My husband and I just returned from a mission trip to inland Jamaica, where we worked at a deaf commune, an infirmary, and an orphanage. Here is one small story from our trip.

The Orphanage.

It’s a small place, with around 30 children and a handful of female caretakers in pastel scrubs. The children are wide-eyed, well cared for, clean, and loved, but even so, they have all been dismissed by their families — cast out, sent away.

They are, to someone, somewhere, unwanted, unwelcome.

That’s Tim on the right.

Tim, my husband, was playing with a small group of boys aged 4-5. Children tend to flock to him for reasons I’ve never been able to articulate — Tim is a big guy, quiet and strong, with a heart to match. Somehow, kids are able to pick up on this. I don’t know how, but they do.

There was sidewalk chalk on the ground, and after a while I noticed that the kids flocking around Tim all had smeared sidewalk chalk all over their faces.

“Are they eating the sidewalk chalk or something?” I asked Amanda, the woman who runs the orphanage. “Do you want me to stop them?”

She was watching the kids, too, and shook her head. “This is a woman’s world,” she remarked after a moment. “Men don’t come to the orphanage. These boys don’t have any male role models.

“I want your husband to know what a difference he is making, even just playing with them for a little while.

“That sidewalk chalk on their faces? Those boys are drawing on beards so they can be more like Tim.”