About 30 years ago, I went with a mission team to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. After we drove through El Paso, Texas, we crossed the Rio Grande River and there we were. The enormity of the city was almost as much of a surprise to me as was the culture.
Our lodging for the week was in the city of around 1.5 million, but each day we drove about an hour south of Juarez into the desert. Our mission site was a small church located in a squatters’ settlement. Residents could claim a spot of land there as long as they put a “permanent structure” on their land. Those structures included old parked school buses with the tires removed and the interior converted to living space. Many of the homes were made from scrap wood or shipping pallets and covered with cardboard from boxes. Since it rarely rained there, the covering wasn’t normally any problem. Most had no doors, or window coverings, and had dirt floors. They had no running water or electricity, but a few had televisions. Some got electricity from gas-powered generators or large rechargeable batteries.
The church was about the same as the houses. For pews they used old discarded school bus seats. Each day we led Bible school for the children and each evening a worship service for everyone. One evening, as I played guitar and sang, something began stinging me as it crawled up the inside of my pants leg. They probably thought the gringo preached had been moved by the Spirit! Fortunately, I managed to slip out before I slipped out of my pants!
One day, I came up on a small group of young boys huddled around in a circle. I couldn’t tell what they were doing. They were laughing and talking with excitement, but since I spoke very little Spanish, I had no idea what they were saying. When I realized they were playing some kind of game, I drew closer to see.
Although their surroundings were quite different from my own when I was their age, their game took my mind back to my own childhood days. None of them, or myself when I was their age, played with any kind of computerized game. I heard the clacking of glass before I saw their marbles. Two of the boys finished their game and then two more took their turns. One of them smoothed out the dirt with his bare foot. Then he scratched out a fresh circle in the dirt that was about 3 feet in diameter. Then two boys took turns placing their marbles in a straight line in the middle of the circle. Each one then used his shooter marble to try to knock the marbles outside the ring. Each boy kept every marble he knocked out until all the marbles had been knocked out. The one with the most marbles won.
I don’t remember now if those boys played for keeps or just for fun. When I was a boy, my mama allowed me to take my marbles to school, so we could shoot marbles during recess, but she counted them before I left and after I came home. I didn’t necessarily have to come home with the same marbles, but I had better come home with the same number of marbles.
I loved watching those boys, who had so little, have so much fun with such a simple game. If we haven’t lost our marbles, maybe we should play a game ourselves sometime. Simple things are often the best, especially when you don’t have much!
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com.
