For some odd reason Thanh has become our most faithful attendee -- he's never missed a club. As the weeks have passed we've learned one thing for certain -- the only thing hard about Thanh is his environment. Behind that toothless grin is a boy whose kindness often goes unnoticed in his abrasive world. I often wonder how a kid can be so resilient in such surroundings, especially as every week I see new cuts and bruises on his face and hear stories of the cruel aunt he and his sisters live with. Thanh can hardly comprehend that someone would love him.
After each Bible club we stay at the housing project and hang out with the kids. One day as we were packing up the car to go home, Thanh begged us not to leave. In our ministry of limited resources and volunteers, one thing we do have is time. So we decided to stay just a little longer. Then, both oddly and unexpectedly, we had an opportunity to tell Thanh about Jesus. As we sat in the dirt Thanh pulled a play phone out of his pocket, and we began to have imaginary phone conversations with him. As we talked back and forth, we told him about Jesus, and with one ear to his plastic receiver, Thanh listened to the most incredible story in the world.
Later, during our weeklong Vacation Bible School, my co-worker Wendy was able to spend time with Thanh every day. On Friday afternoon she walked over to his apartment to give him a Bible, and that night I went over to help him read it. As I walked up, a group of kids gathered around, wondering why a white person had come to their turf with a book to read to Thanh. We read together outside his apartment, in the middle of the projects. His big brown eyes devoured every line that I highlighted in his new Bible. He didn't just want to hear the verse that I underlined; he wanted me to read the whole chapter so that all his friends could hear too. Before I left we dealt out a couple of hands of "Go Fish" using our Bibles as tables and talked about how Wendy had just left and was going to be out of town for a few days. Every other phrase out of his mouth was about how much he missed her, and he kept making sure I was positive that she was coming back. As I left him that night, I assured him that she would come back.
Thanh had already called me twice that afternoon, and I talked with him three more times that evening after I got back from his apartment. At about 11 I was getting ready for bed and the phone rang again. It was Thanh. He cried as he told me how much he missed Wendy. It made my heart wonder to think of such a lonely little boy, and I questioned why God had chosen two young white girls like us to bring His love to this housing project. What would we have to offer a boy like Thanh if we hadn't been loved first? I think I will always be caught up in the mystery of the undeniable - that love never fails.
Thanh kept calling until 1:15 a.m. Every message on the answering machine went something like, "Hi, this is Thanh. Call me when you get up, OK? I love you," or, "This is Thanh. I forgot to tell you to tell Wendy that I miss her and that I love her. Bye, A.B., I love you." The next morning I was checking the messages, and when I picked up the receiver someone was on the other line. It was Thanh, calling to see if I was up yet. I talked to him for a while and told him I was going shopping. When I came back from the store there were seven messages on the machine. "A.B., this is Thanh. When you come home come and see me. Bring your Bible and what you bought at the store so I can see it. I love you, bye." "A.B., this is Thanh ... A.B. ... pick up the phone ... A.B., pick up the phone or I'll kick you ... psych!"
After lunch I went to see him, but his aunt wouldn't let him come outside. So I just waited at the door on my knees, and as I talked with him I could hear his mother screaming in the background. I asked him what he had done all day, and he told me that he had been reading his new Bible. Wendy had written "God loves you ... and so do we" inside the front cover, and Thanh told me, "Yeah, I like the part about God loving and all those things about Jesus." Love is so simple, but the strength of the story of its Creator is both incomprehensible and unquenchable.
Over the past few days I've listened to countless messages on my voice mail, carried Thanh on my shoulders all the way to church so he could check out Sunday services, talked on the phone with him at least three times a day, and gone over to spend time with him in the projects. I even had to explain to him that his crawdad wasn't sleeping -- it was dead. Every morning when he calls to "see if I'm up yet" he asks me, "A.B., have you read your Bible yet this morning?" and every night, "A.B., what did you have for dinner?"
We've only known Thanh for a month and a half but somehow, in spite of ourselves, we've become significant people in his life. It's a world where you aren't supposed to talk to strangers, but those rules certainly don't work around here. Here, a stranger might be your only hope. As for Thanh, he's just looking for someone who will love him.
To find hope a little boy will call you until 1 in the morning. For a chance at love kids who have no idea who you are will gather around as you sit in a dirt playlot reading the Bible. Hope and love ... all within eternity's embrace. Jesus Christ came to forgive our sins and redeem our brokenness. Two thousand years ago He found His way back home to heaven, but before He left He put the very message that cost Him His life into our hands. He spoke of countless things, but it always came back to just one -- love.
Somewhere in the poverty and abuse of a volatile public housing unit a little boy picks up the phone. It's 12:42 in the morning, and he's simply calling to say, "Hello. This is Thanh. Can you call me when you wake up? Tomorrow, come see me and bring your Bible. Goodbye ... I love you."
