“Maitresse (teacher), I have a question.”

I smiled, “Yes, Vincent?”

I had been directing an after-school program two afternoons a week for the last couple of months. After the first hour of singing, doing crafts, and telling Bible stories with the elementary students, I would meet with the high school students. After a short English lesson, we would delve into Genesis and have a lively discussion on what the Scriptures were saying about ourselves and God. Or at least that was my intention.

It proved challenging to have the students respond thoughtfully to my questions rather than recite answers they had heard in church or Bible class. Not so with Vincent. While he usually did not have answers to my questions, he would think of his own questions without fail. Sometimes, they would relate to the chapter or something in his culture, and sometimes, they would stem from a very different part of the Bible than we had been discussing. But they always made the class more interesting — at least for me.

On New Year’s Day, a few of us visited his family. The usually talkative Vincent was quiet and somber. His older sister entertained us with polite small talk and then admitted, “It is not a very happy holiday for us because one of our huts burned.”

“Which one?” we inquired.

“Vincent’s,” she pointed to a brick hut nearby, where wisps of smoke rose from a few smoldering timbers and soot-blackened walls. “The solar panel on the roof caught fire, and everything inside burned.”

Vincent’s younger brother picked up a singed shoe and handed it to him. Vincent tossed it dejectedly across the courtyard and said, “I was washing some of the burned clothes when you walked up.”

My heart welled up with love and pity for this teenager who lost everything he owned on what should have been the most festive day of the year. I squeezed his hand and encouraged him as we left, “I’m sorry everything burned. We will see if we can help replace it.”

And we did. Little by little, we helped Vincent replace clothing, the roof, school supplies, a mat to sleep on, and a simple desk.

One day, Vincent came to see me, “Maitresse, you have helped me so much. Do you have some work I can do for you in return?”

“Yes,” I told him, “I have thought about starting a small garden. Do you want to help me?”

Vincent enthusiastically agreed and set to work. Often, he stops by my house for a snack and asks more questions about the Bible and life. Rather than growing veggies, I could spend less on better quality at the market. However, this is an investment of far more lasting and eternal worth — a relationship with a youth hungering to know God. Please continue to pray for Vincent, as he is considering baptism soon. May God, in His expert wisdom and timing, provide beauty in exchange for the ashes of Vincent’s fire, turn his mourning into joy, and grow him into a tree of righteousness.

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