On our last day in Thamel, Nepal, a few friends and I were walking through the streets trying to find snacks for travel days. As we are about to head home a young boy came up to us. He looks about 9 or 10. He is wearing a very oversized and very grimy purple sweatshirt. His hands and face were dirty also. I automatically knew he was a street kid. He looks straight into my eyes, points at the nearest bakery store and says, “donut please?” I’d become accustomed to beggars constantly coming up to me in India and Nepal, and all our leaders had warned us to be careful with them because we can’t give money and food to everyone. So my initial reaction was to shake my head and look away, but not before I noticed his eyes. There was something different about this boy. I could see the weight of the world in his big brown eyes for a split second before my friends were pulling me to walk away. I let them lead me, but as I looked back over my shoulder I see him pull out a bag and start to breathe deeply into it with an expression of panic and desperation. I had just learned that street boys at a very young age get addicted to a certain kind of glue that when they breathe it in it prevents them from feeling hunger. I started to feel tears build up behind my eyes. “Stop it Lis, it’s not a time to cry. Just put him out of your mind.” I start to tell myself this until I get a realization and I stop abruptly. Why? Why do I have to say no to every beggar? Why do I have to walk away? I turn to my friend Taylor and ask if she wants to go back and find him. Turns out she had been feeling the same way about the boy as I had. So we go back and ask him if we can buy him some food. To our surprise he brings us into a store and reaches up on his tippy toes for two boxes of digestive cookies. One for his sister and one for himself. I fully expected him to pick out a bunch of sweets and junk food. Afterward we go to check out, and just like that, he was gone. But he left an impression on my heart that isn’t going to leave as quickly. I kept thinking about what it would be like to live without a home, relying on the kindness of strangers every morning, or scrummaging through trash just to stay alive. I tried to imagine how it would feel to be so hungry that I sniffed glue.
I believe that the Holy Spirit put that boy there and a pull on my heart toward him that day for a reason. There was a lesson of gratitude hidden in the folds of his oversized jacket and of compassion deep in the eyes of a street boy I will never see again. I am so blessed to follow a God who constantly reveals his character to me in such beautiful and creative ways, and who cares about me enough to teach me new lessons every day through the people and situations around me.
