Agus--One Of The "Least Of These"

Agus (pronounced-ow-goose) is a six year old orphan who lives at the orphanage in Tondono. He immediately captured all of our hearts. His mother died in giving birth to him. He later lost his father and was brought to the orphanage by a relative. He could not speak Indonesian and would not eat anything for his first days in this new place. He has overcome the eating problem as we all witnessed. He is a little child with a face of a man. He is more than busy--going from one place to the next. He loves to sing almost as much as he loves to see himself sing on the playback on the video camera. He sang all the songs with great gusto--all his heart. He is one of those rare little gems. You see him going about and wonder if he might be in charge of the place. He knows everyone and knows how to handle each one of them.

The team from Taree had all the little ones make finger puppets. Agus leaned over the table as he cut and glued the felt to make his puppets. He was on task and could not be distracted. He made two smiling faces on his felt puppets. The first was a dark brown face with a blue crown. I wondered--What are you telling us little man? Agus paraded his new creations around the room one on each index finger.

Later in the day he blessed us all by singing the song--Shout To The Lord!. Here was an Irian orphan singing an Australian worship song in Indonesian with intense concentration. I wouldn't have missed that for anything.

Please pray for Agus and the other orphans from East Indonesia. Many are now alone because one or both of their parents have perished in the attacks and there are others who because of uncontrolled circumstances were abandoned. We said--Good bye to these children. We all knew we could have spent our whole time just in the orphanage. By the way--they get out of bed at 4:10 a.m. each day and are in bed at 9:00 p.m. with a two hour rest in the middle of the day. They do chores and have two devotions each day. These children are loved and well cared for. Remember what the Lord told us about the "least of these".