It was only a brief moment today, 5 minutes max.  On our way to see some work being done we drove by a very low income area.  These people were living in the median of the street.  Kids were playing jacks in the highway.  We stopped to get a few images and ended up near some people sitting by their make-shift homes. So far this trip the kids have been overwhelmingly excited and smiley when I point my camera towards them, however these in particular had a somber blank stare.  Maybe they had been sniffing glue, maybe they were just spacing out, but they lacked that energy that makes a kid a kid.  It’s almost like they’ve been forced at such an early age to be a grown up.

One cute little girl in particular posed a bit for me. Later on I was in the middle of flipping through the images of the day, checking for focus and composition, next ,next, delete, next…  It was almost as if a voice in my head said “Stop. Look…”   I didn’t noticed at the time I was taking the photo, but there were several wounds and lesions on the girls legs and arms, and she had a swollen right eye.  All of a sudden the photo morphed in my head from pixels to a real human being.  One that didn’t have a means to help herself.

Sitting here in my hotel room, far from that tent in the median, I’m trying to imagine what Jesus would have done if he were on that street with me.  Would he have stood there with arms crossed feeling sad for the kids, of course, but also thinking of how he needed to get going to the next thing? Or would he have gone to them, sat with them, held them, and with tears streaming down his face told them “You WILL NOT live another day like this!”

We left them with some food and cooking/hygiene kits but it’ll never be enough.  I keep wondering, is Jesus under that tent with that little girl tonight?

Stop. Look...

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