Hey all,
I want to share with you an experience that my team and I had the other day.
So my team and I were out in town the other day just hanging out before the big soccer game, and while we were waiting for the bus to pick us up this kid comes up to beg for money. Well, he wasn’t so much begging for money as much as he was straight up demanding it. “Now,” he would say. As we over and over again told him we didn’t have anything for him he began stepping closer to each of us and pointing at our things, touching us, he assertively demanded that we give him stuff. We we’re becoming pretty irritated when these two girls started helping us by translating for us. We didn’t get very far with their help at first. A man tried to drag him away from us. My teammate Brooke had a change of heart toward this kid in the moment, and she asked if we could pray for him. Instantly, I felt convicted for the way I was treating him, so I followed her lead. After a few minutes we got him to sit down with us. We asked him to close his eyes, put his hands together, and let us pray for him. We laid hands on him, I kept my eyes open, my friend starts to pray, and this sweet smile starts across his face.
After praying we were shooed away from the steps we were sitting on because we had become a sort of spectacle with the locals. We asked him to follow us to another area to sit. We learned that his name is Bezay (probably a butchered spelling) and that he is thirteen years old. Brooke and I told him to sit with the rest of our team as we went to some little shops to get him food and water. When we brought back bananas and water he refused to drink and eat. We’ve learned that when buying anything for street kids you have to open whatever it is because they will either refuse to take it, or they will take it and sell it back to shops to get money to buy glue or other stuff to get high off of. In his refusal I noticed that he had been holding this piece of trash to his mouth and breathing in and out. I asked if I could see it… it smelt really strong of fumes of some sort. I tried to throw it away, but he fought with me a little bit. I gave the tainted trash back after realizing another small crowd was gathering.
We slowly gained his trust as Brooke and I peeled bananas for him and just sort of goofed off with him. He let me throw the little bag of fumes away. Some lady told me he would just have more tomorrow. In the small crowd that had gathered through this short time with Bezay two young men were standing around watching a little too intently. Brooke and I were nervous that maybe they were the ones taking this kids money and replacing it with trash tinted with fumes to get high off of. I asked her if she thought we should ask to take him to the game with us. We didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, or for him to just go buy another piece of trash to get high from.
To cut some of the story short: Bezay did not attend the game with us. I was very upset about it.
On the bus ride to the game I couldn’t stop thinking about this kid, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Jesus would’ve done. He would’ve done more. He would’ve changed this kids entire situation. I’m not sure how He would’ve done it, but I know that He wouldn’t have just walked away. I understand this isn’t the only Bezay that I will meet. There are tons of Bezays all over the world. Are we not equipped to do the same thing Jesus would’ve done? Are we not called to love in crazy ways? I’m tired of “ministering” to people who already have Jesus. Jesus didn’t tell us to go find people He already found and hang out with them. He calls us to the exact opposite. The lost can’t find God on their own. God finds us. We don’t find Him. I’ve never known anything lost to ever make itself found.
I don’t really have any amazing revelation to end this with. I do know that the fix is simple. Love Jesus. Love His people with His love. I came to love Bezay because He is loved so deeply by God. Bezay doesn’t know who he truly belongs to. He doesn’t know just how deeply He is loved. After realizing that my words couldn’t express God’s love for him I quickly found ways for my actions to do exactly that. What gets me is not knowing whether he understood at all why we changed our attitudes toward him. Bezay saw that my team and I had compassion for him, but it wasn’t our compassion… it was Christ’s compassion… we didn’t have anyone to translate that for us.
