Praying with "Guillo" and "Pony"

More time with the little guys on Thursday morning.

Pony and Miguel were playing "Sorry" with me, when all of a sudden Miguel got up and, mumbling something, walked away, crossing the street. After sitting for a second, Pony decided he would go too -- (it has cost me SO much to try to figure out what anybody means when they do anything here,,, I´m not surprised at all anymore) -- so I just pulled out my Bible to read another chapter in Numbers (that´s what I´m studying this month along with Charles Stanley´s life principle about God´s Word being an anchor in storms).

Guillo (Guillermo) came along maybe 10 minutes later, and Pony told him to "go play with Michelle" (hee hee) ... which WAS nice, because I was just sitting there with a game board all set up in the middle of play, not knowing if they had any intention of coming back and playing or not. (Hard not to make some sort of joking reference about the rapture here.)

I had been keeping glances at Pony here and there to see how he was doing ... boy was he ever putting his best into shining that guy´s shoes. And his whole posture was soft,,, the gentleman was a bit coarse with him,, but Pony just kept looking him right in the face and asking him was this or that okay. From what I could see, he did a good job. Then I saw the gentleman get up and hand Pony a 50cent piece ,,, and Pony looked up into his face again (the kid who tends to have a temper, remember) and simply said in a quiet tone "vale más señor" ("it´s worth more, sir"). I couldn´t see or hear the rest of what happened, as the gentleman had his back to me at the time. But he left, and Pony came over, sat down, and was getting ready to start up the game again. He didn´t say anything, and he didn´t even look upset or angry.

So I asked him if the gentleman had been fair to him, and he said "no". So I suggested we stop and wait right then and there and pray ,,, to forgive the man the injustice, and to confess that we knew God was watching all the time, and would take responsibility for Pony´s justice. They bowed their heads immediately, and let me say that short prayer, and then we went on with things.

Later, Pony had promised to teach me to play chess -- which I found out meant that he´s really good at wiping out the pieces (which is actually an incredible feat if you could see just how fast he does it). I suppose he´ll figure out the whole "protecting the king"-thing as time goes on. Come to think of it --- maybe we do the same things as Christians sometimes, learn to wipe-out the enemy and forget to protect the King ---

Anyways,,, after I failed miserable against Pony´s aggressive strategy,, Guillo decided he´d be the one to teach me. (He heard me tell Pony I didn´t really understand anything of what he´d just done,, although I was really impressed with his authority on the board.) When Guillo started moving the pawns sideways, diagonal and even a few steps backwards, I realized we may have a ways to go. Sometime later I noticed that BOTH the kings were off the board, and both boys were left with just their towers (what are they really called?). They were making sound effects as they slid back and forth trying to corner each other to take the last piece. Although I asked how on earth they could keep playing with both their kings gone,, they were really much too engrossed in getting all the pieces off the board to even really hear me --- and just kept going.

I´m telling you all this much because you´d have to know the back-story to really get the effect of the outcome. They were closing up the game and were just getting into the discussion about who won, and (thankfully) asked my opinion. I told them I didn´t think either one of them had won, since neither one had protected his king -- and had lost him about halfway through the slaughter. Then the amazing thing. They looked at each other and giggled and said they thought that was probably true, come to think of it. They walked away happy.

Please keep someone named Rafael in your prayers -- he´s offering to help with the kids and we´re supposed to meet up on Monday.

m