Children are messy... but so are we.

One thing I love about the children here is their eagerness to help. I can be carrying a toothpick around the compound and without fail at least one waist-high child will ask if they can carry it for me. Simone comes by almost daily to ask if today is the day she can scrub my verandah. If children come by and I am too busy to play with them, I hand them a broom and they fight over who gets to sweep my house. It’s crazy. And hilarious. In a good way. Most of the time.

This morning, not long after I heard the echo of prayer that marks the end of breakfast in the children’s home, there were three chocolate-colored cuties perched in my doorway. Following the general rule, they politely asked if they could enter, and once I let them in I asked what they wanted to do. Most of the time, children choose to spend their time reading, going through the piles of books I have strewn around my house. Today, however, as Jethro and Aaron were eyeing the books, Tabitha’s gaze turned to my kitchen.

“Auntie Katie, your chicken is messed!” she said. (Not many of the young children can say the word kitchen.) “Can we clean your dishes?”

My immediate response was negative. I have a system for many things, and washing dishes, especially in such a small space, is one of those things. I like them done a certain way. I knew those nursery school children would not come close to the efficiency and standard I had set.

And then I thought… who cares? I hadn’t washed dishes in about three days—it’s not like efficiency was the first thing on my mind. Plus, it would be something fun for them to do. I carefully maneuvered my coffee table into the kitchen, leaving no standing room but making it so the children could see into the sink. I poured the tiniest bit of dish soap into a bowl, handed out one sponge, one washcloth, and one towel, and stood back to see how they would cope.

It was… messy. What else would you expect from four- and five-year-olds let loose with a sink and soap? Jethro was not content to dry with the towel; he wanted the soap from Aaron. Aaron wanted to use as much water as possible, despite the fact that he was farthest from the sink. Tabitha turned washing into a sort of dance in which she swirled the sponge in any round object she could find, which got to be rather difficult as they poured more and more soap onto everything. A drizzle of a waterfall cascaded off the counter and onto the concrete floor, and I knew there was no stopping it. Once or twice one of the children nearly slipped off the coffee table, which had pools of mud from the dishwater mixing with their dirty feet. Things got more and more wet, but not more and more clean, and I waited apprehensively to hear the first dish slip from soapy fingers and shatter on the floor.

Feet are never clean here... and therefore neither was my table.

In the midst of the slippery chaos, I realized… I am no different from them. None of us is any different from them.

How often do I run up to God, pleading for him to let me help with this one thing? I want to work with children in poverty; I want to go to Africa; I want to teach. God, can I please, please do this? You need people to do this!

As if.

I wonder what the world would be like if God did things the way He planned. I wonder what would be different if God operated everything according to His perfect, well-planned system. I wonder what it would be like if we stopped getting in the way.

I step into a country, a city, a situation, see a mess, and say, “I can take care of that!” I dive right in, doing everything I think is right and necessary and helpful, not realizing that what I’m really doing is flinging water all over the place. I am like Tabitha, swirling a sponge in a glass, mesmerized by the progress I think I am making and not even noticing the sudsy drip from my elbow to the floor. I tend to get so caught up in teaching children to read and setting up the library and preparing talks for gatherings with the teenagers I forget to ask God how He wants me to do it. I forget that I am the one helping Him, not the other way around. God is more than capable of ministering to the world on His own, but He graciously gives us the opportunity to jump in and take part in His work. He gives us that honor.

I have to admit that despite the flooded kitchen and muddy table, it was much more fun to watch those children try to help me than it would have been to stick with my system alone. After awhile, the first three had to leave and four slightly older ones took their place. They soon realized four was too many for the limited counter space, so two went on their way and two remained. Caleb and Jared patiently washed, rinsed, dried, and stacked the dishes on my couch because with the coffee table in the kitchen I couldn’t open any cupboards to put things away. Being the responsible boys they are, when they finished they hung up the towels… which dripped down the wall and immediately made yet another puddle on the floor.

These four children are twice as old as the
ones who initially started washing.

After they left, I spent some time doing damage control, which proved difficult since they had left no dry towels in the house. But you know what? In the end, the dishes were clean.

Of course, there was no room for them in the kitchen...

However messy the process, I pray my own endeavors within God’s work will result in the same happy ending.