God Loves All His Children

A Missionary Kid’s Perspective

Often after Mass, a sweet nun named Sister Bella comes up to us to see all my siblings. Sometimes she gives them little candies, and always she asks us the same question: “When will you come visit our Girls Home?”

This nun (along with a few other nuns) runs a home for young girls whose parents may have abused them, parents who may not want them, or girls without parents. All in all, they have about a hundred girls, from ages 5-16 living in their home. A team of 5 or 6 nuns look after and provide for all the children.

My Dad coordinated one day with the nuns to visit their Girls Home. We were greeted by about a hundred of them, in the driveway of the home, all of them waving and trying to get a look at us, a family of nine white foreigners.

I can tell you, being a 14 year-old boy, it was very awkward to have all those girls staring at me, as if they expected me to shoot lasers out of my eyes at any second.

The nuns eventually invited us inside, where they gave us tea and cookies and explained a few things about the Girls Home. They told us that the girls all wake up at 4:30am to go to school and don’t return until 4pm, which is absolutely crazy.

What really stuck out to me at the Girls Home was the nuns’ willingness to serve. While the girls were playing, one got hurt and went up to Sister Bella. The little girl, who was probably five or six, showed her the cut on her hand. Sister Bella kissed the little girl’s wound, hugged her, and told her to go to another Sister for a band-aid. The motherly love that these nuns showed touched me, especially since I was tired that morning and didn’t even feel like coming in the first place.

We prayed with all of them before going with the nuns to a Don Bosco school right down the road. This school was mainly focused on teenage boys, so of course my parents told me to go and socialize.

One of the boys invited me to a soccer game, which is the sport I’m probably the worst at. I was definitely the worst player on the field, but I enjoyed it. The game wasn’t competitive, and we were playing for fun and without penalties, but I was moved by the way the boys talked to each other. “Oh, great pass, brother.” “Nice goal, brother.” “Are you tired, brother? Here, have some water.”

Although I’m not allowed to share the name of the country we’re in, please keep us in your prayers. These kids thought their life was meaningless, but the nuns showed them there was more, that their Creator cares about them.

As one of my favorite Christian artists Tauren Wells says: “God’s not done writing your story. No, he’s not done with you.”