Patience

I have patience the size of a pea and more likely to evaporate than stretch. When I took Jordan in from the slum over 2 years ago, the decision was not easy but my consolation was that he was not going to live with me anyway. He was still living with his family but that he was going to spend most of his time with Tom, my American missionary friend. Then last year, I asked my widowed sister in-law to have Jordan live with her and I will provide for food. The reason I did that was because Jordan stayed dirty as long as he was living with his family and also for my sister in-law to have company. He was still to spend most of his time around Tom.

In less than a year around Tom’s teaching and influence you can visibly tell the difference in Jordan. Though broken, he was speaking in English and most importantly, he understood and learned to love and fear God. My part was just to send money here and there. At first I had my sister in-law gave it to him weekly; I wanted him to have money in his hand for snacks and toiletries. Then when I found out that he spent it in one day, I had my sister in-law buy the snacks and gave it to him, and then we changed it again. We experimented on the best way to make him understand the value of money. It worked but only for a while.

To compensate for their absence, long distance parents tend to spoil the kids with money or things. And this is where the problem lies. When I come to town, I take him places, buy him things and make things easy for him. In other words I don’t discipline him and thus undermine the influence and training of Tom and my sister in-law who has to deal with him everyday after I leave.

I also now learned that regardless how retarded a kid is, they're never retarded enough to manipulate you. Jordan has been testing my patience and it’s harder to deal with him now because he is older. And I am too old and brittle to duck anybody’s crap. The other day I wanted to put him right back on the street where he came from but I had to remember that God has been patient with me too, keeping in mind that His goodness and forbearance is what leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). All things considered though, Jordan is still a good kid. My prayer should be for God to give me patience and the ability to nurture, but I find myself praying: God, can I just kill him and tell You he died?