Going to play with kids has always been somewhat of a struggle for me. I’m not one to gravitate towards a child and pick them up – like pretty much anything else, I’d rather have someone else initiate. I don’t usually know what to say (especially when I don’t speak Creole and they don’t know English). Many times, I’d rather be doing something behind the scenes.
Here in Haiti, we play with kids a lot. I’d say maybe half the days we’ve been here have had a big focus on just playing with kids. I struggle to find meaning in that and often feel like I’m on the outskirts (which is a pretty normal feeling for me – but that’s a different story). In all of the villages so far, the kids are so willing to jump out and play with you and the parents are just nowhere to be seen, so it hasn’t been as hard as it was in the past. But on Monday afternoon I was still nervous about going to Simonette, one of Mission of Hope’s focus villages, just to play with the kids. That morning, I prayed that I would bond with just one child during the afternoon.
We clambered off our yellow bus in Simonette that afternoon and walked around the village gathering kids to come play. When we got to the school with the playground, we were swarmed. A little girl came up and slid her hand in mine and sang softly, holding my arms around her neck. We played for a bit without talking because of the language barrier; I let her sing some more, I helped her climb up an old swing set without any swings, she played with my hair. I asked her what her name was – koman ou rele? – and she mumbled something that I guess was Juejui, but I’m really bad at understanding mumbled Creole names. Or Creole in general. I know approximately five phrases in Creole. We’re getting there.
A few minutes after we arrived, a group of kids had climbed onto the spinny thing (it’s a technical term) and some of my squadmates were spinning them. It turned out to be too many kids, and one of the littlest ones fell off and landed on the dusty ground. My squadmates immediately picked him up and tried to comfort him amidst tears and wailing while looking for injuries at the same time. He was determined to be okay and they put him on the ground to wipe off his face and body. The girl who had been holding onto me let go and ran over to him, using her own shirt to wipe his face and giving him a big hug. I tried to ask if he was her brother. She nodded, but who knows if she actually understood me? Language barriers are hard.
Later on, we ended up sitting together in the shade singing again. She tried to teach me a song in Creole, and I made do as best as I could. We sang together for a bit, then she ran off my lap to my squadmate Cass who was holding another little girl who was fast asleep. My little girl took the sleeping girl’s hand and used her shirt to wipe the sweat off her forehead and the snot off her face. At first Cass and I were concerned that she was sick or otherwise not okay because she was so warm. Cass sat down beside me with her girl and Juejui sat back down in my lap, singing quietly again and periodically reaching over to wipe off the other girl’s face. I noticed after a few minutes that I recognized the tune she was singing and began to hum with her, trying to fast-forward in my head so I could figure out what it was. She noticed and looked up at me, still singing quietly in Creole, and began to do the motions she had learned. We eventually got to the bridge of the song and it clicked: You tore the veil/You made a way/When You said that it is done.
I walked back to our yellow school bus later still humming At the Cross. That song holds lots of memories for me of God’s character and what He has done for me, tearing the veil and making a way for me (and you!) to come into His presence and know His love. It took me a while to think about what I had seen that day to realize how much that little girl resembled Jesus – what I understood to be her name even sounds like the Creole name for Jesus, Jezi.
I wonder if I would have treated her any differently if I had seen that resemblance earlier. Something that has resonated with me lately is to treat people as you would treat Jesus. Not the way you would like to be treated, or even “what would Jesus do” – but if Jesus was here on this earth, how would you treat Him?
