The last time I left you was in India. I was sitting on my mat, brushing off ants in blazing hot heat. I was exhausted from the day’s ministry and needing God more than before. It’s now two months later. My teammates caught on that I hadn’t blogged in awhile. I told them I had a really bad case of “writer’s block.” Their response? A unison of complaints and ‘go blog right now. NO excuses!’ 🙂 So here I am. Trying to catch you up on the last two months. I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark. I’ll start with India. It felt like a war zone at times..both at the home and in my spirit. As I have been learning this whole year, love is the most powerful weapon we have. Love drives away the darkness. It destroys strongholds and gives hope and spreads joy. Love restores. When I take one of the kids in my arms and love them and make them giggle…love wins. When I choose to have a wrestling match and have them play with my hair knowing full well I will get lice…..love wins. When I choose to sit on their urine soaked bed to stroak their hair and comfort their cries…love wins. When I pray over and rub the back of a blind girl who was sold into slavery….love wins. When I stand on the roof, interceding for the voiceless with everything in me….love wins. I can’t wait for the day when I see my precious ones running up to me fully healed!! Amidst all of it though, God showed up. He became my strength. When I felt incapable of leading, he became the tower of strength- my rock- on which I could lean. He got me through, and the refining fire did it’s work. God’s love is a powerful force. It drives away the darkness in us. I saw the change that happened when we all threw away our comfort and surrendered to love. I saw the darkness become dim in the face of a growing light….I saw abused, neglected, unwanted kids become wanted, beautiful, and loved.
The ministry at the kids home was one of the most challenging for me. The first day we arrived, I left overwhelmed and sure I couldn’t make it through the month. I’ve never been a kid person, so when these kids rushed me day one…I freaked out a little. I didn’t know what to do. This was my first encounter with severely disabled children…. blind, bed-ridden, distorted features, severely abused, scars and disease marring their little bodies…. but throw in 80+ unsupervised, extremely neglected, some demonically oppressed/possessed, lice infested kids….. They had the worse cases of lice I had ever seen. The bed-ridden kids were literally sleeping in their urine. I didn’t want to touch them. They were pretty gross.
Through the challenge of one of my teammates, I pushed harder than ever to love the kids. I asked God for the strength to throw away comfort for the sake of love. You see, the enemy wanted me to stay in my comfort. It’s comfort that brought those kids there. It was comfort for their parents and families to discard them..they were just an inconvenience after all.
INDIA
In India, we worked at a home for severely disabled children as well as 24 hour night shifts at the missionary apartment taking care of 5 kids who had extremely special cases. We worked with some amazing missionaries named Shaun and Paige, and we painted murals in four of their children’s homes!
During the apartment shifts, I met a beautiful little primordial dwarf. She was two years old and weighed five pounds. She was a fiesty thing. Two of the other kids had cathiters, she had a feeding tube, and they all had a ton of meds. So needless to say, I became Dr. Jay this month. 🙂 The little primordial dwarf became my favorite. At night, she could only sleep if she was tucked up beside you. Through taking care of this little one, I began to love in a new way. She taught me a lot, and she couldn’t even speak. I had quite a few late night skypes while feeding her on my lap with the tube. Somewhere along the way, she made her way deeply into my heart. She has been the only kid on the race I am seriously thinking about adopting.
This month, I was exhausted. In every way possible. No matter how much I physically rested, I could never feel refreshed. I had nothing left to give. I had reached burnout. I felt incapable of serving, of loving, of leading my team. I felt incapable of taking care of these kids. I felt like a horrible person, and my attitude matched it.
Thank you Abba for your consuming love.
