It all began with thirteen rambunctious boys that piled out of a van onto our mountainside farm. They were getting away from their overwhelming hardships as street children in Manila. These boys didn’t come with anything but the shirt on their back and some didn’t even have shoes to shield their feet from the rocky ground.
But to me they were perfect. I was whirling around the kitchen, helping get their first meal at the house ready. These boys rarely have the money to buy food so they resort to ignoring their hunger and satisfying themselves temporarily with solvents, creating instant highs that take them away from their sorrows and worries. As I was carrying their food to their table i heard their laughter and saw the beaming smiles on their faces and instantly my heart was filled to the brim. They were truly perfect.
We only would have 2 days with them and I was sure to make every moment count.
As we sat on the floor later that night, talking and learning more about each other through broken English conversations, I began to feel pride welling up in my heart. Pride in being able to sit with these young boys and hearing them express their thoughts and opinions. It wasn’t always in words, a lot of times it was seen in their unique gestures that by the end of the two days I learned and treasured. The night was spent watching a movie with popcorn; they were living like kings, like royalty — just the way it should be.
Over the next 48 hours I was completely in love with these boys, even when they almost broke out in fights or when I would find them sneaking a smoke around the corner, I was still beyond honored to sit with them and call them friends.
There was a moment when I truly realized that I could see my life to be this for the rest of forever. It was as they feasted on their dinner the second night, I looked down and saw them eating and laughing, not because of the high they arrived with but with a natural love of life that they could finally be boys enjoying the simplicity that life had to offer. They were able to have full bellies and didn’t have to consider the thought of jumping onto the next high to forget their growling stomachs, they were free to be. It was right then that I felt I was standing in a moment that would define my life. I could start to see a life spent with boys from troubled places surrounding me at a table, making jokes, receiving all they needed, free to be kids that can dream and believe in that dream.
A table they could come and feast at that no one or no thing could tell them that their dream isn’t important or that it is not attainable.
A table where they could say the wildest dreams and desires and we would believe for that very thing.
A table where they could laugh uncontrollably about the most ridiculous things.
A table where they could would reach for seconds because they know that they can.
A table were they were loved, cared for, and protected from all the decisions of life that they didn’t need to make just yet.
A table where they were home.
I will never forget their faces, their sweet smiles, and they unique quirks that brought me unlimited joy.
I will never forget spending my 25th birthday swimming in a river all morning with them.
I will never forget 13 (well minus one because Bryan was taking a nap on the table– like always) rambunctious boys singing me happy birthday under a bamboo hut.
I will never forget those same 13 rambunctious boys getting under my skin and wiggling their way into my heart in less than 72 hours.
Truth be told, they were in my heart before they even piled out of that van the first night.
They were truly perfect in every way.
