The Joy of Service

Transformation happens quietly, sometimes going completely unnoticed until you wake up one day and realize things have changed. How did it happen, we ask and wonder because it happens so gradually that we miss it. I like to pray for eyes awake enough to see transformation when it happens, and sometimes I even pray for eyes acute enough to see it in process. 

I saw it first the other day when Bobakebée took the cup I was drinking out of and took a big swig. "Bobakebée!" I exclaimed, "that was mine!" He handed it back to me with a laugh and a mischievous look on his face, but I replied with just enough agitation, "No, it's yours now." 

Bobakebée drinking out of any unlabeled cup laying around was not what surprised me. Rather, it was what happened next. I watched him go to the cup drawer, fill up a clean cup with clean water, and bring it right to me. All annoyance was erased in that moment as I smiled and gave him a huge thank you. The Bobakebée that was living on the streets just a few months ago would not have done that. 

It was a small glimpse of transformation in progress. 

I began to notice these little things in Bobakebée. He collected our dishes and took them to the sink after dinner having never been asked but noticing that's something that we take turns doing. He helped gather and collect the mats for me when we did kid's church out in the village. Bobakebée was learning to serve. 

Then, when we had our graduate party for the infants in distress program, he volunteered to help. When I was blowing up balloons, he watched me and then joined in. He watched me hang them and then helped hang them in the same way. When the children started arriving, he helped take pictures. When we served the food, he watched how Suzanne served and imitated exactly what she did. When I was writing names in the Bibles to distribute, he was right at my side, handing me a new Bible as soon as I was done writing the name in the last one. 

I'm not sure I've ever seen a kid so interested in helping, nor have I seen one quite so content to do it. 

For his whole life, Bobakebée has been living for himself - how he can scrounge for the next meal, how he can find a safe place to sleep, how he can get a little money to hold him over, how he can survive. All on his own. He's never had time to think about anyone else. 

Until now.

And it has brought him incredible joy. 

He has discovered what it means to serve, and he has found the indescribable joy that it brings. 

It reminds me of how we, when we were dead in our sins, were slaves to ourselves. We were slaves to selfish living. We had only ourselves to think about. But now in Christ, having been liberated from our sinful selfish selves, we are now free to serve others and find the true joy that comes from it. 

Bobakebée is reminding me what it is like to refind that joy in service. 

Christ has set us free, and now we are free to serve!