“They are Jesus. Everyone is Jesus in a distressing disguise.” Mother Teresa
Dear friends and family,
I (John) have found myself several times this month feeling disappointed by the lack of evident growth or transformation in the children who come to our program. The 6th grade boy whom I tutor twice a week still can’t recognize all of the letters of the alphabet. A 4th grade boy who comes to my group at the after-school program has perfect behavior when he is with me and then curses at his classmates on the way out the door. Some of the kids in my group choose to spend their afternoons outside in violent brawls rather than coming to our program.
But am I here just to see results? Would I continue to remain present here if I knew that I would never see any learning, any emotional healing, any spiritual growth?
One day this month Rachel reminded me of Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poorest of the poor in Kolkata, India. Mother would literally pull people out of the gutter by the side of the road and bring them to this home in order to care for them and to let them die with dignity. Some may say that this was a waste of time. Why care for a dying person when you know that their passing is immediate and certain?
Mother Teresa often talked about her belief that Jesus is present among and in vulnerable, poor and marginalized people. She believed this so much that she felt as if she were caring for the wounds of Jesus as she tended to the dying in her home. This divine presence, this “Jesus in a distressing disguise,” compelled her to a life of service among the poorest of the poor, a life in which she rarely saw healing or transformation as a result of her work.
And so I find myself wondering if it is enough to believe that the children we know as friends here in Moldova are Jesus in a distressing disguise. Am I able to affirm their dignity–the presence of the divine in them–and to allow that to be sufficient? Even if a young girl doesn’t reach a desired level of learning or of emotional healing, is the demonstration that she is worth being cared for a way of tending to the God who suffers?
Thus we begin each day with hope for the 60 energetic kids who come in and out of our doors on a weekly basis, not necessarily because of what they might achieve but because of the imprint of God woven so beautifully into each of them.
May we all learn to recognize and affirm the presence of the divine in each other.
With love,
John & Rachel