Yesterday night was our night to say goodbye. It was a tearful one. Pushpa’s words tore on my heart: “don’t go! When you go, there will be no one with us. You are going, and Moira-auntie is going, and Emmanuelle-auntie is going. When you go, there will be no one to teach us Bible.” “I will not have a tickle friend anymore.”
I didn’t cry when we left – in fact, I was a little impatient to go…Ben, Hannah, and I had stayed until 7:30pm, and as we said goodbye, several of the girls cried in Ben’s arms, and me and Hannah in the end had to just leave and walk down the street, and let Ben catch up. Pushpa, as we left, reached over the fence with her teary face. Some of the kids had already fallen asleep. I think the kids had already put their game faces on to say goodbye in the afternoon, but as we left in the night, they were REALLY sad.
I walked down the dark street, not really talking to anyone as Ben and Hannah talked. I looked up at the sky and I wondered how I felt. I knew in my head that we were leaving…we had been prepared all month to leave. I was the one running the schedule…here is when we give the presents, here is when we make the photo album, here is when we sign the T-shirt. I was ready to disengage. We had finished our work here. I wondered at the coldness of my own heart and I felt sad. I wondered if I had poured out into the kids as I should have. Had I really loved the kids?
In an adrenaline rush of energy, I started cleaning and packing my bags. I sorted all the notes from the kids and threw out a ton of garbage. Put away the dry erase marker that I had used all month for school. Took pictures of the kids’ homework and detention notes. Erased the schedule we had drawn on the whiteboard in our room. Folded up all my clothes. Took down the clothesline. I would have kept packing if Hannah hadn’t whispered to me that it was midnight, time to sleep.
At night, I woke up with tears in my eyes. In the dark, it was as if I could hear the cries of their hearts again…”don’t go!” In my mind’s eye, I could see the children…how independent and tough they always seem. But then I remember the way they melt into our hugs…the way they giggle bashfully when we kiss them…the way even the Grade 1 kids whom we discipline with lines and detention want us to come to their class…they way they scrupulously collect our notes and even carved our names into pieces of plywood. And I wonder how many times a child’s heart can stand to be broken as “uncles” and “aunties” once again have to say goodbye.
Before the sun rose, I was awake again. After heading to the bathroom, I decided to do my devotions on the rooftop. Today’s passages were Romans 11 and 12. As I read Romans 11:33, I began to wonder at the “depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God”. I thought about how God knows and understands every single thought or desire that enters my head. And I realized that He knows the thoughts and desires of the children, even more clearly, perfectly, and fully than the kids realize themselves. He brought us here to tell them about Him, and as we pray to Him, He will without fail take care of those kids and make Himself known to them. We are just his servants, going where He tells us to go.
I have the faint memory last night of seeing a girl. She had long, flowing hair, and the most beautiful smile. She looked about 14 or 15. As the sun shone down on her, irradiating her whole body and the field around her, she stretched out her arms and twirled around and around. She was my dear girl Pushpa, all grown up. She pulled something out of her pocket. They were three pencil sharpeners. She smiled as she suddenly recalled the memory, long ago, of how much a single pencil sharpener had once meant to her. Now she was all grown up, and she walked through the town and could buy her own sharpeners if she needed to. There was a memory of a dark, teary night, long ago…but it no longer hurt, but only brought the pleasant memory of some aunty or uncle who had once shown her love. She tucked the sharpeners in her pocket, and turned towards the school. There were some new young ones who had never heard about the Bible who needed to be taught to, and she did not want to be late.
