Every Saturday here at Threads of Hope, we visit four different villages to see the youth within the community. These kids range from ages three to twelve. We accompany one of our hosts as she tells them bible stories and plays games with them. Since we don’t speak Tagalog, other than helping with the games, the only real thing we can give them is our presence. In some of these villages you can tell from the dirt that covers their faces and bodies that they haven’t been bathed in weeks. Their clothing is nothing more than a single oversized dirty T-shirt. They are barefoot and they have nothing to protect them from the rocky and dirt paths on which they live.
In my helplessness I ask “What good is our presence?� Even though this was only the first week into the ministry I was already struggling with what our purpose here was; my purpose. What do I have to offer these kids? What do I tell my friends and supporters back at home? What do I tell you? But in my restlessness I came across a verse. “Whenever two or three gather in my name, I will be there.� Matthew 18:20. Perhaps our wordless presence with these kids was a prayer. Maybe those words that Jesus spoke were a promise. We can rejoice in the fact that God does not stay coolly distant or have an objective posture in the midst of our suffering. Instead we have a God who loves us so much that He came so close to us to weep with us and to bear our burden. Maybe our physical presence among those who are suffering, who are poor, who are oppressed, who are unloved, is an embodied prayer that invokes “I am there among them.� God with us. Emmanuel. God be with them. I know He was, is, and will.
