The Crisis of Time

 

Kevin, a first-grade boy, came up to me after lunch yesterday. He wrapped his little arms around my waist and rested his head on my stomach. As I hugged him back, he looked up at me and asked in his cute, Honduran, first-grader voice:

“Why don't you come visit me more in my casita?”

He has asked me this before. Each time I smile and say that I will come soon. And I try. But time often gets in the way.

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A couple of times a month, I am asked this question:

“Bailey, will you give me piano lessons?”

Every time I hear it my heart sinks. My response is always, “If I had all the time in the world, I would love to give you piano lessons. But unfortunately, I can't.”

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Last night, one of the North-American teachers walked home after a particularly difficult night. He was physically and emotionally exhausted. He had just spent hours with the children at the casitas, helping with some difficult questions and circumstances.

After sharing his heart with those of us who were in the room, he made a comment:

“And if you walk up to the casitas right now, there will be at least 10 kids who are mad at me because I didn't spend enough time with them today. I feel like a one-man band. I can't do it all by myself.”

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I live on the campus of a children's home that currently houses over 100 children. Of those children, 74 are my students. There is not possibly enough time in the week for me to spend quality moments with each child. And as a result, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and overworked.

I feel burdened for the hearts of these kids. I want to spend time with them and to know them each on a deep level. I want to visit each of them in their casitas, but I can't.

It is a crisis of Time.

I get up, I teach, I spend time with kids, I go to dinner, I go to bed. That's about how each day goes.

I think the most rotten thing about Time is having to choose.  

Do I to spend my hour before dinner with the teenage girls or with the younger boys? Do I choose to give English lessons to a woman who eagerly wants to learn, or do I lead a bible study with the teenage girls who are hungry for God's word? Do I spend intentional time today with the girls or with the housemothers or with my fellow teachers?

It seems impossible to choose. But somehow I do.

As I laid in bed last night thinking about the Crisis of Time, a verse came to my mind.

Matthew 9:35-38

“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'”

I am quite sure that Jesus felt like a “one-man band” at times. He was surrounded by sheep with no shepherd – by people who were hungry for truth, but he couldn't possibly see each of them. There wasn't enough time. So he trained workers, and he sent them out. Then his workers trained more workers who trained more workers, and so on.

It is a privilege to be a worker for the Lord here at Good Shepherd Children's Home.

While Time often overwhelms myself and my fellow workers, I am reminded that God is the one who will bring the harvest at its proper time. We are only seed-planters and seed-waterers. God is the seed-grower. 

And I pray for a plentiful harvest.