The Least of These

In Africa we have a trash pit. Each night one of the kids has the chore of taking out the garbage and every few nights they have they joy of setting it on fire. It is about 4 feet by 4 feet by 6 feet deep in the back corner of our yard.

We have kids that come to play on the swing the boys and I made in front of our house. They come from the village and many of them are orphans or vulnerable children that are looking for entertainment on the swing or from the odd white people who built it. They are kids, sometimes sweet, sometimes mean, they play with things, things break, they are kids.

I am not a kid person, things break and I get frustrated. Kids do things they should not and I get irritated. I love, but it is so conditional that kids have a hard time living up to the conditions.

A few days ago the kids were in the trash pit. I yelled out, “Uh-uh! Get out of there!” They laughed and ran away from me to the swing in the front. I knew they were just playing around and I was frustrated as they caused the side of the pit to collapse, allowing dogs and other critters to get in and out. Thinking it was time to seriously limit kids access to us and our home I went out front.

One boy stuffed something in his pocket quickly, another under his shirt. They laughed.

“What do you have? Show me.” I said. If they thought they did something wrong we were going to correct it and I did not like them running from me.

“I won’t be mad,” I said, not totally honest.

After several minutes of denial I resorted to patting down the smallest boy, I had to let them know they could not come into our home and take what they liked or damage things that I had to fix. I pulled an apple core out of his pocket.

I asked the next boy what he had. “Nothing.” he said.

I tapped his shirt, “Show me, I won’t be mad,” with a new tone of sincerity now. He produce an empty open peanut butter jar he had been licking out.

“What are your names?” I asked.

I spent the next 10 minutes finding our their names, where their homes were, who had moms and who didn’t. Then I went and brought them a bag of dates and a package of Ramen noodles each. Then they asked my name.

Now when they see me today in the market they smile and call out, “Paul, Paul!” and they come back to our house to play. They have not asked for food again, but we will give them things as we can.

When I came in that day to relate the story to Alicia I could not tell it without tears. I struggle to find a big job for me to do for God. Lord do they need me here? Is poverty here? What can I do? I was punched with the reality that these kids will pick through my trash to get food.

I do not love as I should. I have my big cattle AI project to do, plans to make. No time for kids in the trash pit.

I can be so blind and so not what I want to be. God reminds me to focus on Him and what He brings each day. When I focus on Him and not my projects He shows me such simple ways to love the least of these in my own yard. They become to me the people they are to Him with their names and homes and stories. When I love I become a person to them and relationships form and that is the most beautiful thing of all.

I guess I tell this story because it was a big learning point for me and those are good to share. Maybe God has put something right in front of you but you are so busy with the big stuff that you just get annoyed. The ‘least of these’ Jesus talked about often get treated this way in our world.

Lord, give us your heart and eyes to see…Matthew 25:31-40