“Do you know frown?” I asked the young boy during our reading time.
He looked at me with a confused face, and said “I don’t know frown.”
I proceeded to show him a big smile, and then changed it to a frown.
“Happy *smiles*; sad *frowns*; smile *smiles*; frown *frowns*,” I explain.
“Can you show me a frown?” I ask as I make an over emphasized frown. He laughs. I laugh.
He attempts his way at a half closed smile, but then erupts into laughter.
“I can’t frown,” he proclaims through broken laughter.
I spend the rest of the day contemplating the words that came from this young boys mouth. While only 15 he has grown up in a war, and walks hours to cross the border in order to attend school. He is marginalized at home for being Karen in Burma, and he is marginalized by the society he sought out for refuge, Thailand, for being Karen. In his family he is the only voice of Christ’s hope. Yet, he does not know frown.
(15) For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of son-ship.
Help Save the Kids (HSTK) works to bring the joy of Christ to the Karen underprivileged children of Burma, and his joy is abundantly evident! The children, who have a home to go to, choose to go home, as one child explained, to share this love with my community. HSTK is creating a model of Christ centered sustainability that their students will then be able to implement within the marginalized communities they hope to once again call home.
(21) The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
I do not know frown he said, and through our four days at HSTK I learned why. I thought of all the times children in America who frown for the smallest of things. Things they don’t need, things that are not of any major consequence, but they seek to get their way, so, they frown. Yet, this young boy, who knows deep heartache and pain, proclaims such a joy that has him seeking only what God wants, and in that knowing that God provides.
Thank you dear friend, and thank you Abba, for providing spiritual guidance through a child who knows destruction, but chooses to not frown, chooses love!
The young boy asks the reader, “do you know frown?”
Visit: http://helpsavethekids.org/
