The kids at the market pinch me, smack my butt, rip things from my hands, stare at me, and mock me. I have only been to the market 3-4 times while being here because every time I go it has been very stressful. We live in a compound with kids that are trained very well. They are polite, kind, respectful, and super sweet. I was sort of expecting all of the kids in Harbu Chulule to be like that, however, my expectations were incorrect.
When I went to the market in the first week, I was incredibly overwhelmed. I bought a bunch of bananas and 5 kids swarmed me and one ripped a banana out of my hand. If the kids weren’t being pests, they were staring at us along with the rest of the people from the market. It is very overwhelming, no doubt. I went again last week with Savanah and the kids were pinching us; one pinched her so hard she started bleeding. Another kid hit her in the butt with a water jug and another threw a potato at her back.
I have been talking with God a lot about the kids and He has shown me so much more of their heart. I am still not sure why the kids at the market love to be mean to us, however, other instances when I have talked with the kids, they have been sweet. While my team was getting stuff from a store, kids started surrounding the outside of the store and just watched us. Since I wasn’t getting anything, I decided to go talk to them. I asked them their names and that was pretty much all I could understand. However, God showed me the joy that these children had. We sat and talked about random things for about 10 minutes. Another instance is when we were working on flattening out the road and the kids came to watch us and help us. They came and grabbed the shovels out of our hands and started breaking apart the bumps in the road. These kids desire love and attention. It has been hard loving the kids at the market because they haven’t given us a chance to talk to them or love on them. They just run up to us, take something, hit us, and run away. In that, God is showing me that I need to be pushing even harder into loving them. If they hit me or take from me, I need to continue to be gracious and loving. If they stare at me, I need to keep smiling. By the end of our three months here, I hope the kids at the market are able to see that we desire to give them so much love from their Heavenly Father.
