“Can I be your daughter?”
A question I got asked by one of the kids at my care point. She has her own mother, that works 12 hour days and night shift every so often. She is 10 years old mothering her 5 year old sister. The dad is of the older sister is out of the picture and the dad of the younger sister is always working. The 10 year old is longing for the comfort of her mother since she is giving all the comfort she can to her little sister.
When I was little all I wanted to be was a mom. I would act like I was the mom of my baby dolls or any pet I had. Whether I was putting them inside my shirt like I was pregnant, putting them in time out, or cleaning up after my baby alive, I was always acting like the mother of these plastic dolls. I begged and begged for my mom to have another kid because I longed to take care of a baby, but my little brain couldn’t comprehend that, that was not possible. So with the little amount of time I’ve had with these girls It, (1) makes me feel like I am a mom, and (2) puts more of the desire in me to be a mom. I’m praising the lord that this ministry is filled with loving on kids all day, cause I get to show these children the love of the father along with getting to mother them as much as I can, being an 18 year old white women from the states, that can only temporarily love on them.
…
Little did I know that I would only get the first month of my time Africa to love on my two sisters that so greatly impacted me. In swazi all students are out of school for an entire month. Since they were on break most of the kids were at the care point earlier than normal and there were a lot more kids. So I expected my girls to continue coming like the rest of the kids. I never thought I wouldn’t get to say bye and hug them one last time and remind them of the love that Jesus has for them.
One of my teammates said the other day as we got in the van and waved bye to the kids that, “if these kids ever went to America that it would be culture shock for them because of the love we show and what they would see in the states.” Another teammate responded by saying, “even if they have this view of Americans they will get the right view of Jesus.” These kids GET to see who Jesus is, they GET to see how he loves, and they GET to experience what his children should be like. Where this gets swayed, is like a mother of one of our MOGz said, “love them, but don’t just love them to hell.” We can love and mother these kids as much as we want but if we aren’t telling them the truth, the real truth of who Jesus is, we are just loving them to hell. Yea, it’s hard when you have an age range of 3 year olds to 15 year olds, but reading scripture over them, doing a skit, praying over them while you’re holding a child or just having a conversation will give more ways for the lord to pierce their souls. But we can’t wait, we can’t wait expecting to see them the next day or following week. If you hold out and wait are you going to have missed telling them about Jesus? Tell them! Don’t put yourself in a spot of wishing you wouldn’t have waited.
I pray my girls will have seen the love of the lord through the words I spoke to them, the joy I showed them ,or just through the tightly squeezed hug I gave. I miss them dearly but know they are in the fathers hand, and in better care then I could ever give them. Thank you Jesus for the time I did have with them and the ways that they touched me.
