This month we are working at a place called Eden. I love the name, and I love the vision of this home for those who society often deems unworthy of their time and effort because they just take too much of it.
Eden’s mission is “to be the number one accommodation supplier to people that are mentally challenged and destitute.” There are 110 residents at Eden, 85 to 90 of whom are dealing with some sort of mental illness. They don’t receive government assistance so they grow vegetables and raise livestock. They use half of what they produce to eat and sell the other half to help with costs. They are working and relying on the Lord to meet their needs.
Our team has been working in the kitchen, cleaning, making trips to the hospital, and generally loving and serving these people for the past four days. Even though many people in South Africa speak English in addition to Afrikaans, many of the residents don’t speak English.
Thankfully, we have learned in previous months how to communicate love even when words fail us. I think that’s one of the most important lessons I’ve been learning on the Race. What God teaches you in one moment is never just for that time in your life. Most often that moment is meant to prepare you for what he has down the road a ways.
My job this week has been working in the kitchen. There is one person on staff in the kitchen. Her name is Martha. The rest of the people I have been working with this week are residents at Eden. They rise early to prepare breakfast and dish it up for their friends. They stay late to wash dishes and mop the floors. And they do it all with the most genuine, beautiful smiles on their faces.
Christoph likes to help me wash dishes. Two other ladies come in while I’m playing music for a mini-dance party to work the kinks out of my back from bending over the deep sink. And sweet Sophie comes in to give me a hug and her infectious smile.
As I stand there washing dishes, listening to worship music and listening to Daniel hum along even though he doesn’t know the words, Jeff (our fellow Racer and raised up squad leader who is with us for part of this month) mentions a passage from a book I read in Cambodia (there’s the prior preparation again). In The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, it says “Although he once had a great dislike for kitchen work, he developed quite a facility for doing it over the fifteen years he was there. He attributed this to his doing everything for the love of God, asking as often as possible for grace to do his work.”
I can’t say that I love washing dishes, but I can say that I have felt God’s presence in that kitchen this week. I have found his grace readily available to love these people well. I have found myself more willing to be interrupted in my work rather than solely focused on accomplishing my tasks.
That’s nothing I did on my own. That’s what comes when you open your eyes to see Jesus in the woman who can’t ask for what she needs, but can give you a big hug to thank you for trying to figure it out.
Our ministry this month has already moved my heart in so many ways, and we’ve been here less than a week. I can’t imagine what the next few weeks will hold, but I’m so thankful that God has brought me to Eden.
My prayer is that our time here will be a picture of what it will look like when God finishes the work he has started in restoring all of creation to its original goodness.
