Several months ago, I had the opportunity to go to Ukraine for a few weeks. One of the major elements of our ministry was a 6-day VBS Camp for the kids in one of the towns near where we were staying. We had anywhere between 40-60 kids each day. Naturally, after hours and hours, and days and days with the same group of kids, we all got very attached to each other.
Oh, did I get attached!! It actually shocked me how quickly and deeply I got attached to everyone: the kids, our contacts and translators, my team, the people we were living with, people at the churches, everyone…everywhere. One little boy in particular, completely stole my heart.
His name is Valera. He is a precious little boy who, at the beginning of the week, had some very obvious walls up around himself. He rarely smiled and had intense eyes as he observed everything going on from the back row. He almost never had a shirt on, was always sweaty, and ran wild – leading one of my team members to liken him to a ‘lost boy’ from Peter Pan. A few days into our VBS, I sat down by him on the blanket, in the back row, and reached over and started to rub his back. Initially, he didn’t react at all, but kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He stayed like that through the rest of the lesson, and then got up to run and play. The next time we gathered up the kids, I was standing up and he ran right to me. He stayed facing forward, but leaned up against me. I put my arm over his chest and I won his heart. Apparently he is a ‘physical touch’ love language (so am I) and I won him over!! Sometimes, it wasn’t enough for me to be touching him, but he had to have his hand on me too, while he was leaning on me. Sometimes, during the lesson, he would sit right behind me, lean on my back, and rest his head on my shoulder so he could see. Whenever our bus would arrive in the afternoons, I would see him running, weaving through everyone, until he saw me… and then would run and dive at me. One day, he almost tackled me to the ground with his hug!! Every day that I would leave, I would smell like little sweaty Valera, but I loved every second!
The other day, I was watching ‘Hook’ on TV and began to think about Valera when the lost boys came on. I began to feel that familiar ache in my heart that comes from loving people and not being able to stay with them. The ache of a missionary heart! It’s hard leaving people that you love and your heart has connected to.
And a panic rose up inside of me. It’s hard – really, really hard – to leave parts of your heart with different people all over the world. How am I going to do it 11 different times in 11 different countries with 11 different groups of people next year? With no time to recover in between? There will be nothing left of my heart…nothing left of me. Jesus asks us to love every person in front of us with the same love He has for us. A love that is unrelenting, unrestrained, limitless, and all consuming. How? How can I possibly live like that and then leave? And have to do it over and over and over? All I could think of was ‘oh my heart…its going to hurt’. And I heard His voice. Clear, steady, and full of assurance. ‘MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU’
So, I choose the path of grace and love, even when it hurts. I choose HIM and I choose THEM.
