A Haunting Voice

Gray clouds hang low on a dusky evening as huge raindrops pelt the ground and a cold wind whips the remaining people scurrying for cover and waiting anxiously, wet and cold, for a taxi bus. Soaking wet from the rain, I stand in line waiting for a taxi bus, huddled under the shelter of an umbrella the person next to me generously offered to share with me. The wait stretched on for a half hour, an hour, and an hour and a half. Then I heard it. A haunting voice could be heard singing above the wind and pounding rain. The voice grew nearer and was soon accompanied with the sound of bare feet hitting the pavement and splashing the puddles. The voice of a child. The little boy slowly passed by. Ragged clothes. Wet. Empty eyes staring straight ahead. An upturned hat clutched in both hands, in the hopes that someone to drop a few coins in. The hauntingly beautiful voice of the child slowly disappeared down the street. As I climbed in the taxi bus, the voice, the eyes, kept haunting my memory, refusing to be pushed aside. I have seen him many times, always walking the streets, singing, clutching the hat. The reoccurring question, seldom far from my mind, once again returns. How do you make a difference in a place with such great need? Where do you start. What do you do.

“Who can compare with the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high?

He stoops to look down on heaven and on earth.

He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump.”

Psalm 113: 5-7

 

“Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.

Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.

You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,

so mere people can no longer terrify them.”

Psalm 10:17-18