I was first to say yes when asked, “who wants to go get the kids?” And with aching shoulders, a sore back, and a giddy child-like heart today I detail what it actually looks (and feels) like to love a child from a Nepali slum.
I can just hear you on the other side of the computer asking yourself, “how does Paige do it?” And I want to tell you, I merely just go forward in where He’s asking me to. The stories that have been written before my very eyes since leaving the U S of A are incredible and I do appreciate you in reading my jumbled mess of thoughts.
How do you love them?
I promise you will go from loving the heck out of them to them bugging the heck out of you. They are rough, determined, hard to handle kids who haven’t been shown a whole lot of love in their life so everything and I mean everything is physical with them. They grab your hand and burst into a full on sprint with you at their side one moment while the next they are flipping themselves over a squadmate’s back as I am trying to have a spontaneous one on one in the midst of the dusty makeshift soccer field. Their every and only love language is PHYSICAL TOUCH and man do they take the need for that out of everyone very seriously.
Walk through the slums calling to them to come play with missionaries for the day and they come RUNNING. They thrown themselves into any white person’s arms and declare their love for you with cheesy fingers, grabbing you boldly in questionable places, and go from shy to inseparable in 0.2 seconds. Their love is contagious and they are willing to abandon all that is there for a chance to get attention from me, it’s quite special.
Parading through the cityscape is quiet the adventure with these little pests as they steal grapes and apples when the local fruit man is not looking, borrow the bike of whatever foolish person left it lying around, and make it a point to hitch hike on the back of every single utility truck hoping for a quicker arrival to who knows where. Gosh, you cannot help but laugh at their tenacity in seeking out thrill and being destructive to everything in their paths.
Deciding to skip the bus looked to be a grand idea to save a few innocent rupees here and there but little did I know the literal pains I would experience for almost a week after from the walking/skipping/running/jumping/piggy backing journey to the soccer field. With barely a bit of English in their heads or a bit of Nepali in mine we communicated via the tugging in a certain direction, the exampling of an action, or a laugh that meant everything in the world.
We ran for the longest of stretches. If Paige ran with the kids, all the other World Racers and their promised child ran too. If Jacob put a kiddo on his head, up went all the other kids on heads too. If Sylvia skipped on the pavement with a wide-eyed child on her back, guess who else was doing it too? Monkey see, monkey do is a breeze when these kids are craving your attention, they adore things in me I forget to see in myself. They bring about an adventurous, relentless energy in me that is so of the Lord. He has doesn’t want me to merely love those kids enough for that day, He asks that I pour so much patience, grace, physical affection, attention, and fun into them for the week, the month, the year. He wants my ever best self in that moment that is ending second by second with those kids. You slowly forget about the lice you could acquire when loving a slum kid. You forget where their hands have been. The e coli (our teammates were hospitalized coming into contact with those nasty germs the week before.) Their smell. How “funny” they are dressed. The fact that they understand little to nothing you tell them besides the word “Yeshu” (Jesus.) And the thought of what happens to them when we leave, who feeds them, or where their parents actually are-you learn to give that all up to God and just be present.
Missionaries are usually determined worthy or unworthy, successful or unsuccessful, selfless or selfish by the amount of orphan heads they kiss, cute Instagram hand holding photos of those little stinkers, or mouths fed but there is so much more. I find myself checking my heart about what I am actually doing in this world to try to make a difference. No amount of photos posted or tallied marks on an “orphan mouths fed” church board back home will bring pieces of heaven to earth.
The most mundane moments are most special:
Like rubbing the back of a child whose mom probably never did that for him like mine did before bed.
Like dancing around in a circle with young rambunctious boys on our heads as they chant a Nepali song and we attempt to sing along, full of giggles.
Like having a slum boy put my arms around him in wanting to be held and held tighter, held longer.
Like watching the wannabe American soccer players lift up the child “Big Red” when he scores the goal winning their round of futsal, everyone beaming.
Like knowing that it is important to tell these boys about Jesus because He is their one true sense of hope, comfort, love, and escape.
It was heaven that day as I sat in love watching our bags from kids turned pickpocketers out of habit (they don’t know any better). Overlooking a circle of about 45 street boys eat helpings two and three with their hands not knowing when they would be fed substantially next. The ONLY reason I am able to be say YES to God in these situations is knowing that just as He is ever present by MY side He exists everywhere alongside those slum kids from their bedside to their adventures in the sewage waters to the neglect they face daily. While they listen to bible stories of Jesus healing, I dream of Jesus healing the land and bringing redemption to the families in Nepal that in MY MIND have nothing.
Checking my heart again, I realize they have all they need. A God who fights for them and a friend in me for that day.
I have decided to just love everyone well, whether that’s a Nepali seamstress, a street beggar, a woman stuck working in a dance bar to pay her college tuition, or a slum kid rough and tough, you never know just where you’ll see Jesus.
