The Boy with the Purple Pants
“I see a dead man on the side of the road not surrounded by dark birds (you know, the ones you’d expect, ravens and vultures) but surrounded by doves.”
Ummm… okay… Jason’s “word from the Lord” didn’t really make any sense (and was a little morbid). But we wrote it down just in case there was any merit to it.
It was another hot morning and we started the way we always do with an exercise in “listening for God’s voice”. We learn that God speaks so often and why don’t we listen often enough! We talk frequently about how our plans are always plan B. We give God complete permission to lead and guide. If He speaks, we move.
It takes time to learn the difference between God’s voice and our own. Sometimes it’s even hard to distinguish the voice of the world or even the enemy. But the more we strain our ears to hear (Christ said “my sheep hear MY voice”) the more we fall in love with the timbre of our Father.
We left that morning for our visit to the school and on the way back for lunch passed a very gaunt, skinny boy lying on the side of the road. He was apparently sleeping but it was deep enough (and his breathing shallow enough) that he may or may not have actually been dead. We didn’t really notice that morning, but as we can back a second time at the close to our afternoon, we realized that he hadn’t moved in the 4-5 hours between when we passed him that morning and when we saw him then.
Our leader, Ryan, suggested we check on him. He was incredibly malnourished and unresponsive. He barely opened his eyes but couldn’t seem to focus on anyone or anything. He wouldn’t respond to our voices, to our offer of water or of food. He didn’t resist when we tried to pull him into a sitting position. He was completely unresponsive. We prayed, but as soon as a crowd began to swarm the “group of blanc’s (white people)” we realized we needed to keep moving.
As we left him sitting there, I began asking one of our translators about his situation. He chuckled at my suggestion we call an ambulance (his exact response was a very kind “we don’t have the luxury of such things in Haiti”), but agreed the boy needed medical attention if he was going to survive. As we delved into the conversation further, we began to talk about the “best case scenario”.
Let’s say we could get him to medical care. Let’s say he would start eating and eventually gain some strength back. Let’s even go so far as to say his situation gave him his speech and alertness back. All within the realm of hope, right?
Our translator explained how the doctors would treat him when we brought him. However, his extended stay would depend on continued advocacy. Sure, for a few weeks he’d be given adequate attention. But after a few weeks of no one coming to visit, no family to provide information, no friends to show concern…chances are he’d be neglected for more urgent cases. I don’t mean abused, I mean neglected.
After I recovered from the horror of such a statement, I asked the question I was afraid to ask: so what would happen then?
Chances are he’d be taken back to that same spot, clean and as healthy as they could manage to let him fend for himself while the hospital devoted their resources to medical cases where someone is present to care.
Think About It
What if saving your life depended on someone, literally anyone, just speaking up and saying you were worth saving. That boy…the boy with the purple pants (we never learned his name, he never spoke) creates a complicated situation for the people of Haiti (I’ve re-written this paragraph four times trying to explain how complicated it truly is). But didn’t Christ leave the 99 to find the 1? Did He look on us and say “that one’s worth it – keep working on them”. Didn’t he advocate when no one else would?
Will you be the one, the “anyone” who steps up and says “yep, that one’s worth our time”?
Part 4 “Proud”
