“Escuelita”

Three little boys about six, eight, ten. Shoes too little or too big. Hungry for attention, folding into us for affection. First ones to arrive each morning at little school, last to leave. Back again in the afternoon, staying until ten o’clock at night to play with neighborhood niños. No one checking on them.

Mom shows up one day. Says she’s going to sign them over to a boys’ home. They’re too much for her. She smokes a cigarette as she pushes the stroller with a new baby, a girl by a new daddy. I try to talk to her about what good boys she has, but she’s already checked out. I was afraid when we left that we would never see them again.

But there they are. Same misfit clothes, big smiles, long hugs.

“Read us a story.”

“Help me write my name.”

“One, two, three, four, five, eight, nine, ten.”

The oldest had been to school at some point, enough to know his letters and numbers. The other two know nothing.

We work on writing their names with chalk on the concrete. We play number games clipping clothes pins with the missing number to a tongue depressor with a number line. Pride shines from his face when he gets them all correct. Another displays his carefully written name. But we only have three days this trip. Not enough to make a difference. But God had a plan long ago.

Eight years earlier, a four-year-old boy, his three-week-old brother, and his parents moved into a block home built by a Christian ministry. The parents wanted a better life for their kids than they had growing up. Mom finished sixth grade. Dad couldn’t read. But they made sure their boys went to school and had what they needed. Today they are thirteen and eight. They are great readers, great students. Because of the Love and Literacy little library, they have never been without books to read.

Yesterday as we are driving home, the mom sends me a video of her boys teaching little school without me. The three roaming siblings are their students.

The hope of every missionary is to work himself out of a job. Looks like we did. God bless the children.