A young girl, perhaps about eight years old, approached me holding two bags of potato chips in a transparent plastic bag.
She asked me to buy them. I was drinking a Bintang beer at the time and didn’t feel the need for chips, so I declined.
As I watched her turn and walk away dejectedly, my heart felt heavy.
What’s more, the T-shirt she was wearing had two holes near the shoulder.
To someone like me, living in a world where perfectly new-looking clothes are thrown away simply because they are out of fashion, her eyes seemed lonely.
For just one dollar, couldn’t her labour have been shortened a little?
While I spent a moment caught in various thoughts—wondering if this was truly ‘discerning love’—the girl disappeared into the market.
I looked around for her everywhere, but she was gone.
I began to reproach myself, thinking I might not be able to sleep peacefully tonight, regretfully wishing I had just bought them earlier.
Then, after a few minutes, she appeared again. I bought her bag of chips.
I hope, even if only a little, that she can be happy.
I am in Dili, the capital of East Timor, for a meeting of the Migrants and Refugees Network, where I have had the chance to hear and reflect on many things.
From a companion’s tears as she spoke of the refugee camps in Myanmar, to the lives of migrant workers in East Timor, to the deaths of Sebastian Gomez and so many other young people… to the question of how to accompany fishing village residents whose homes are being submerged due to climate change… and Fr Bong Abad-Santos, a Filipino doctor-priest who has spent 24 years travelling to villages with a mobile clinic set up in a truck…. And finally, my meetings with Reti and Lucrecia, young staff members of Jesuit Social Service Timor-Leste, who joyfully find meaning in life within their faith.
In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest’s mother tells him that life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.
I feel as though I have received such a box of chocolates as a gift from God during this short time.
Within this bittersweet diversity, I pray for Your mercy and blessings.
I pray that the words, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,” may be fulfilled.
