Adoption is one of the best illustrations we have of the gospel. Just as loving families welcome children into their homes, God invites us into his forever family and makes us his sons and daughters.
For the month of October, leading up to Orphan Sunday on November 3rd, we will be sharing stories on the theme of adoption and orphan care – stories of street kids, orphans, and children at risk, and the ways our World Racers have seen God care for them. We’ll share stories of Racers caring for children, fighting for them, and even bringing them home to stay.
And on Monday, November 4th, we’ll share a special story that is close to our hearts.
To kick off our series, here is a story from Megan Kennedy of the July 2013 Q Squad. While long term care is by far the best approach to caring for children at risk, sometimes God works a miracle to get a child out of a desperate situation. And sometimes he does it in just ten days.
The first few times I played with Dara, he hit me.
Dara is from a village down the street – one notorious for violence and drunkenness. Our team’s trips to the village this month have involved breaking up fights, consoling crying children, and attempting to teach kids to share as they beat each other over the chance to be held.
Dara was hard to love at first. He didn’t play nice. He was mean to the kids around him, and he didn’t like to share.
A few days after meeting him, Dara and his friend, Tia, found out where we lived. My teammate, Erika, and I, were leaving for a run, and Dara and Tia stood outside our home, searching for empty bottles to sell. The boys began to run with us, recognizing our faces from the village. After about five minutes of running together, we stopped and gave piggyback rides around the city of Kampong Cham.
Dara didn’t hit me that day.
He soaked in all the love given and refused to go home when we returned from our run. After we gave the boys some food, clean clothes, and water, they finally left to go home. Five minutes later, they returned, running, with tears streaming down their faces. The dogs had scared them. We ended up walking them back to their village that evening and sent them on their way.
Since that night, Dara has returned to our house every day.
Bright and early each morning, Dara’s eyes peer through the hole in our gate, waiting for the first face he sees to let him in to play.
At first we didn’t know how to respond.
“We’re leaving in 10 days. We’re not going to be here to love him anymore,” I thought initially. “I don’t want to create a cycle of dependency that will have to be broken when we leave.” My mind swarmed.
But as Dara continued to come back, I fell in love with his sweet smile and infectious laughter. The thought of not loving him simply because I wouldn’t see him in a week seemed completely foolish, and to be honest, a bit cold-hearted.
I will love while I can, I decided. My team began to love him with all they had as well.
Then one night, everything changed.
As one of my teammates opened our gate after dinner to take out the trash, she found Dara curled up, sobbing, outside our home. Through his tears, we gathered that something had gone terribly wrong back home. In a village known for violence, we assumed the worst.
What had caused this little boy to travel all alone in the dark, past the dogs that terrified him, with urine-filled pants, to find solace in the one place he knew would show him love?
The specific details don’t matter much anymore, but that night we learned that his home wasn’t a safe place for him. We learned that the reason this little boy turned to violence was because violence was all he knew. It was all he had ever experienced.
From that point on, Dara became an honorary member of our team. He joined us for everything we did. Ministry in the village, free time, guitar lessons, team time, meals, and morning devotions. All day long, Dara was by our side.
Over the period of one week, as Dara began to experience this love that he had never felt before, he was completely transformed.
No longer was violence his first response. He learned to communicate how he was feeling with words. He began to listen. To say thank you. To laugh. To love.
He loved love. He loved to be loved. And he loved to love us.
We realized he needed a permanent safe place after we left, so we found an orphanage in Phnom Penh that would be Dara’s new home. There he will play sports, make friends, learn English, and continue to love and be loved. He won’t worry about where his next meal will come from or if his house will remain peaceful for just one night. There is a bright future ahead for Dara.
It’s difficult to sum up the impact this child had on me in a mere 10 days. I’ve learned to love better. To have patience. To see the best in people. To remember that each person has a story, and that each person’s story makes them who they are today. I’m reminded that God has good plans for his children and that not one child is ever forgotten.
But above everything else, God has shown me how much he loves me. How much he loves all his children.
I’ve never experienced what it’s like to have a child, and I’ve heard that you can’t understand the love of a parent until you yourself become one. But for those 10 days, I lived through the closest thing to parenthood that I’ve ever experienced. And I understand now, a bit more than I did a few weeks ago, the love a parent has for a child.
Dara became our team’s child that month. We bathed and fed him. We watched over him. We clothed him. We were there when he woke in the morning and we lowered our voices at night to help him sleep.
Dara drove me crazy at times. Sometimes I was furious with him. I was exhausted. I was annoyed.
But above all else and through it all, I felt so much love for this child. Love like I’ve never felt for anyone else. When he laughed, it warmed my heart and when he cried, my heart broke with him. When he discovered something new that brought joy to his life, I delighted with him. And when he was sad, I held him and whispered that it was going to be all right.
As I sit and reflect, God whispers softly to me that the love I feel for this child is but a mere fraction of the love he has for me, his daughter, and for all his children. He delights in our joys and smiles when we laugh. His heart breaks when we’re lost, and he’s always ready and waiting to pull us into his loving embrace. It overwhelms him with gladness when we turn to him, realizing that he is a good father who wants nothing more than to lavish his children with love.
When we begin to understand how much we are loved, it changes things. It changes how we see ourselves and how we see others. We begin to walk in that love, loving better because we understand just a bit more how much our father loves us.
God wants us to experience his love more each day. And he’s constantly placing people and things in our lives to show us just that. Dara has been one of many of those reminders for me this month. And for Dara, I am eternally grateful.
We will be sharing more stories like this about orphans, street kids, and other children at risk who need love, so make sure you SUBSCRIBE to this blog to receive the updates in your inbox.
Come November 4th, you’ll be glad you did!
