Daily Devotions - Thursday, May 1

Listening to the Children

The dormitory rooms for the week long mission in El Salvador were 8’ x 8’ for the four men and 8’ x 10’ for the six women. The concrete floor was softened at night by 3” thick mattresses. The porch had plastic and wooden chairs to use during the evening conversation and fellowship time. Outside the gate, the children of Guadeloupe gathered, peering in and calling our names. Within one short day, we all became family. So, after each hard day of home building we quickly showered and spent each evening with these joyful, laughing, compassionate children whose parents worked late into the night to bring home their meager earnings of $.33 to $3.00 for the day.

An excerpt from a poem by Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet, Knopf, 1955) seems so right:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

Ben Keckler
05.01.08