This month I feel like my heart might really break and I don’t know how I will be able to leave this place. Ever since my first mission trip to Uganda in 2013, where we spent several days visiting an orphange, I prayed that God would let me go back. I didn’t know that God would answer the true heart of my prayer by bringing me here to Malaysia, to live and work at an orphanage for a month.
After Uganda, I had this deep desire for more. There was nothing like the squeezy, loving hugs of those kids and you could just feel the love they were soaking in and giving off. They were so open to just being loved and known, and I wanted the opportunity to do life with them. I wanted the opportunity to experience them beyond the surface level smiles but to really know their thoughts, struggles, doubts, and feelings.
This month it isn’t Uganda, it’s Malaysia. This month it’s not hundreds of elementary age boys and girls, it’s seven teenage girls. The squeezy, loving hugs are the same. The openness is the same. These girls are open handed and open hearted, taking in every ounce of love that we have to give them.
God answered my prayers by allowing me to get past the surface with these girls. He granted my request to be able to do life with them, eat what they eat, live where they live, not be constrained by certain set times to spend time with them. In all of the time we have spent together, we are well past the superficial, “everything is great, everyone loves everyone.” Now we are more at the other end of the spectrum where the girls get under each other’s skin more often than not and are constantly trying to avoid doing their daily chores and homework.
Seven teenage girls getting on each other’s nerves, teenagers trying to get out of homework and chores, that’s so completely normal, right? But right alongside the familiar attitudes of the teenage years are the reminders that these girls are not living the typical life of a teenage girl. What is heart breaking is when they ask you why God made them live in this orphanage because it feels like a prison to them. What is heartbreaking is when they tell you that no one loves them and that no one would miss them if they left. What is heartbreaking is when the house mom, who didn’t have a single day off for 6 months until we were able to relieve her, cries to you about the heaviness and burdens of this kind of job.
This is exactly what I asked for, raw vulnerability, the true heart and feelings…and it can be discouraging. Right along with some of these discouraging moments though, there are these bright little, unmistakable rays of light shining through. Every single day people from the community come by with generous donations. I can’t tell you how many adults from the organization or from church have expressed their concern for the girls. These girls are loved. These girls are provided for. God’s hand is clearly on this home.
Every night we lead worship and the girls are excited about it. They have a desire for spiritual things. They pray together. They sit for hours making playlists of worship songs. They listen intently when we share devotionals with them. God is here! Things are not perfect, they’re actually really, really hard…but I see God’s hand in all of it. We are only here for a short time and as our last week is coming to a close, I am forced to give the girls back to Him and trust that He will continue to pursue them throughout their whole life. I know He will and I hope and pray that our little time together will help them to see Him. Sometimes it really is only a matter of how you see things to know that He is there.
This month I have seen again, LIFE IS HARD. As much as I would love to attach some kind of Christian cliche’ to this lesson…sometimes those just make it worse. I get it, God is enough, but sometimes it just doesn’t feel like it. And that’s OK to say. I told God tonight, “I just don’t feel like you are enough right now.” He loves honesty. He is the truth after all. He’s OK with all of our doubts and insecuritues, He knows who He is, so He’s not going to be super offended by our little tiny perspectives that are bound by space, time, and human reasoning. I like being honest with Him. It is helping me to get through this month just to know that it’s OK to not be Ok and I guess I can’t resist the cliche’ at the end because I just have to say, He does have it under control 🙂
That’s one thing about God, it’s just never the end of the story with Him, so even in moments of heart break and disocuragment, He’s still working it all out for the good of those who love Him.
