Fish Stars

I sat at a table last night with a young child who’s imagination grew restless after about the first 5 seconds of the adults talking. Soon the chair became a jungle gym and his food was being covertly flung across the table. A lack of discipline wasn’t this boy’s problem; his father removed him from the table three times as we tried to “overtalk” the sound of crying from the other room. Just the lack of adequate sensory input was more our fault than it was his. Soon the imagination wandered and Fish Stars somehow found themselves in the story.

Sitting out at the edge of a savanna under the moon and star lit sky the boy’s stories grew bigger and bigger as the night wore on. I seem to recall something about a lion or a leopard in one of the exaggerated tales. At one point I think I made out the part in the story where I was some kind of astronaut sailing into the sky eating fish stars. I think I rescued everyone sitting at the table by going all the way up there to swallow them to keep them from falling and hurting people. I mean think about it, who wants to get hit by one of those? It felt kind of nice to be a hero for once.

Most of the times with the Nomad (intern) teams I’m kind of a familiar face that they all try to figure out. Laughing at times, joking at times, yet pushing them to give a hundred percent of themselves to the kids in the presentations at the schools. I train them and try to teach them to rely on and trust each other. I may ask more of them, I may make them work a little hard, I may break their will to live, but I do my best to prepare them for something. See I may not be a hero, but soon they’ll be one.

Soon they’ll stand in front of thousands of children and young people and relay God’s message of Truth and Purpose for their lives. They will be the ones rescuing and protecting those who’ve been hurt and had their lives broken. These are the ones who will be a child’s answer to whether anyone cares for them or not. The child searching for hope, the child feeling the burden of raising their younger brothers and sisters, the child who on that day they enter their school, has decided to give up on life. I’ve trained another semester of heroes.

How long has it been since you’ve been a hero? How long since a child could point at you or remember the day a simple word you said rescued them? I don’t think we realize what kind of impact the smallest word or a smile, an encouraging email or a phone call can make. How much time does it take to be a hero to someone searching for hope?

Pray for those heroes that are out there right now. Two teams near the border of Swaziland, sharing a smile with those searching for a hero. Pray for safety and unity in their teams Pray for me as I work in Malawi to level the roads for teams coming here. Pray for safety and God’s direction in my life. Pray for us as we point children to a true hero, and point to Him yourself. You don’t have to eat fish stars just to be a hero.

….become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of Life…
Phil. 2:15


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