A US military base in Afghanistan has adopted two orphan boys.

Though the two are technically employed as laborers, they don’t work for more than 20 or 30 minutes a day, watering plants, picking up trash, or helping with other odd jobs around base. Most of their time is spent having water-gun fights and hanging out with soldiers. They also race bikes, which they were awarded last spring for doing well on their final exams.

One of the boys is 10, and the other 12.  They lost their Dads to the Taliban, and as oldest sons in their families they had to leave school and find jobs to support their families.  The US soldiers, though, have required them to stay in school, and in the afternoons they work around the base… apparently they also play a good bit.  They make enough money to supplement their family income. 

That the boys get paid well for light duties annoys other Afghan laborers.  There have been complaints.  But soldiers on base defend the arrangement.  It reminded me of Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20.1-16).  Even those who only worked an hour got a full wage.

⁹“The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

 ¹³“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

 ¹⁶“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

The last will be first.  The generous spirit of Jesus is at work in Afghanistan.