Part 3: The boy with scabies

Walter has every right to be sad. To be dismayed and withdrawn, unyielding and unresponsive as stone. His short life has already been rife with suffering, discomfort, and injustice.

It’s just not fair.

I’ve no way to answer him. I cannot reason why this three-year-old child must do without proper hygiene, nutrition, and shelter. No way to explain why he is not pampered, doted upon, even spoiled by parents, aunts, grandmothers, and babysitters. I can’t understand why my child cousins in the States have more toys than they remember and more clothes than occasion. Why they have all things soft, clean, and FDA and WHO approved.

On Thursday I swoop Walter up again.

The dirty bandage on his wrist is gone. His hands are still scabbed and oozing. In the office I tuck in his shirt and tie his shoes, petite black moccasins with laces wet from trailing the bathroom floor.

“Are you finished potty?” I ask Walter as one of his hands scratches at his head. His mouth opens and closes like that gasping fish. Like his baby brother trying and trying not to cry.

“Wi,” he vocalizes. I am impressed at how audible the syllable is.

Then his mouth closes. He leans into me. Something steady.

“Okay, let’s go wash your hands. Lave men, lave men w’!” I take his unwashed hand and draw him after me back to the wash basin.

He sticks out those scabbed sore hands. Caramel marred with red, white, and angry pink they cup over the lip of the sink, empty and expectant.

I pour water, set the soap in his palms. Together we lather in between his fingers. Then I rinse and send him on his way, holding back to refill the water bucket.

“Ale klas ou, Walter! Go to class!”

As I fill the big bucket with a smaller one I watch Walter’ progress. He trips down the hall with that toddler gait, headed towards the sunny day beyond, one hand scratching his head.

At the end of the corridor he stands before his classroom door for a moment. Then he trips back up the hall to the office and peers around the doorframe.

“Walter?” I call, still at the sink. “What are you doing?”

The office is empty besides Jonas poring over translation homework on the far bench. No arms reach out or calls welcome. Walter turns away. Shaking water from my hands I swoop down on him, bring him down the hall and nudge him into class. The last classroom before the sunshine of the courtyard.

Madame Eunide, the classroom teacher, nods at me for returning one of her charges. Her hands are overflowing these days as her assistant has started maternity leave. She’s brought another ebony-eyed baby into this world of unanswered questions and unexplained abominations.

Walter trots back to his seat at a low table among his classmates. Toddlers of various shapes and sizes sat in their wicker chairs, coloring in place. They are beautiful children all. The most beautiful in the world. Hope, delight, and a miracle each one. Somehow they are surviving; somehow they are shining still.

Walter hasn’t smiled yet. He hasn’t laughed or formed a complete sentence. But he remembers the warmth and welcome of the office. He didn’t tell me he came back to the office that morning for one more hug or gentle word. I think he did.

We can’t explain why, you or I. We can’t justify Walter’ suffering. We can’t justify the suffering of the man on the ground who prefers dust to a bed. The suffering of a baby without breath and parents without means. We can’t elucidate the disparity of where we are born.

We can confirm that poverty and privilege are not faults but opportunities. Those born in poverty can grow—if those of us in privilege give them the chance.

We can’t fix this world, you and I. Even together we cannot right all these wrongs or win the tragedies to victories. We can’t keep the babies from dying.

We can give food to the hungry and water to the thirsty we meet. We can visit the sick and comfort those who mourn. We can tie shoelaces, fill buckets, and treat wounds. We can love with abandon, in opposition to the dreadful abominations all around us.

It hurts to see all the wretchedness of the world. It helps to love in response. Even if we never learn the names of those we love. God knows, and He’s watching us to see what we will do when we encounter a man on the ground, a baby without breath, or a child with scabies. Will we pass by? Or will we run towards the sorrow with a song in our heart and Band-aids in our pockets, ready to bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted and kiss the tears of the unsmiling?

As for me, I’ll be there, in need of more Band-aids, voice lifted in tearful song.

 “When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

^34-36 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’

^37-40 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’

^41-43 “Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’

⁴⁴ “Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’

⁴⁵ “He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’

⁴⁶ “Then those ‘goats’ will be herded to their eternal doom, but the ‘sheep’ to their eternal reward.”

~Matthew 25:31-46 MSG