Moving into the red and green campus in a van with bags and baggages, we were already feeling lonely and helpless. We knew we couldn’t fight the odds of hostel life as parents left us with Hobson’s choice “study here or come home to graze cattle”. Although our choice would be to graze cattle at home having little or no desire for study, we had to stand like dumb cattle as if the command made sense to us.
Check-ups done, registers signed, shelves and bunks dumped, we clung to our parents refusing to let go and face the world. Standing near parents made a big difference, as light is different from night.
When the moment arrived we would look without even blinking our eyes to the fading images of our parents vanishing away in a distance. And then a kind of feeling arose as if something was moving out of our body. Our throats ached as our eyes filled with tears. We moved in silence to our hostel feeling empty drained of all energy.
Abandoned in a world of all lost children we would forget our hunger and go directly to sleep. Waking up to find ourselves left alone to find our own way. What if our parents were nearby? How wonderful it would be?
It wouldn’t be long before we reconciled ourselves to the school and it’s surrounding, getting used to the schedules and routines.
But not before long the visitor’s day would arrive. Parents of kids will be pouring in from morning till night. But our parents were far far far..... in a planet unreachable as it occurred then to our little minds because they were serving God in the remote villages of Bihar. The children would step out one by one with their rejoicing faces to meet their parents and we would be left deprived of our companions and roaming around the hostel aimlessly, feeling bored and longing for parents to visit us too. Our classmates will be back with snacks which they would prefer to share with their other friends who could exchange snacks with them. Deprived of snacks all round the year, and as kids, we would find our mouth watering for just a taste of the ‘pandam’ (niceties).
Again thoughts would flash back “why did our parents have to go to Bihar to do ministry? Why couldn’t they have stayed in Tamil Nadu?”
On the other hand, definitely God’s hand was with us greatly and enabled us to adapt to the situations independently. God gave us an unshakable strong faith like a child which continues to remain in us to the astonishment of others even to this day. We tend to depend on God entirely and not on parents even for the little things of life, such as pen and pencil.
God has been faithful in fulfilling every tiny desires of our heart. Today I feel it is a blessing to be a missionary kid, someone close, very close to God’s heart and I treasure it more than my life.
