Rain jacket? Check.
Plastic brief case? Check.
Interview forms/pen? Check.
Packed lunch? Check.
Translator? Check.
This month my team is serving in a little town called Labo with Food for the Hungry. We leave every morning around 8:30ish with all of these things on hand, going out in teams of two to three different districts and then splitting up to interview the children served by Food for the Hungry, their parents and teachers, so that updates can go out to sponsors, sharing how the child has grown and how their donations are saving lives. If you are familiar with World Vision or Compassion International, than you already have a good idea of what Food for the Hungry does. Somewhere someone has a picture on their refrigerator of each child that sits down in front of us and shakes our hand. I am overwhelmed by the reality that I get to actually see the homes and the schools that make up the lives of these precious children. I am overwhelmed that with each interview I get a better picture of these children’s lives… what home looks like for them through their eyes and the the eyes of their parents… These homes are open shelters with sheets or curtains hanging as walls. I watched a woman shower in a bucket to ready herself to walk with me from house to house. Even the nicest houses are nice only because there are real walls instead of curtains. I know that for every house that I visit there is at least one child that once was hungry.
When we visit the schools the children are so excited for the Americans to come. Their classes are combination classes with around 40ish students per teacher. There are no special education teachers, though there is great need. The teachers sit down with us and update us on each child’s development, telling us their favorite subjects and new skills they may have honed during the year. These schools have no playground and no cafeteria. There are just walls and desks and mud. And laughing children that like blue eyes, whose prayer request are to have enough food and good health. Why should 6 year old children have to ask people to pray these things for them?
Sitting down with their mother’s is perhaps worst of all. They think that we are beautiful because we are white and fair. One woman told me she couldn’t answer my questions because her mind was blank from looking at me. I see wonder in their eyes that breaks my heart for them because they do not know that they are beautiful too. They bring me Coke when they have nothing and give me the best chair in their home. They open up their lives to strangers with plastic brief cases and papers and pens that take notes and ask probing questions. They cry. They are silent. They laugh with their friends in another language I can’t understand. They come with me, one by one, to the next house on my list… to their neighbors’ houses… listening along as I listen to story after story of their suffering. They seem surprised when I get up to hug them or tear up with them… perhaps because when everybody suffers, there aren’t as many people to cry tears of compassion with you since each person has their own reason to cry. These women take their children with mysterious fevers to a center for medicine because they can’t afford a doctor. These women sign their children up for feeding programs. These women give their children vitamins and de-worming medication given to them by Food for the Hungry. What I love most though is that many of these women attend class on Saturdays (a class Stefanie and I will get to teach) about values and family that Food for the Hungry offers. I love that these women want more for their children and so when I ask them how we can pray for their children, their request is that their children would finish school and stay healthy and that they would walk with Jesus as the grow up and become adults.
Food for the Hungry is an amazing ministry that we love serving with this month. Every child that is put on their list receives the benefit of being included in their family right away instead of waiting for a sponsor as many NPO’s require. I love this. These children are not just given food. They are given the gift of having parents and leaders and churches in their communities radically transformed through the gospel and its ability to reconcile all broken things and make them new. Food for the Hungry works for 7 to 10 years in a community and at the end of those years they are able to pull all of their help and leave the community because they have taught it how to be self-sustaining. I cannot say enough good things about this ministry. Truly they are changing lives through clean water, food, skills training and most importantly, the gospel. Please check them out and consider ways to involve yourself in helping those still hungry.
Love,
Carrie
