Month 7. Our team had
no idea how exhausted we were at this point in the race. Our contacts Louis and Erika (and their
daughter) recognized it right away. It
was not until the second or third full day at our ministry location that they called
it out on us in prayer. Erika and Louie’s
daughter, Louis, prayed for us to get rest and to be filled during the
month. It was at that moment that our
team realized how far along the race we had come. In fact, on our first day of ministry we could
barely keep up with the kids at Beam Africa.
Luckily there was a group from Campus Crusade there as well (for one
week). With winter break in full swing,
dozens of kids flocked to Beam Africa for breakfast and lunch. Between breakfast and lunch was their free
time at the park next to Beam Africa’s property. By free time I mean the time in which they
exerted their never-ending energy on us.
Good thing the Campus Crusade was there to slowly initiate us into the
day-to-day routine of Beam. Judging by that
first day, there was absolutely no way we could have jumped into ministry the
way we had throughout the race. I even
actually confessed to the team the first week in South Africa that I could not physically
or mentally play with kids for a month. By
no means am I the toughest guy in the world, but I had realized that I was worn
out. The longevity of the race had
caught up to me. But, with most of the
attention already on the other group (about 25 members), we just sat back and
filled in where we could. It almost felt
like we were extra bodies that first week -no complaints. When the Campus Crusade team left, leaving
our team the only team there, I remember asking the question of how we were
going to be able to handle the kids being out numbered about 60 (or more) to
8. This month we had 2 others (Real-Lifers)
join from an Adventures in Missions program.
It is a small exposure to those who are thinking of possibly doing the
World Race in the future.
So the Campus Crusade team had left leaving us with dozens
of high-energy souls at Beam Africa.
Among various facets of Beam Africa, one of the most concentrated
programs is the feeding program for the kids in the community. So after school the kids would come ready to
release their pent up energy of the day on us.
I cannot stress how tiring these kids made us. For a couple of days I was a horse to a kid
who was ¾ my height. This is who the
dialogue between him and I went the first time he asked me to give him a
piggy-back ride. “Put me here,” he said
pointing to my back. My automatic
response after taking one glance at him was ‘are you kidding me?’ Luckily I had done some push-ups the month
before so I thought I’d be able to get this guy on my back. So he climbed on my back and that’s when I realized
two things. I was stronger than I
thought I was and I was weaker than I thought I was. This kid was merciless. One piggy-back ride turned into me becoming
his horse at his beck-and-call. He tied
me up and called me Billiam. John is not
too close to sounding like Billiam, but I went along with it anyway. I mean who was I to turn down his dream of
playing pretend horse? After about a
week of this, I went into stealth mode and ran away from him. Now I know you must be thinking that that is mean,
but I had a bigger kid (not one of the small, cute, bite-size kids) on my
back. It wore me out. It was a work-out. I felt like I had entered a strong man
competition that week.
Later on at Beam Africa I had been unanimously selected to
be their punching bag and their wrestler. Pinball I had little boys jumping at
my back, twisting my neck, punching my spine, kicking my legs among other
mini-brutalities. So what did I do? That’s right I fought back with gentleness of
course. As the boys would jump on me the
most reasonable reaction was to flip them in the air. It was a win-win for them and me. They enjoyed being tossed in the air while I
enjoyed the work-out. But a guy can only
take so much of a beating. There’s a
point where there’s one too many punches, and one too many kicks. It’s a good thing that these kids love to
wrestle though. I don’t know exactly how
it all got started but I ended up wrestling with about 6-8 boys at a time. Who won?
Who do you think won? Me of
course. It wasn’t easy though. These kids were deceptively strong. They were ruthlessly aggressive. They came from all sides. At first they weren’t working together. One at a time they would take turns getting
their hits in, but then they got smart and strategized as to how they were
going to take me down. It turned into an
all-out war. Here’s a little visual for
you. Remember the scene from Beauty and
the Beast where Belle is surrounded by wolves in the forest and Beast comes out
of nowhere to save her. A brawl breaks
out to where Beast is wrestling countless wolves from every side. That’s what it looked and felt like. Believe it or not in the midst of kids piled
on top of me, that’s the scene that played through my mind. I now know what Beast went through. Someone has a video of me wrestling
them. As tiring as it was, I absolutely
loved playing with them. Their violence
kept on me on my toes. Their sneak- attacks
kept me aware of me alert like a ninja.
Those boys as much as they wore me out always put a smile on my
face. Was I exhausted? Yes.
But they enjoyed it. They don’t
have any opportunities to just wrestle for fun the way I did growing up. In other parts of the world other than the US,
kids grow up fast. Because of situation
and circumstance, the responsibilities of life are helplessly placed on them at
an early age. So, even if it was
voluntarily putting my body through a beating every day, it was worth it for
these kids to get the needed attention they desperately starve for daily.
