This is Maria. She was my buddy this month. She has been at this orphanage for 10 years and she is 10 years old. To say this is an orphanage implies this little girl is adoptable; that would be false information. This place is more of a orphan home. The kids in Swaziland are not up for adoption to anyone outside of Swaziland. So Maria is a 10 year old who knows nothing more than the top of this mountain. No wonder she is a little uninterested in getting to know someone who will only be around for a month. There have been ‘helpful’ people in and out of this place her entire life. I thought about that constantly; and came to the conclusion that I was here to love her the way Jesus loves her, and ultimately leave her with His love and not my own; because she was right why invest in someone who is only going to be around for a month?
So, instead of trying to make her like me, I would just be who Jesus made me to be and invite her into the love I had for her. She is a child so she needed (and longed for as I found out) structure and discipline. The day I gave her those things was the day she started warming up to me. It was the sweetest relationship, at first she wouldn’t look at me, but smiled when I would hug her. I would have to ask her to hang out with me until one day I was walking through the playground and she sought me out and asked if I wanted to play with her! Oh My Gosh! Yes!! I forgot what it was I was supposed to be doing and dropped all the things and went and played with her. Then she started sitting with me during chapel, and smiling at me, and asking for more time with me.
While this was all playing out I was thinking about the relationship humans have with God in this same way. He initiated the love for us. He pursues us, and it is nice to be pursued! He is the one who died for us when we were still sinners. The Lord was pursuing me back in the day, and when I noticed I was ashamed, I couldn’t look at Him, but I smiled when I felt His presence. Then one day I grasped what He did for me and that there was no need for me to be ashamed of my filth because he had covered the stains with His blood and what He saw was someone very different than the person I thought I was. He continued to pursue me, and I started doing more and more things with Him – then I started asking Him to do things with me! Do you know what His response was to me? Oh My Gosh! Yes!! (well not exactly those words but you get the picture)
Being Maria’s buddy taught me a lot this month. The Lord has been revealing His heart to me for innocents. He continues to open my heart to love them more. He has shown me through loving Maria, His love for all His children and His unrelenting pursuit of them.
