I had a window seat in my own row, but directly behind me in 3A was a screaming four-year-old boy, who kept pushing on my seat back, YELLING, counting the clouds as we flew past "MOM!Cloud!Two cloud!Fwee cloud!Mom!Look!Fo!Fye Cloud!...Eleven cloud!...Nineteen cloud!Twenteen cloud!Twenteen-one!...wow!Twenteen-eight!Twenteen-nine!Tihrteen!Fourteen!" His count resets after 29 in an infinite loop from 13 to 30)."Moutain!Wow!" and so on.His mother and grandmother kept apologizing and hushing him.Twenty minutes in I gave up my exasperated sighs and eye-rolls and vain attempts to nap, and befriended him instead.Incredibly humbled at and rebuked by Jesus' patient love for children.Rafa calls himself "Fafa," and together we counted clouds, mountains, trees, boats, the sea, islands, in indoor voices.
His mother and grandmother (who had worked in Tianmu, Taiwan for several years) thanked me, asked the purpose of my trip, and exchanged contact information and offered to drive me to my hotel.But I didn't know where I would be staying.So that insisted on waiting with me or taking me to their home until I was contacted by the team or otherwise figured out my hotel situations.
The island's hospitality is quite something.Please pray that people would be hospitable to the gospel of Christ Jesus who is a rather intrusive stranger at times, but gracious to call and make us friends--and children--of God.
Cholera surges in Haiti's Central Plateau
