Content and a little smug over how the handshake went, I sat back down on the curb and my girl Sweetie came back over and had a seat. Shortly, VJ came and joined us, looking upset and wounded. Now he wasn’t physically hurt but he looked the way a person looks after losing a fight. He was in retreat. At that moment Shawn came around and began causing some mischief. At first I thought, “maybe he doesn’t know his own strength.” He was much bigger than VJ, after all. After talking to him, however, it became evident that he did. Him and VJ were not on good terms and the violence I watched two 11-year-old boys evoke in one another awoke a sadness in me. I found out later that the two boys had been provoking one another for most of the time, VJ verbally and Shawn physically.
The two boys and I in “the calm.”
I watched Shawn come up behind VJ and kick him or punch him as hard as he could. I later heard what VJ said to Shawn about his mom that made him so angry (it was very seriously not a yo-momma joke.) I saw them threaten one another with bricks and rope and broken glass and wooden bats. I held back their arms before they could throw, took the rope before it cut off circulation, stood between them, and did whatever I could to stop them from leveling one another. Eventually it was time to leave and nothing made the situation better. It got worse actually. More of the boys got involved and it was like I had watched two little gangs form right before my eyes. Hungry to gain the upper hand, they continued to batter one another.
As we started to pack up and head out, the children followed us. We made our way across the road and up to the bakery, closing the iron-barred gate behind us. On the inside, there was us and on the outside, there were the kids. They yelled and shook the gate, fighting, wailing, flirting, begging…
And that’s when I saw it. In their whirlwind of emotions, each one a tempest of their own making, clashing and colliding with one another, I caught a glimpse of a fault. It was just the smallest break in the storm, but it was a break nonetheless. In it I saw children void of love. I saw desperation and a severe lack of hope and investment. I saw worn out desires and instinctual, feral ploys to get what little, earthly objects they could lay hands on. I saw a deep-set need within them for a father who would nurture them and be an example to them. I saw that, even as I had a clear view into their destitution, they were blind to it, searching for something to fill the void that they would never be able to fill. Not if they didn’t encounter Jesus.
I saw lives of searching and yearning, of unsung beauty. I saw lives of hurt and despondence and sightlessness. I saw who I used to be and I couldn’t bear it any longer. I turned to hide my face and I wept and wept and wept. In that moment, my heart was broken for VJ and Shawn and all of the kids alongside them.
As we drove away, sitting in the back of a rusty white pick-up, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever see their faces again. In this story, I’m afraid there is no happy ending to give you the fuzzies. My team is leaving the country in a few short days to head to Nicaragua and the odds that we cross paths with any of the children before then is fairly low. But just because our paths diverge from one another does not mean that God’s does too.
Thank you, God, for an opportunity to understand your love for us in such a raw way and for using us to plant seeds. And thank you for always, always, always being by our sides no matter what walk of life we are in.
