Meet Dion. If you can believe it, Dion is every bit as sweet and good-natured as he is handsome (check the picture to the right)! Some very wise people (thanks Mom, for starters) have advised me lately that my best blogs come from just sharing the 'everyday' stories that happen with the kids here at Rumah Bapaku. I agree. Besides, what happened today just had to be shared.
Dion is from Sumba. I've mentioned before that the Sumba kids are tough. Sumba is a tough place - very remote and still quite primitive by western standards. The people there value the warrior spirit, and it shows in the utter fearlessness of our kids from Sumba. For example, I'm the size of 4 or 5 of them put together, but they will throw themselves in front of me when we are playing soccer and they are trying to get the ball with absolutely no regard for what the consequences may be. Some of our smallest kids are from Sumba, but no one has ever told them that they are small!
That 'warrior spirit' also shows in other ways...unfortunately. Every one of the boys from Sumba bears the permanent marks of a warlike culture. There are huge scars in every one of their precious little heads. Places where hair will probably never grow. Reminders of a life where it was kill or be killed...where 7-year-olds were expected to pick up a sword to defend their family...where differences were settled with the edge of a blade. They have all been abused. They have all had to fight. They all carry those memories with them in the form of physical scars. The oldest is 9, most of them are a few years younger. Think about that for a minute and try to digest all of it...I dare you.
Once a month, the barber comes to Rumah Bapaku. Because the boys are going to school in town and are exposed to kids from all walks of life, and because the tropical Bali heat requires us to shower at least three times a day, it is just easier to keep their heads pretty much shaved. It's cleaner, easier and we don't have to worry about things like lice. Of course, with 18 boys, we have all kinds of personalities. Some of them already are under the impression that they are ladykillers and don't want to shave their precious locks, and some don't mind at all. I'm lucky - Camille sort of likes me with a shaved head, so I can get my head shaved with them! It really does make it easier to live in the tropical heat. So, I get in line with them for the barber and I tell the ones who don't want a haircut that the haircut makes them ganteng (handsome). They love the fact that Om Jeremy gets his hair cut to match theirs!
As I was saying before, Dion is a sweetheart. He is probably the 'mellow-est' of the Sumba kids. He's still as tough and rough-and-tumble as the rest of them, but he has a very gentle spirit about him. I could tell today as we waited for our haircuts that Dion was not too stoked about getting his head shaved. He was avoiding the barber every chance he got, letting other boys go in front of him. When his turn finally came, he got up into the chair with a sort of 'aw, shucks' attitude. I could tell he wasn't too happy about the whole thing. As the barber started to cut his hair, without saying a word or even making a sound, he started to cry. I noticed big crocodile tears running down his cheeks and, true to Dion form, he tried to brush them away before anyone made a big deal about it. I kneeled down next to him and looked him in the eye and told him that it was OK, that the haircut made him look extra handsome. As I ran through the events of the previous hour in my head, I suddenly realized why Dion was so opposed to having his hair cut, and my heart shattered.
Replaying things in my mind, I understood what my limited knowledge of the Indonesian language had missed earlier as I watched Dion talking to some of his buddies...Dion is ashamed of the scars on his head. He doesn't want his hair short because he hopes that longer hair will help hide the marks left from when his father used to hit him with pieces of wood. Dion comes from a family where he is the youngest of 6 children. His father is a farmer and they are very poor. Dion had 4 jobs after school every day - he would have to look for wood for the cooking fire, find food for the pigs, feed the goats and then go and get water from the river. His father would beat him even if he got all of his work done. Dion's scars remind him of what it feels like to be a slave...to have no value...to not know the meaning of love. As all of this hit me like a ton of bricks, it was all I could do to not pick him up, hold him and cry with him.
Thank God that there is more to Dion's story. Thank God that He loves Dion enough to bring him to Rumah Bapaku and give him a new life. It tears me up inside to know that each of our kids has a heartbreaking story like Dion's. But I use it as fuel to fire my passion for giving these kids the most loving home and family that any kid could ever hope for. You want to know why I love God so much? It's because He's in the redemption business. It's because He takes the shattered pieces of our broken lives and puts them back together to make a picture more beautiful than anything we could have ever come up with on our own. Life is hard. You don't have to convince any of the Rumah Bapaku kids of that fact. But as I played soccer with Dion later on this afternoon and he was covered from scarred-head to foot in dirt and as happy as any kid who ever lived, I was once again reminded that God is a God of fresh starts. He wants to work everything that happens to us out for our good (Romans 8:28). Dion carries scars, as we all do in one form or another. But just has He has done for me, God has taken a broken, scarred little boy and turned him into someone beautiful...someone who is truly happy. Thank you, Lord...thank you.
