“Jonathan, stop biting me.”
“Jonathan, don’t color on me.”
“Jonathan, don’t pinch me.”
Jonathan stares off in the distance, I’m not sure at what this time. Shrill screams and him yelling ‘no!’ at the top of his lungs will randomly spout out while shaking his head in all directions. I’m slowly losing patience again today…
Two weeks ago I came to Catacamas to start teaching English at a Christian school. The first day we met with the teachers and the team began to divide up amongst classes throughout the day. One by one each person from the team chose a class and I was last. One of the teachers suggested I go to the preschool class to help the new teacher who just started working here.
Remember the show Recess on the Disney channel? And the preschoolers had their own tribe, war paint, spears, and just ran in circles speaking their own language. Me too.
There was one that stuck out…Jonathan. He didn’t speak any english and surprisingly not even spanish. Something was different about Jonathan. Any time a child his age would come around he would cover his ears and scream, if someone touched him…he would shake his head and cry, if a teacher tried to help him…he would scream again. He would stare off in a daze…his eyes fogged over…not fixated on anything specific. He would pinch. He would bite. He wouldn’t speak…just moans and groans. There was something there that resembled autism, but who knows…we’re not qualified. All I do know is that Jonathan was behind and if this path continued this way then he would be that kid who “fell between the cracks,” and I couldn’t fathom the thought. The teacher came to me at the end of day one and said, “What can you do?” As if I had any answers. All I did know was that he absolutely needed one on one attention.
Class for Jonathan and I started to look like learning consistency at first. He would learn basic things like grabbing his own coloring book, grabbing his own crayon bag, and meeting me at the table outside at 9am. We would go over colors, coloring in the lines (attempting that still), and finishing something we start. You know…there’s this book I adore that is about a fox and a boy. The fox longs to be tamed by the boy to have something special. At one point in the book the fox says:
‘You should have come back at the same time,’ said the fox. ‘If for example you come at four o’ clock in the afternoon, I shall start feeling happy at three o’clock.’ (The Little Prince)
As each day began to pass, Jonathan became more at ease. He would come to school, grab his book, grab his crayons, grab my hand, and he would lead me to the table this time. Sometimes he would sit on my lap and sometimes…he wouldn’t. Sometimes he would actually offer crayons to me so I could color with him. Sometimes he would throw crayons everywhere or even at other teachers or sometimes yell at everyone who walked by. From 9 to 12 every day…Jonathan and I would sit together.
It was one week later that Jonathan bit me. It was that day Jonathan grabbed scissors and tried to cut me. The day he pinched me, ripped my shirt, drew on it with a crayon, and didn’t ‘meet me’ like the fox and little boy would in the book. This was the day that I became defeated. Each day with Jonathan is mentally and physically exhausting and each day I would wonder how the hell I got myself into this situation. But this day was different. This was day that I gave up.
I was investing so much into this small little human being; time, love, and prayer. And this was the day that I felt like nothing was being given in return – that Jonathan didn’t want to invest in me.
I want to invest in those who want to invest back in me. I want to feel loved, valued, respected, and like that person wants to be in my life like how I am in theirs. The Holy Spirit completely is using Jonathan right now as my bright and shining north star. What is it to actually invest in something that wants nothing to do with you in return? To love something so much and it not trust you.
You know what’s beautiful about the fox and the boy. The boy comes back to the field at 3 o’clock and leaves at the end of the afternoon. The boy doesn’t stay there or live with the fox. They describe the price of happiness together and value one another more with time apart each day. Jonathan and I have 9am – 12pm each day with one another and we’re discovering the price of happiness with each passing day. Today, Jonathan went down the slide without me. I’m discovering happiness each day with the little things and remembering that Jonathan’s investment in me looks far different. His investment is grabbing his own coloring book, his own crayons, offering me his last chocolate cookie, sliding down the slide on his own, but making sure I saw him the whole way down.
Sometimes people investing back in you might just be seeing the things you invested in them lived out.
Cheers to my Little Prince in Honduras.
