The heart of a 4-year old

K has a beautiful heart.  In the midst of a war going on in the eastern part of Tajikistan last week, he amazed me. 

While glued to the internet for any information about what was going on in Khorog, the town where some of his family, including cousins his age live, K caught a glimpse of the picture of a school in flames and immediately asked me what it was.  I told him that there was something bad going on in Khorog and we had to pray for his cousins to be safe…and that this school was burning.  He left my side and continued to play with his toy car that his grandmother bought for his birthday a few days before.  The next day, when I came home from a late meeting, he asked me why I didn’t pick him up from the school bus like I usually do and I told him I had a meeting to plan how to help the people in Khorog by sending medicines, food and supplies.  Again, he listened and then went on watching his favorite cartoon.  While having an after school snack the next day, he looked at me and said “we need to send medicines to the school” and immediately took a chair in the kitchen, propped it near the medicine cabinet, climbed up and took all the medicines and put them in a plastic bag.  “This is for the people in the school” he told me with a smile on his face.

That evening before bed, we continued the conversation about the school.  We talked about the kind of tools we would need to rebuild the school after he suggested we do so.  A hammer, nails and sugar – yes, sugar to connect the pieces of wood together.  Then we talked about the kinds of things that we would put in the school once it was built…chairs, desks, toys, books and of course, toilets – who could forget.  We went to bed and my heart beamed with pride while I looked at him sleeping next to me.

As usual, I got up early to get some work done before getting K ready for school.  He was lying on the couch talking to his imaginary friend, Mason in America, as he often does lately and I heard him say “only Allah can build the school.”  Wow, what a thing for a kid to say, I thought.  And I remembered something a spiritual lady once told me when K was younger – that children come directly from God and are still connected to God when they are small.  I truly believe this to be the case because soon after K said these words, the conflict ended.

A week has passed and K is still talking and asking about the burning school in Khorog.  Yesterday, when walking home after picking him up from the school bus, he said that he told one of his friends in his class about the burning school. I am so proud of my little boy who has proven to me that kids understand more than we think they do.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we do end up rebuilding that school one day and I can’t wait to tell him how he helped his people.