Scolded for the Kiss

Compassion can not be suppressed when I am among my family in the village. 

Their stories are so beautiful and often painful while being lived within my reach.  I keep an element of strength and composure as my protection to keep from falling apart.  It pains me that I might even come across as harsh at times as I protect my ability to come back to the village safely where as rumors don’t start that I am easy in giving away anything and everything.

One such day I was walking with Alex through the countryside researching the local mills and visiting families.  A woman ran after me on our little pathway, yelling desperately for me to stop and help her.  Of course I don’t yet fully know what they are saying as my language skills are still so infantile, however the urgency heard in her voice was not mistaken.  She was begging me to take her child.  Her only living child.  When the story unfolded we learned of her first four infants who each died at birth.  A fragile marriage at best struggling with extreme poverty and loss, birthed a child unwelcome in a culture who only knows the heartache and doesn’t understand the blessing of a child with development disabilities.  He left.  

I quickly responded that this was not my plan.  We are not taking children.  In a community where I have witnessed orphaned children being given new families within their own community, I would never want to disrupt how they were providing for their own, even if this mother truly was justified in sending her child with me.  The rope tied around the little boys ankle and his emaciated tiny body made me go numb.  I couldn’t begin to feel or process the experience that was before me.  I had to get more details, I had to think clearly away from the situation. And we did.  We found out that the neighbors were harsh and not supportive.  We heard she was treated like she was crazy when she went to the mill to grind her grain into flour and begged to go to the front of the line instead of waiting patiently like all of the others.  What mother wouldn’t be a little crazy with a disabled starving boy left home alone tied in the house for his own protection knowing that someone may intentionally want to hurt him while she was gone?

So what’s next?  How could help without hurting?  I simply had to buy more time.  We sent messages through the family members to be passed on to her that we wanted to see her.  She walked an hour or so from her house to mama’s to come see us.  On the last day before we left, she arrived.  Sitting with me and the others in mama’s house, calm and collected though probably shy and reserved because of my presence.  Alex shared with her how we believed her boy was valuable.  That he was precious and that he needed food.  We drank coffee, she ate a meal prepared by mama and we sent her away.  She carried the over sized bag of grain, blankets for the two of them, and one of my favorite pieces of clothing, a fleeced jacket which was the only warm thing left I hadn’t given away.  Mama committed to her to have food for her if she ran out.  To come and check-in.  

Before she left, I let my tenderness flood me for a moment and I grasped tightly her hand in a traditional way and kissed both of her cheeks.  I could feel the emotion in me desiring to erupt and I held my composure as best I could as self-control is highly valued and I tend to loose face when I cry.  Tears are not welcome.  She cried.  I couldn’t hold it any longer.  Tears, just a few.  Then quickly the others ushered her out the door, down the gigantic steps of mama’s porch and on her way loaded with an incredible weight of grain.

Scolded.  Painful.  I need to be careful who I embrace.  I could get sick.  She was beneath the class of the others.  Tears again and I slipped away behind my little curtain.  Truly she is no different than the others, no greater health risk than so many who greet me.  My heart wrenched with pain.  She needs love and tenderness as much as anyone.  Compassion came for the other who didn’t yet see it how I saw it.  The others felt great protection for me and I love them for that.

What’s next for this little boy and mama?  I will be checking in again on them in February.  Just a few short months.  Hope.  I pray God will send hope with us for this little boy and his mom.  More kisses of kindness and tender love.  The story is just beginning.