The air is heavy here.
It feels like there is a huge black storm cloud swirling around overhead.
It is a cloud of oppression. It is a cloud of idolatry. It is a cloud of lies and deceit. It is a cloud of depression, and hopelessness.
With each breath we breathe in a bit of this cloud slips past our lips, and comes to settle within our souls. Until the next thing I know all the joy is gone from my body, and my entire team is sitting around with solemn expressions wondering why it is so hard to smile.
Sometimes I feel like it is hard to breathe. Like there is a hand wrapped around my lungs squeezing the joy out of me, squeezing the love and hope out of me, squeezing the very life out of me.
Being in this spiritually heavy atmosphere is hard for me. I am typically happy and bubbly. Joy comes easy for me. I am extremely compassionate and caring. When I see hurting people my heart breaks for them, and my lives desire becomes to alleviate that pain from them.
Here however, it is just a struggle to smile. The smiling faces of children I was once so anticipating, now make me groan. I groan because I know that I am going to have to put on a joyful face, and muster up energy somehow to play with them.
Even more disturbing then my lack of joy however is my lack of empathy. I was so expecting my heart to break for every face that I say, every hurting man and woman who were in such a desperate state. What I am experiencing however is nothing. I look into the eyes of a begging child and feel, not sympathy as much as a desire to clutch my bag just a little bit closer. I see broken people and wonder at them more then hurt for them. My lack of compassion and empathy especially is so frustrating and puzzling to me. Why can’t I care more?!
I have struggled a lot in the last couple of weeks. I have such a desire to be so much more then I am, and experience so much more then I have before, but don’t know how to get there. I feel like I am walking in the dark hoping that I will stumble across something great. I am searching for direction; instruction. I want someone to see where I am and tell me how to get beyond it.
I understand that this is not a happy go lucky blog, but it is honest, this is what being a missionary looks like. love you all!
