Photo by Rising Damp

By Eun Joo Angela Ryo

His shifty uneasy eyes and the white knuckles from clutching the straps of his backpack too hard were sure signs that he was going into the fight-or-flight mode if he wasn’t there already. His tiny ten-year-old body was tense with mistrust and fear. I had taken my young adult group on a mission trip to New Mexico. Our main ministry was to tutor the Navajo children. We picked up the children from their homes and brought them to the mission center to teach them math and English and to love on them as much as possible.

Tim, a college student who was part of our team, was having a very difficult time with the “love on them” part with one particular student named Glenn, who was in his class. Glenn was a frail-looking fourth grader who always carried a backpack almost twice his size; he never took it off. He was withdrawn and wouldn’t do any of the work Tim assigned him, but he would sneak into the room where the prizes were kept (we had brought nice prizes for the kids and were waiting until the end of the mission trip to give them away) and eyed them constantly.

Finally, Tim came to me, and in a loud and upset voice, he said, “He took it! Glenn took the Super Soaker, and he won’t let me search his bag!” Tim said he saw him put it in his bag, but Glenn insisted that he had not taken it. At the same time, he refused to let Tim look in his bag.

How do you accuse a ten-year-old local for stealing a prize on a mission trip where you are trying to share God’s love? How do you get the Super Soaker back without accusing him of stealing? How do you get him to hand over his bag to you without using physical force? Without a clear idea of what I was going to do, I called Glenn over.

Something prompted me to say this: “So, I hear that you are really good at finding things! Well, I was wondering if you could help me find something. We lost this Super Soaker we were going to give away as a prize. I’m not sure where I lost it, so I’ll go outside to look for it and maybe you can look in here. What do you think?”

He looked at me suspiciously and hesitated. Then he slowly nodded. I got up and went outside. Why did I say that to him? Why would he voluntarily give up the water gun? Maybe I should have asked to search his bag instead. After standing outside for a few minutes, lamenting the predicament I was in, I went back inside. Imagine my surprise when Glenn ran up to me grinning from ear to ear! He proudly presented me with the Super Soaker as if it was a prized game he had just caught.

I acted surprised and asked, “Where did you find it?!” He pointed in the direction where we kept all our prizes. I thanked him profusely and sent him back to his classroom. After that incident, something amazing happened. Glenn became Tim’s best student. They were inseparable until we had to go back home, and they cried buckets on their last day together.

I learned an important lesson that day: We all need a way out from time to time. And that way out can lead to transformation. Of course most of the time, we need to be held responsible for our actions, but I am reminded of the story in John 21 when Jesus reinstates Peter. He doesn’t say to Peter, “You denied me three times. How could you? How are you going to make up for it, you jerk!” But instead, he feeds him and asks for his confession of love. Then, he gives Peter a job of tending and feeding his sheep. Jesus gives him a way out without condemning him. And Peter is forever changed by the encounter. Indeed, our God of second chances always provides a way out for us — a lesson I need to learn over and over again.

Eun Joo Angela Ryo immigrated to America from Korea when she was nine. Having graduated with an MDiv from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, she was ordained as a Teacher Elder in the PCUSA this past July and started serving in her first call at The First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor as a Resident Minister.