On Kool-Aid and kids...

Grasshopper gets us.

This is Grasshopper, aka Francis… aka Odwari… aka a zillion other Lopit names too numerable for me to even try to remember.

Whatever you call him, the point is—he gets us.

The other day, he and I sat my kitchen table after a particularly exhausting morning, drinking grape Kool-Aid out of coffee cups with straws.

Just the two of us, sitting there, listening to music.

Me, melting into my chair and musing about all sorts of things.

He, feet dangling far above the floor, Kool-Aid mug in his lap, lips chasing his renegade straw, enormous grin on his face, toes and chin bouncing to the music.

He just gets us.

It’s hard to explain, but it’s true. It’s especially hard for you to understand, because you’re surrounded by people who get you—your daily routine holds no mystery for your neighbors. You aren’t subject to ridicule day in and day out for what you are—or are not—doing, can—or cannot—do. You live in a cultural context in which you make sense, and in which you are able to make sense of things.

Here, that’s just not the case. People don’t get us.

Except for Grasshopper.

He seems to understand how we function, even a bit of how we think. He’s watched us and been around us enough in the last two years that he can fit seamlessly into our everyday, without that grating and awkward feeling of having to try. And that feeling—which I find really hard to define for myself, let alone people who have never experienced it—can be a burden that grows heavy when you’re exhausted or sick or just don’t have it in you to be Miss Missionary.

In missiology books, they talk about creating a third culture person—someone who understands (and is most likely from) the host culture but also understands enough of the visiting culture to bridge the gap, to flow between the two. And as they flow between the two, so does information—so does the Gospel.

I know sitting and drinking grape soda in contented silence with a 6(-or-so)-year-old isn’t something to get all excited about. But I do get excited when I think of what doors we may be opening up, just by falling in love with this little kid (and his brother and sister) and unconsciously building him into a third culture person.

You know how parents look at their kids as they send them off to their first day of school? We often catch ourselves looking at Francis, Franco and Ellen in that sort of way, thinking of what they’ll be like when they grow up, if they could be the church leaders, the influential people.

Maybe, right? Maybe.