He was tough

Reynosa, Mexico

He was tough. They all were!! And they were determined to annoy us! Taking the paint brushes, they were painting paint on themselves, us and everything. This bright blue neon paint, which was for the homes we were building, was now in their hair, on our clothes and being splattered on whatever they touched. These boys were some of the kids that hung around the shack filled desert where we had come to build homes. All week we had been hammering, playing with the kids and families and going to the half built church to do plays, song and crafts. Yet these boys still found more joy in harassing us than joining us. But this one in particular child was the leader and I had decided he was my project. I took a picture of him with my cell and showed it to him…and I told him the only Spanish I knew…”Te amo.” He smirked, looked down…and his friends laughed now at him…the funny white girl was telling him she loved him….yet this cell phone was something he wanted…so he reached for it..blue painted fingers and all…I gave it to him…he looked at it…and handed it back…and smiled…I took another picture of him…and again showed it to him…this time he wanted to take mine…so he, ever so quickly, did….and then he took more…before you knew it, he had found the video button on the phone and now was taking video’s of his friends and myself trying to clean up the paint can. Now my cell phone was being passed about between them. I wondered if I would watch it be run down the streets, never to be seen again. I motioned to him to sit down with me. He slowly came over with the phone and then I began to show him the other pictures on my phone…I watched in amazement as his face changed from wild child to sincerely interested… He peered at the pictures of the beach in Florida, San Francisco bridge, my family and pets…the fireworks on the 4th of July…a birthday party for my niece…..he was totally engrossed in this new world being shown to him on a cell phone…His friends crowded around us as we looked at the pictures…somehow I had passed some test in this kids book…he sat next to me with inquiring eyes and then he got up and said Gracias.

I watched as the boys ran off…and wondered…a cell phone ….that was all it took…the little girls came back and motioned to me to start doing their hair again…and so I put my cell phone back in my pocket and picked up my brush….as I sat there having my hair braided by two girls as I braided a child’s hair myself, I wondered…what God was doing in these children’s hearts??…how curious it must be to have strangers from another country come into your world and sit with you…play with you…and just be….To sit on a bucket in the desert was strange but ever so peaceful…for little hands were playing with my hair and laughing at how funny they were making me look….while others were helping me hold the ribbons and bows I was putting into their own hair. Then they would run and show their moms their new hairdo. Something about this really gelled with me…It wasn’t the house being built, or the cell phone or the church events…it was the time. Time spent in a child’s world of dust, depravity and sorrow….yet filled with laughter, playful teasing and peace….I thought I came to build a house…but instead I got my hair done and brought pictures of another world to a child’s imagination…an imagination I knew God was molding into dreams right there as I sat in the dirt.

Heidi

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