Circles

It was almost 10 pm.  I was exhausted and hid in the living room from the girls who were diligently studying in the dining room playing FlowFree on my iPod.  Lillyiana (one of the younger girls) came to help me play, frequently making things worse.  But just like everyone else she needs love, needs someone to want her, to choose to spend time with her.

It had been a long, full day.  My morning routine with an empty house was thrown off by Pastor Repeih's day off.  I was tired after a wonderful weekend in KK with the YAGMS, and spent the morning of preparing a likely overly ambitious week of English lessons and chatting with Pascal.  The afternoon included a ride into Tuaran, the expected English class, and a jog with the girls to the falling apart playground at the entrance to the subdivision.  After playing silly games on the see-saw and being pushed on the swing by one of the younger girls, Kisa and I talked about boys and relationships while the girls went home to shower before dinner.  After dinner Lebiana gave me a back rub and we discussed body image and then I laid on the floor with Kisa, discussing the finer details of English grammar as the Jireh Home orchestra rehearsed outside.  So many activities, so much love, so much sharing.

But then the long day didn't matter anymore.  The girls began to sleepily fill the living room and we sat on the floor in a circle.  Pastor Repeih talked to them in Malay, telling them to keep studying, to keep trying hard.  I had the opportunity to make an announcement and declined.  Then the girls sang and we joined hands to pray, my fingers intertwined with the tiny delicate hand of Sufiana and the sure hand of Ratiah, who leaned her head, exhausted and heavy on my shoulder.

We prayed out loud all at once, my English murmurs hidden yet intertwined with the girl's prayers in Malay.  After a while we feel silent while Pastor Repeih finished.  Lissa began Doa Bapa Kami (the Lord's Prayer) and we were done.  The girls headed upstairs to bed with sincere wishes of "sleep tight" and "goodnight Sister Kelly."  I promised Sufiana I would go jogging with her the next morning at 6:15 and followed Pastor Repeih home, still dazed from such pure love, the complete acceptance of a circle of people, each with hard stories and different experiences, joined together in prayer.

All I could do was thank God for the small hands to keep me grounded as I experienced something so much larger than myself.