Accompany Every Little Weed
Article by Kuo-lien Pi
Translator : Judy
“At age four, Xiao Cao’ birth father served sentence in prison for an attempted murder; at age nine, he was out-of-home-placed by Department Of Social Welfare due to long-time physical abuse from his birth mother. Xiao Cao (Little Weed) had changed three schools when he was a second grader in elementary school. Social workers helped him in out-of-home placement and school transfer; however, he could not adapt to the child home and ran away. He was found back but ran away few days later. Till one day, Xiao Cao stopped running and was willing to go to school. Social workers helped place him in an institution till he passed his teens there. Later he left the institution and started his solitary life in the society carrying his backpack with him…..”
In Jonah House, there are three to five “Little Weeds” “graduated” every year. Some children may return to their original homes, some—without any families or no home at all—can only set up homes by themselves.
In August 2007, I came to work in Jonah House since the Cathwel Service always had a special attraction to me. Before that I worked in the Department of Social Welfare, and one of my cases (in 2001) was rejected in placement by many institutions for various reasons. Finally, he was placed in Guandu Half Way House For Boys (the forerunner of Jonah House). Of course, the headache misconducts of this boy did not lessen or disappear; yet magically he grew up during his stay in the House.
Six years later, we met in Jonah House. All kids in the House call me Aunty except that he calls me Sister. This boy is the character Xiao Cao of the above-mentioned story. I had experienced many frustrations and effortless- ness in my official job because of him, thus I went back to school to study further more. The subject of my master thesis dealt with the difficulties faced by a group of children, who were first placed by government and later have to live alone after leaving the institution.
My major reflection after finishing my thesis was that when I was in my twenties, living with my parents, studying and working at the same time, and did not have many unexpected worries in my daily life. However those youngsters, less than 20-year-old, were forced to face the stress and living tests from all sides in the realistic society. Those who passed the tough tests may be praised for their achievements in overcoming the difficulties by the main-stream of our society. Our society tends to be more willing to help these youngsters. From my personal working experiences, there are more young people who cannot pass through their living tests; or even they can live smoothly at first but still encounter difficult tests later.
My colleague, fighting together long years in Jonah House, once said that those youngsters, who shall live independently in their future, should be equipped themselves with the most important capability of “loneliness endurance” instead of good educational background or an outstanding resume. After they leave the House, without the noisy fight from peers, and nagging voice from uncles and aunties, they will have to face the pressure and loneliness in their work and daily life. When they go back to the empty rooms they rent, youngsters came back and told us many times, they want to run away from the cold air in the room but they have no place to go……Due to the huge challenges in their lives, some immature, unstable children would make careless mistakes, some retreated to the corner and lived in a melancholy, dejected live, and some might lose control and did some things against the law. Through many roundabout information sources, the House tried to contact them and accompany them like families again, which let these youngsters to regain their strength to mend up the holes in their lives.
The year before last, Xiao Cao came back to Jonah House and told me that few months later he would have to go to prison because he had made mistakes under the life pressure and temporary frustration. Days before he went to serve the sentence, I was worried that he might be too afraid to report alone. I told him I was very willing to accompany him to report, while he texted me on that day “I really want to escape….” Yet he knew that was not a wise choice, and should not let those who care about him be disappointed again. Thus he reported to the jail as scheduled.
I kept contacting Xiao Cao through mail and promised to visit him. However, because of my busy work and uncomfortable pregnancy, I couldn’t find proper time during that period. Thus I asked an elder youngster, who also left Jonah House, to bring some food to visit him. (When the elder one got the news, he wanted to cheer Xiao Cao up actively in person.) Just few days ago, Xiao Cao sent a letter and said he is about to pass the probation. In the jail, he was trying to stabilize his moods and to think about his future, knowing that a rehabilitation person will face more challenges after returning to the society. He told himself that this time he needs to stop complaining and put more efforts in forgetting the past. Even though lacking of parental love, he is actually not so lonely since so many friends, uncles and aunties care about and support him.
There are two stories in the Bible. One incident is that bystanders cried out to hit a woman committed crime of adultery, and Jesus said: “If any of you who have never made mistakes can throw stones to her.” In another incident, Jesus said: “if someone did things wrong on you again and again, you ought to not only forgive him seven times but seventy times of seven.”
Whenever major criminal cases happen in our society, media reporters tend to look for the background infor- mation of those criminals, and discover that they were hurt more or less during their growing process. When I see these incidents in the news, I will tell myself that we should provide children, who once hurt at home and grow up in the Jonah House, stable life as well as proper teachings. Most importantly, we ought to become their families. Even when they leave Jonah House and live alone by self-support, we are still tied with them in our family relationship so that this bonding will lessen their chances of making mistakes. With family care and acceptance from Jonah House, even they make careless mistake, they can still start their new life again as long as they repent.
Living with hope, there will be no desperation. Then the temperature of our life will keep warming up!