I am on children overload. I've been working with children for three weeks straight, endlessly and fruitlessly trying to corral them, getting them to be quiet for a few precious moments. During my two weeks in Belize, my team ran countless children programs; and when nothing formal was planned, the kids just hung around the church, spending as much time as possible with us. Some boys were at the church from 8 in the morning till 6 at night. This whole time, I was "shh-ing" those hyper little Belizians , trying to get them to stop wiggling and squirming, so that I could tell them about the love of Jesus. It was beyond exhausting, and at moments I felt like a foreigner, sent only to brain wash small children. And now this week, I'm co-leading the 4&5 year old's class in VBS. These kids already know their ABC's and how to play "duck duck goose, but even these shiny spots cannot lighten the load of sheer numbers. Today there were 34 kids in my class today. 34! Just trying to count them was a challenge. Trying to get them to move from class to class was nearly impossible. We had them grab a rope so that we wouldn't lose any of them, and as adorable, obedient, trusting 4&5 year olds, they banged their heads on fire hydrants, scraped against walls, and tripped on pipes so they could cling to the rope. And despite all our efforts, we lost a 4 year old boy. I went into pure panic mode, already imagining the life-altering guilt I would always live with after this day, until someone told me that his dad picked him up earlier. Crisis Averted.
Sometimes I wonder why I even do stuff like this; it's too hard, it's pointless: they're too young to understand anything anyways. And then I get a simple reminder. In Belize I found a little girl who'd tripped and got cuts on her arm and leg; her bottom lip was trembling and her big brown eyes were welling with tears. Without thinking, I scooped her up, rushed her into the house and plastered her in neosporin and bandaids. She sat on my lap and whimpered the rest of the day. If I hadn't been there, maybe no one would have kissed her boo boo's and held her. Even when I can't get kids to hold still or listen, Jesus finds a way to work through me and show his love.
Besides all this profound stuff, I work with little kids because they're hilarious. Yesterday, the first day of VBS, I was helping some little ones with a game in Bible, when, by chance, I turned my head and saw a little boy in the bathroom, pulling his pants down, with the door wide open. I rushed over and told him to shut the door. At this exact moment, his gravity-defying, arching stream of pee, changed directions as he turned his head to look at me. Instead of hitting the wall beyond the toilet, his little torrent of pee skimmed over the back of the toilet and started hitting the floor, only a few dangerous inches from my feet. I sprang out of his aim and quickly turned him, and he got a few last drops in the toilet. He finished, washed his hands, and was on his way to wreck havoc somewhere else. I glanced into the bathroom, thought about cleaning up, quickly wiped off the toilet, but left the urine glazed floor and wall for some other sucker. I laughed quietly to myself. I love kids.
