That’s what I learned in Granada, during S-squad´s debrief there.
But it’s a little deeper than just a couple bandaids.
So…let me explain.
Kevin, one of the boys from Jinotepe, decided to come visit us in Granada (it’s about an hour away and costs about 100 cordobas – give or take $5USD) – even though we told him not to. It was a lot of money for him and also not good for anyone to have to say goodbye multiple times. But 15 year old boys prove to be strong-willed and stubborn even in Nicaragua, and he ended up coming again the next day. About 2 days before we’d left Jinotepe, he’d gotten a spike almost all the way through his foot. Read more about that HERE.
So, when Keryn and I found him once more, I got my first aid kit and sat him down and told him I needed to look at his foot.
Stubborn should be this boy’s middle name. He refused, and kept on refusing until I just gave up. I realized then that we had an audience – a 17 year old boy named Fransisco.
Fransisco would fit the stereotypical teenage male who I’d be afraid to make eye contact with outside the US. He was dressed like he lived on the streets, had a strange look in his eyes, and overall gave off a red-flag vibe to me. Maybe I’ll get some bad missionary points for saying this, but he just freaked me out. So when he asked me to look at a wound on his foot (“I really need your help,” he’d said to me, “my foot is very bad.”) I was hesitant. It was debrief for me, I didn’t have to do anything. I could pretend to be like any other tourist and pay no attention.
But even as that thought ran through my mind, I knew it was a lie.
So I sat down and looked at his foot. He didn’t have shoes, so his feet were as dirty as you’d expect a kid’s feet to be; someone who walks miles barefoot every day. The “wound” was a blister that had ripped open and was a little bloody but not too bad. I mean, if it was on my foot, I would probably just leave it alone. But I started cleaning it out anyway.
As I was doing this another boy came up to me. He was 11 or 12 if I remember right. He kept asking me to look at his foot and showed me some burn scars on his right foot – he said he’d burned his foot a year ago while coooking soup. I told him that there was nothing I could do for his foot now and that his foot was fine. He frantically started looking for a wound that I could clean.
Frantically.
After a few minutes he found a small one on his ankle. I finished with Fransisco and cleaned and stuck a bandaid on the younger boy’s ankle. He started looking for another place I could stick a bandaid, but couldn’t find any. He kept on searching for something, anything that I could stick a bandaid on, but gave up after a few minutes.
I think it was that time that I finally remembered something – these kids who live on the streets, they’re looking for love. They ache for it, even if they won’t admit it. Even if it’s only for a minute or two…they are hungry for it. If that looks like getting a couple bandaids, they’ll take it. They’ll take what they can get. That realization broke my heart…and I realized that if that’s what it takes for a child who has nothing to feel loved and to feel as though they’re worth something, then I’ll do it. I’ll get my hands dirty and use some Neosporin and bandaids and love them in a small and simple way that might just look insignificant to me.
I can’t imagine craving attention so much that I’d look for wounds so a complete stranger could clean them and stick a bandaid on them. I can’t imagine living on the streets at that age, begging for food and money in a tourist city where there is abundance just out of my reach. I can’t imagine the lives they’ve lived already, the hell they’ve seen in the world around them, the numb indifference they’re treated with day in and day out. Something in me is screaming, Lord, they’re only children! They’re innocent little children.
Jesus’ words, “Let the little children come to me” is in my head. I can’t get it out. Dirty feet, ripped up clothes, hungry, smelly, and all. Jesus loved them all. We picture kids as being clean, for the most part. Kids are supposed to be cuddly and cute and soft on the eyes, aren´t they? What about the ones who are dirty because no one takes the time to give them a bath? The ones who don’t have a mom to mend the holes in their clothes? What about the ones who’ve never been given a loving touch and only ever know harmful ones? It makes us uncomfortable to see and know these things because something deep down tells us that THIS IS NOT OK.
I’m pretty positive those two boys live on the streets. I don’t know their stories. I could assume that they don’t have families they go home to at the end of the day. Did Fransisco make me uneasy? Oh yes. Maybe he had bad intentions. Maybe he’s actually really dangerous. And even the 11 year old boy…it crossed my mind that he might be a drug addict by how he was acting. But I don’t need to know those things. I don’t need to know the reasons. All I need to know is that God is good and He’s intentional. My God doesn’t do coincidences. I can trust that He’s putting people in my path for a reason…and I can trust that if He presents the opportunity to love a stranger – I’m supposed to take it. I’m supposed to act in love and let Him do the rest. I can trust that God somehow used those bandaids.
So if you find yourself on Gringo Street in Granada, walk through the central park there and look around – you might see a couple kids who are hungry for love…and they might ask you for something as small as a bandaid.
