I don't know

Today after Church was a food distribution. We split up into three groups, met back and heard stories of God’s providential guidance to meet families that had great physical and spiritual needs. Some did not know what they were going to eat before we arrived, some cried during prayer. God was working. 

I was not feeling well, so Jana was doing most of the hard work translating and such with the group I was driving to and fro, when we saw Kevin and his mom. Much as the last time we were out and about and they made themselves welcome, they were soon in the bed of the truck traveling with us from house to house. As I was watching the truck, I soon found myself playing with Kevin and his four marbles, and finding out more about Kevin and in particular his mom, who we deduced from previous meetings has some kind of mental...issues.

 

 

Kevin’s mom was raped when she was 14, which prompted her father when he found out to kick her out of his house. (her mother is deceased.) She has not seen him since. “I have no family now, it is just me, Kevin...and God.” Kevin’s mom completed no more than 3rd grade. Kevin does not go to school.

 

 

Kevin is very physically active, does not always have the best manners, is very smart...and out of nowhere gave me the longest hug I have had in a very long time, and Cecilia gives some long hugs.

 

 

Cecilia got to know them both as well in the back of the truck, talking to them with and without me.

 

 

She had questions for me: “Why is she like that?” “Why doesn’t he go to school?” “What will they do?”

 

 

Every question she asked...I could only respond with a head shrug and.... “I don’t know.”

 

 

My fourth grade daughter is asking me questions about a woman with a third grade education...about their living situation...I am standing there watching Kevin jump from the truck to look for marbles in the midst of dirt, rocks, empty bottles of fire water and cow dung, knowing not the word or concept of hygiene, thinking about that hug being potentially one of the few he has had from a any male, a boy with no dad....what the statistics say will likely be his life...and what else can I say but “I don’t' know?” Platitudes fail...better to be honest with her and confess my ignorance, my failure to grasp the larger situation and be able to make sense of it.

 

 

I don’t know.

 

 

But I know who does, and that is no mere platitude. I could write so much more on that...but it is late, and I am tired. I will rest. I will rest in Him. My daddy...and Kevin’s as well.