When told that funds for the Sponsor-A-Child Education program had to be disbursed before the 28thFebruary 2007, I was filled with dread as it meant that we would have to leave for China on the 5th day of the Chinese New Year! Immediately my thoughts were on all those yearly CNY lunches and dinners, and catching up that I just absolutely must do! I was going to miss most of them! Hm!
However, what I did not see beyond my own selfishness then, is that Christ loves the little children too much to allow them to despair.
Yes indeed, many would have despaired if help, motivated by the love of Christ, had not arrived in the tangible, financial form that they could understand and see.
This is the second time our Project Hope partner was disbursing sums of money to impoverished primary and secondary school children who would otherwise have had to forgo school. To determine and confirm their eligibility, the Project Hope team tasked with the disbursement visited almost all of the students at their homes.
Home, for most students, is merely a two-room-one-hall brick walled abode with a small courtyard where pigs, ducks, chickens and dogs lived beside their human “masters”. The kitchen is another small four-walled structure away from the main house. And the latrines…well, they are everywhere! That is, anywhere and everywhere that is convenient; among the bushes, up against the wall, under a tree or in ingeniously constructed structures made of tree branches bundled together and concealing an unceremoniously dug out hole. One home we visited, offered us a latrine which comprises just a………..pail!
Yes, life in the villages we visited, is harsh and wrought with difficulties. Someone once told me, “It is hard to preach an “unseen” God to hungry stomachs”. I had then countered that hungry stomachs are everywhere. Where do we begin? I now realized we begin where God leads us to begin.
The families Project Hope helped are so poor that, though education for the primary and secondary school children is free (the minority tribes have to pay school fees), they can ill afford the necessary school books, uniforms, stationeries, transport and……….. daily allowances are unheard of. A profile of a typical hardship case would be one missing either one or both parents and the child or children being taken care of by grandparents or parent, who themselves are in dire need of assistance. Sickness and ultimately death is usually the reason for parents not being around but the other more predominantly prevailing reason is one of social significance. Many a times, you would learn that the father had passed away and the mother in remarrying, had dumped the children upon the grandparents and disappeared, leaving the motley group of very young and very old to fend for themselves.
At each home we visited, we would normally enquire of the children directly, as to the whereabouts of their parents if they were not present. Two sisters, aged 15 and 13 arrived at the church without their parents. As it turned out, they were living on their own, the father having passed away and the mother remarried. Sensing from their demeanor a little bit of waywardness setting in, we decided to visit their home.
At first sight, the girls’ home, which is away from the city area, seemed to elude an aura of romanticism. It comprises a single brick walled cottage set in open fields, resting snugly beside a lake that positions itself against a backdrop of tall trees and the forest beyond. There is a well from which the girls could drink and the garden patches in front of the house boasted of large green, healthy looking leafy vegetables. However once my soul sobered down, the reality of the harsh and even dangerous condition the girls are living in, hit me. These are two young impressionable, unprotected girls in their threshold of womanhood, living without the presence and not to mention guidance of an adult person in their lives. The open field which I had at first thought of as romantic, exposes the girls clearly as sitting ducks waiting for any unscrupulous lecherous man to come a-calling. Their only protection was a wooden door with a flimsy lock! Even the worldly-wise driver, a male non-believer at that point of time, was concerned for them. (He received Christ as his Savior towards the end of our trip). Such is the reality of life for these sisters.
Nearly everywhere we went, the reasons offered for their impoverished conditions were the same. Some parents are without jobs or are sick, and the families can only look to the land for provisions. Some have had their crops destroyed by typhoons and some children just gave up studying because their school system is what one would call, “intermittent education” i.e. attend lessons when there is money and out when there is naught. It is not uncommon therefore to come across 15 year olds who are still in primary school.
After visiting many homes and families with such similar conditions, I thought my heart would have been sufficiently seared already by the social and physical deprivation that I witnessed. But I was soon proven wrong when I was confronted by an unsmiling, expressionless, almost grim face. That face belonged to a little boy but the hardness it bore betrayed a childhood wrought with pain and heartache. That face almost made him look years beyond his actual age if not for his small malnourished frame. It brought tears to my eyes. Where is the innocence and bubbling joy of childhood? What untold disappointment, what untold pain, were those dull zombie-like eyes hiding? Perhaps I would never fully know.
But what I do know is that now, this little boy has hope, hope of continuing his education, hope of meeting more people, hope of a better future, hope of knowing a Savior; his ONLY hope. And this is because someone cared enough to travel great distance to visit him, to help provide for him, to give him a hug and to tell him that Jesus loves him.
It was therefore not all just despair that we witnessed. We were encouraged by the happy and cheerful faces of some of the children and families whom we had visited before, some of whom were now even able to carry themselves off well in conversations with us. The older ones were grateful for an opportunity to show off their linguistic skills in the smattering of English words they learned. They were glad that this time round, we could visit nearly all of them at their homes and it being Chinese New Year, they brought out what precious little they have to share with us. We had fried Niang Gou, sweets and biscuits, small Mandarin oranges and countless coconuts.
I remembered one family whose hospitality really touched my heart. When we first visited them, the father and child were not at home. Only the mother, who is mentally challenged, was. Having left word with the neighbor that we would be back, we left to visit another family. Upon our return, we were confronted with an empty house. This time, even the mother was not around. We were preparing to leave, when lo and behold, the mother came shuffling round the corner, with two basketfuls of freshly plucked coconuts, balanced on a bamboo pole held on her shoulder. She, though deemed to be not capable of sound reasoning, did comprehend that we were friends-come-a-visiting who needed to be refreshed by freshly plucked coconuts from her humble abode. So, there is hope.
I was asked why there are so many mentally challenged cases, for indeed there were. My only answer was that if the devil has your mind, he has you. But this mother showed me that where Christ is preached, albeit not in words but in actions of love, even the devil has to flee.
This trip was not all sadness and despair. We had our fair share of fun and laughter among ourselves especially over mealtimes. And the chicken! We had chicken for practically all our meals and they were served in just one manner…. boiled! By the end of the trip, we had developed the fine art of appearing to be eating a lot but in reality, well, not really. Paris Hilton and all those Hollywood hopefuls, would have been proud of us. Actually, it came to a point when we were in grave danger of not appreciating what was offered to us during mealtimes until we heard the account of how 3 families raised their hands when asked during church service if there was any family in the congregation of about 50, who did not have even one chicken at home to slaughter for their CNY meal. There was a particular family whom the Pastor knew for a fact, did not possess even one chicken. However, they did not raise their hands and when questioned, they answered that they did have a duck which they had intended to slaughter for the reunion dinner. Such is the simple integrity of this family. By the way, the Pastor had asked the question, as the church had wanted to bless those in lack with at least one chicken for CNY. Lesson learned – one would have thought that in an agricultural society, the availability of chickens for mealtimes is a no brainer! Not so, apparently.
All in, we visited well over 60 homes in 9 districts within 7 days. Though it was a physically exhausting and emotionally demanding trip, it was nonetheless also very spiritually fulfilling. We were encouraged to see little children earnestly praying with us. There were also words of gratefulness and exaltation from the adults and the older children, not to us but to a loving God; a God who loves them too much to allow them to despair.
To God be all the Glory! Amen.
