Coconut bombs and tree huts?

Walking up the building steps with its many small beds and brightly painted walls inside, I had to hold my breath long enough to gather my thoughts.  Only a week ago we had been to another and played with children; but mainly afflicted only by bruised knees and occasional scrapes.  This magnitude of affliction upon little bodies like theirs increases the younger the age, and never had a face.

 

Upon the seven of us entering, their little legs raced from the bedrooms and into the playroom.  All hungry for touch and affection; to be seen and played with as children without expiration dates. 

 

She saw me immediately.  Many came to touch my hand or sit at my legs, but she took my hand and held on.  I asked her name, “Srey”.  I told her mine.  Neither of us could pronounce the other’s name correctly.  We didn’t mind.  We played like we come from the same neighborhood — maybe we are.  The playroom emptied and we parted to our separate areas.  

 

Will I see my new friend again? 

 

As it might be expected, my time was spent in the Arts & Crafts room. Kids constructed their wise and foolish builder houses made of toothpicks on paper.  That time came and went leaving me wondering still.  These children of preciousness, loved by the King of Kings.  I wondered if they knew. 

 

Out to the courtyard we went to test my nimbleness on the junglegym.  Maybe the junglegym was more a broken slide and rusted seesaw, but OH the innovations of a child’s mind!  We may have been Swiss Family Robinson and we all would have agreed.  Throwing coconut bombs at pirates really could be a pastime there.

 

All of a sudden another girl of about 10 years runs up and grabs my hand and leads me into the building.  Feeling half confused and wondering where I was being led, I see down the hall my new friend come running to me.  She took my hand and held it tight then we went back outside.  But not to tree huts.  We sat on the curb that divided the cement and grass.  And there we sat not saying a word of Khmer or English.  However God’s presence was rich.  Much more was said in that silence than what I sometimes hear come from behind the pulpit.  Am I allowed to say that?  Guess I just did. 

The Kingdom of God is looking much more like it’s full of orphans, widows and prisoners than you and I may have ever understood.   The Kingdom is full of humble servants in need of a Savior. 

Not full of people in need of fire insurance. 

 

The three of us took pictures trying to position the camera perfectly to get us all in, often without much success.  Around 10 pictures resulted, as did more sitting in silence and watching the other children dancing about.  Then my new friend says first in English, “I love you”, and then said the same thing immediately after in Khmer.  Though I know very little Khmer, that was recognizable.  I returned the sentiment to her and then to the other girl at my right.  “Nom solai na” I say, and then again in English. 

 

Could it be that my new friend was teaching me how to love?

 

I am told that I’m loved and then I tell another that they are loved.  Not the kind that comes suddenly and fades with time or built upon time in comfort and upon personal needs.  No, not that kind.  The kind that never perishes or hinders and that comes from our eternal God and Father.  Never have I felt it so richly than from the words and presence of orphans.  Yes, my new friends are orphans with HIV.  The disease has inhabited their small bodies since infancy when they suckled their mother’s milk or right from the womb.  How God loves the orphans!  Here I thought I was bringing the love of God to them as I walked up those steps, but somehow I received it as well.  

One day they may die, as we all die one day.  And when her and I meet again in Heaven, maybe we’ll live in the same neighborhood and play together.