“Come unto me,” Jesus said to the children… but five thousand kids is a handful

I want to say a little prayer for the people who will be looking after all those boys who are going to be staying in the Dallas Convention Center while they are relocated to family members and foster care here in the United States. Most of them are between twelve and fifteen. Oh, my.

I don’t want to be judgmental, but five thousand twelve to fifteen-year-old any things is a handful. Cattle, horses, ants, puppies, or even girls (especially girls …) … five thousand is a big number. Just ask Jesus. He only had to feed them one meal. These kids are going to be hungry … remember they are boys. Get some locks for the refrigerators.

I know. You say, I didn’t have any boys. I had girls … two of them … a long time ago. They were that age, but it’s not the same. Girls are mostly awful between twelve and fifteen. That is with their parents they are awful. With their friends, they are awful. However, with their teachers and youth pastors they can be rather charming. So, I probably don’t know as much about boys as I act like I do.

But … I did teach in junior high for thirty years. The kids I taught were between twelve and fifteen. There were times when I would have adopted about half of them. Other times, I questioned their genetic humanity. It’s a marvelous age which is harder on kids and their care-givers.

These kids who are going to be staying only a short while in the convention center, we hope, will be in a strange world. Most don’t speak the language. I’ll tell you, I thought that was a small problem until I got off a plane … by myself … in Paris twenty years ago and couldn’t even find the restroom. I doubt there will be menus to read or directions to local tourist attractions to decipher, but it’s going to be a challenge.

I hope they have a plan. Some of these kids walked from far-off Central American countries in small groups or alone. I assume they hope to find relatives here in the States. Let’s hope they came with phone numbers, addresses, or, at least, names. Not just “your Uncle Juan in Texas.”

These kids will need something to do while they wait. Of course, we can try to get them addicted to television, video games, and snack food … we do want them to be as American as possible. Let me just tell you that if you keep a boy busy, he is no problem at all. Let him get bored, and he can dismantle the ball on the top of Reunion Tower in about three hours.

I wish they hadn’t come. I wish they hadn’t come alone. I wish they and their families didn’t think they were saving their lives by sending them on a thousand mile walk into “custody.” I wish the politicala conditions in their home countries gave them the opportunities found here. I wish them luck. But mostly I wish those cafeteria ladies, those hall monitors, and the bathroom janitors were getting paid double… they are going to need it.