Today I'll introduce you to former child soldier, Peng, in a simple yet profound story. It is a short story—only a couple minutes’ read. This story struck me as so profound when I first heard it because in a moment of desperation for a young boy, the grace of God intervened…all because his people were engaged in bringing justice.
Peng (as we’ll call him) is another young man who had a story to share. Peng’s parents had been forcibly conscripted into the army to pay off taxes levied by wealthy landowners, at which point his entire family became slaves of the army. Shortly after, Peng’s parents were shipped south to the warfront in 2003 while Peng stayed in the care of his 15-year-old brother. His parents both died in a firefight, which Peng and his siblings learned some months later when a soldier showed up at the door of their hovel in the military camp. Since the army had custody of him, Peng had nowhere to go and was shuffled over to serve as a water boy for a military officer. During that time, he saw hundreds of other kids suffering as they trained for war. After losing both his parents to war, the harsh life of a soldier was the last thing he wanted. But soon Peng heard the dreaded news that he too was to enter training as a soldier. His life was already difficult enough with little food, having to sleep on a wet mud floor at night and hauling heavy water buckets for hours every day.
A teacher connected to the military/government base happened to live a couple houses from where Peng worked. One day out of desperation, Peng mustered up the courage to visit the teacher and tell him boldly that he felt he could serve his country better by going to school. Little did Peng know, our team was already in negotiations with the army at this point, and the teacher recommended Peng for our education project since he had received little training as a soldier. So, missing soldiering by the skin of his teeth at 11 years of age, Peng came to us with the 50 other children we officially received through our initial negotiations with resistance and drug cartel armies in 2005.
Though I’ve heard more dramatic stories from child soldiers, what struck me about this boy’s life was grace. He was orphaned because his parents became enslaved to an army because of debt. He himself was at extreme risk of becoming a soldier as a child, but we happened to be there at the right moment by God’s grace to spare him from what would have been much more difficult story, filled with the horrors that accompany child soldiering.
Yes, I see the amazing grace of Jesus written all over Peng’s story like the red ink of an extraordinary editor. God sees what happens in one child’s life in a remote jungle of a forgotten corner of this earth. By the mercies of heaven, may we somehow see too.
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