I Love You?

I have a confession to make…

I don’t really like kids….

Yea I know… shocker…

Ok, well I mean I like babies and toddlers, but after about 30mins or so I’m ready to give them back to their parents. Just ask my friends, I’m usually more than ready to hand their babies back to them. I’ve also taught Sunday school since I was about 13, so you’d think that I actually loved little kids. In reality, however, I’ve always struggled with loving kids, especially elementary school aged children. I’m not sure why but I just have felt like I don’t know how to interact with them, and as a result, I’ve always been a bit standoffish. I think kids can sense this; they don’t seem to like me a ton either.

Now please understand, I don’t hate kids, I’m just not one of those people that lights up around children, nor am I one that kids flock and cling to. I’ve kind of just accepted this and just figured that I would let my teammates be the ones to play with, hug and love on the kids we come into contact with. It was a pretty good plan since there are several people on my team who just light up around small children. This worked well for me in India and Nepal. I smiled and waved at the kids in the villages we visited, held hands with kids if they grabbed mine and sometimes sang songs with them, but usually found myself too busy taking pictures or recording what we were doing.

However, kids were not something I was going to be able to avoid. When we arrived at our ministry site we met our contacts Phil & Pook Hansen (who are incredible!) and they told us that for the month we’d be visiting local schools, doing outreach at the local university and helping with children’s church. To be honest, after hearing this, the only thing that I was excited about was university outreach.  The rest did not excite me at all. I figured that once again I’d do my own thing and watch as the rest of my team just loved on the kids at the local schools.
        

So each morning on the way to a school I’d just pray. I’d pray for joy, for the right attitude and most importantly for LOVE. I wasn’t sure if it was working, I mean I was finding more joy in the mornings we had at the schools and during children’s church, but I wasn’t sure that I had LOVE for the kids we spent time with. That is until Thursday afternoon…

We were at a school that we had visited a few times before, we had actually been invited back to teach a bible class and English to the students, even though the school isn’t affiliated with Christianity. That day we split into two groups and I helped teach the English class which consisted of playing a few games including an alphabet bingo game. During the bingo game I was seated on the floor in the midst of several of the students, making sure that they circled their letters when they were called. One of the girls in the class scooted closer and closer to me throughout the game until she sat right up next to me, leaned against me and draped her arm across my knee. I looked down at her and she just smiled up at me me and in that moment I knew… I knew I loved her. I didn’t know her name, she spoke only Thai and I’d known her for only a few hours but I loved her.

It makes no sense;I mean how do you LOVE someone you don’t know? I never thought I could, but I did and I continued to everyday. Each school we went to, each group of new students, I loved them all, and I found joy in making a fool of myself with silly dances and conversations in broken English and charades.

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

I know that in and of myself I don’t have the capacity to love like this. I just don’t. Thank God that I don’t but that HE does! I’m learning how to love and that this love is genuine; it’s real and it’s not from me.

– Jess