With two months left, that is all people seem to talk about these days. Now that we can all tell our loved ones the exact minute we will arrive at home (by the way June 30th– Charleston airport- 9:54am) now we are starting to realize that this thing really is winding down. So the questions start…Where will you be living? What will you be doing? How the heck do we go back to ‘normal’ life?
But most of the time, I am mentally not there yet. My mind can’t make the jump…for example…
See the other day we went to one of the beautiful parks here is Ho Chi Minh City where we were told we would be helping with a children’s ministry. The kids show up smiling and giddy and we start the program. Until someone tells me they are from a shelter, I am clueless. They are clean and healthy and happy and playful. They are so well behaved the 3 of us there to help don’t really have much to do.
Until I see two of the smallest ones, a little less behaved, a little separated from the group. They are bouncing around constantly, always within an arms distance of each other, usually holding hands.
They are instantly my favorites, my kids.
So I pull out the ol’ crowd pleaser, my camera, and start to entertain them that way. I take pictures of them, I show them, we laugh…it’s one of my favorite games.
They rarely glanced back at the other kids to see what games they should be playing. They are content with each other.
It doesn’t take long for them to warm up to me. Before I know it they were grabbing at my hands wanting to hold them and leaning on me when they race back from one of their excursions. They would talk to me in Vietnamese and I would talk back in English. We understood each other perfectly.
When we gave all the kids lunch as part of the program my kids carried theirs around as they continued to play. They couldn’t be bothered by eating…or were they saving the meal for later? Do they have parents? Is this their only meal all day?
It was obvious these kids weren’t from the shelter. Who really knows where they actually came from? But I do know when it came time to go, the kids from the shelter orderly lined up and left, while my two little munchkins bolted through their line and took off for the playground in the distance. So whether they were to be joined by their loving parents momentarily or off to venture to find a place to sleep for the night I will never know.
I will never see these kids again and I have to be ok with that. But what will happen to them? What will they grow up to be? I want nothing more than to flash-forward 20 years to see what they become. Will they know that they are loved by their Heavenly father? Will they tell others about the good news? Who will they be?
This has happened time and time again. We are in people’s lives just long enough to get attached and then we must leave. But I guess that’s just the way life goes sometimes. To not allow ourselves into these situations would be the easy way out. But aren’t we here to share the love?
