A lot has already happened since we left on Saturday morning. God has been feeding me so richly with Psalm 37 and I’ve had some amazing connections with our group, one of the staff here and the local children. But I want to focus my post on just one small event:
This after noon a group of us went over to the orphanage to tutor and then play games with the kids. Although my subject, math, turned out to be harder than I expected (there are a lot of different symbols here), playing with the kids afterwards was wonderful. The kids were so happy and inviting and the entire group engaged well with them. But at one point I realized I and the majority of the kids were playing tag, while a lot of our group watched. I stopped the kids and explained we were going to play freeze tag and I invited our entire group to join in.
Everyone started running, but after just a few steps one of the girls next to me stopped me and pointed at Mary who had tripped and taken a hard crash on the concrete. I was instantly scared Mary (who is by no means elderly, but could be my mom) had really been hurt bad. The kids were all concerned too and started helping her up. She said she was ok (though her hand was bleeding and she had hit her knee and chin as well) and I translated this to the kids but they were still worried.
Mary, who later shared she wanted everyone else to get back to having fun, started to dance to show that she was fine. And it was a little like the mad-hatter dance, I was really impressed at the fluidity! The kids lighten up and we all laughed. The game started up and Mary even got back in before the end.
This was a small thing I suppose, but we were all having such a good time and her dance set aside her pain to rescue that joy in such a creative, spontaneous way. It struck me as heroic.
-Jake Taylor (www.jakeincroc.wordpress.com)
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