are positive with HIV. I was also told that as many as 7 out of 10 adults in Swaziland have contracted the virus. HIV has become such a part of the Swazi culture that I could have shown any of the kindergarten-aged students at my care point a condom and they would have known exactly what it was.
As I sit here, nearly three months later, I can’t help but wish there was something that I could do. Some way that I could help. But I feel helpless. How does one fall in love with a child and then move on? Short term missions are difficult if only for the ‘goodbyes’ alone. I wish that I could say I’d see Gilda again in the future, but that’s not something I can even promise myself.
I think the only thing I can do is pray. Pray for Swaziland, its people, and its children. And thank God for introducing me to the children at the Mangwanani Care Point, for introducing me to Gilda.
These are the children of the cook at our care point – Wonderboy and his little sister!
This precious girl stole my heart, too 🙂
The girls in South Africa ‘fixing’ my hair
