Too Small to Ignore

Victoria and I are big fans and supporters of Compassion International. In fact, all of our children while growing up sponsored a Compassion child until they "aged out". This commendable ministry aimed at caring for "the least of these" with practical physical needs while also giving them the gospel has been an encouragement to us in so many ways and for so many years. Recently, Victoria bought Wes Stafford's book (current President and Chief Executive Officer of Compassion International) entitled "Too Small to Ignore". She was drawn to it because of Wes' testimony of Christ while growing up as a missionary kid in a small African village. I had the opportunity of passing a portion of this testimony along to a few others and felt it was worthy of posting on our blog. So, here it is:

When he was about ten (10) years old, Wes was getting ready to return to his African village after spending a year in America with his family. Standing at the airport gate in New York he gently pressed both hands around his mother’s face and said, ‘Mommy, please don’t make me go back to Bandulo. It’s terrible! They beat us all the time for everything. They hate me. I miss you and Daddy so much. I’m scared. Please, please…” The children were threatened to never tell their parents about what really happened at the school, so they repressed the truth for years and only wrote letters to their families of “happy times”. All incoming and outgoing mail was screened.

The news of Wesley’s confession to his mother somehow reached the African school board, and this is what he says happened next:

“At lunch one day, Mr. Edwards (one of the adult caretakers) announced to the students (after Wes was called to the front), ‘Let me introduce you to Satan’s favorite tool. Wesley has decided to serve Satan. He told his mother about what happens here, and she is not able to do her important work here on the mission field. Satan has won. He used Wesley, and there will be Africans in hell because of this boy you see standing before you. You cannot serve both God and Satan, the Bible says. Wesley has tried. You cannot burn the candle at both ends without getting burned.’

Mr. Edwards (then) ordered that a birthday candle be brought to him. He got out his pocketknife and trimmed the wick at the blunt end to produce a candle that could indeed burn from both directions.

‘Here, Wesley,” he said with a brightened face. ‘You want to serve both God and Satan? Try it!’

I took the candle between my cold, shaking fingers. Striking a match, Mr. Edwards lit both ends of my trembling candle. He turned his back to me and continued his lecture, assuming I would drop the candle before long. As the flames flickered closer and closer to my skin, the children’s eyes grew wide. Suddenly… in a brief flash of reality, I saw the great evil that was going on. I was not Satan’s tool; I was just a little boy with a broken heart who had tried to be rescued from this evil place. I love Jesus and was my daddy’s partner in ministry in the villages. Mr. Edwards was lying, and all of my friends were but frightened little lambs. I dug deep into my soul and said to myself, ‘Not this time. They won’t win this time. No matter how much this hurts, I will not let go of this candle!’ I gritted my teeth and prepared for whatever amount of pain would come my way. Nothing was going to make me cry out or drop that candle.

I could only vaguely hear his words as I watched the skin on both sides of my fingers grow first red and then begin to bubble. In the background, I could hear vaguely, ‘Satan’s tool... Africans in hell…” Now a trace of smoke came up from my fingertips. The flames were touching my skin.

‘No!’ I exclaimed through clenched teeth. ‘No!’

Just then a fifth grader in the front row jumped up and slapped the candle out of my blistering fingertips. It was over. The meeting broke up as the children rushed forward to hold and comfort me.”

When I first read this story at Victoria's prompting, I was almost moved to tears. But as it is with all of God's dealings, His perfect purposes extend beyond what's perceived to what's inconceivable. Sometimes we have the pleasure of knowing and seeing His plan first-hand, but many times we do not. In the case of Wes Stafford, "the rest of the story" (in the infamous words of Paul Harvey) is:

“More than forty years have come and gone since the candle incident. It was a defining moment for me. It turned me in the direction of my life’s work as a passionate advocate for the hurting children of the world. I refuse to be defeated. I refuse to give in to the powerful forces that would violate the downtrodden and oppressed among us. It is the reason I write and speak with such fervor. Here I am past the midpoint of adulthood, and I’m still holding onto that candle and gritting my teeth as I battle for the value and importance of little ones. They shall have a defender, a champion, an advocate after all!

Why did God let me suffer the agonies of that boarding school? Why did he not intervene when I cried out to him night after night for relief? I have imagined at times my guardian angel pulling on God’s sleeve saying, ‘Don’t you hear little Wesley? Don’t you see his pitiful tears? Can’t you do something to deliver him from this monstrous evil?’

If that ever happened, I believe God replied, ‘I know. I see his pain; I hear his cry. But he needs to go through this. I have plans for his life. Out of his pain, I will save others. Trust me.’”

Wes is a hero in my book, and Victoria and I pray we'd possess only a fraction of his proven character the remainder of our lives.

Trusting Him,

Tom (& Victoria)