The day was long and hot, and I lost track of how many houses we were welcomed into. It day was full of evangelism and prayer. We walked about 45 minutes down dirt roads and paths swallowed up by sugar cane ready to be harvested until we got to a grouping of mud houses surrounded by meager corn fields. Karibu is always the answer. Welcome. I can't even tell you the number of people who dedicated their lives to Christ.5?6? I prayed for health, provision, a gateway into education for children, open doors for jobs, protection over households and lots of love and peace. We'd stand up and after shaking hand for the third time move on to the next place. One of the last houses we went into was not even a house but an apartment of sorts. We were lead down a pitch black hallway that instantly gives you the creeps, people coughing behind sheets that stand in as doors. The house was an 8×10 room with the mud pack on the walls falling off, there was a bed frame but no mattress, a few dishes and two of the cutest pot bellied kids ever. The kids were maybe 2 and 3 and had such large bellies that I knew weren't full of food, but parasites instead. The mom, Patrice was shy yet still exuded the same hospitality that I'd seen in all of the women in Kenya. I kept looking at the kids and thinking of my Mom and how I know she struggled to put food on the tables the first couple years in Happy Valley, and how she desperately wanted a steady job, not only for an income but for a since of pride as well. I know my mom was lonely, unhappy and scared, and I saw the same lines etched in Patrice's face as well, those things and more. I prayed form a place of knowing, and a place of sorrow. Please Lord, protect this family, let these little bellies be full of food and give them a future so bright it defies all odds. Comfort Patrice, show her your unfailing love.
Peter, our contact and I have many discussions about the lack of aid in this region, we had another one last night. Peter hopes to start an orphanage, and create a network that will send food out to widows and orphans in the interior which is Africa's version of the boondocks. There are a couple organizations who do try and help, but the have such long waiting lists that it will be years before Peter can get this area even looked at. A few weeks ago, I shared with Peter my hope that one day that the majority of foreign aid will not have to pass through the greedy hands of government officials but instead can go straight to organizations (missionary's and NGO's) on the ground. And possibly more aid distributed to teaching work skills and education instead of being band aid relief. I know that this isn't a new idea, and I'm one of many who feel this way, but what I don't understand is why is it taking so long for this to come about? Peter is a big fan of this idea too, so much so that he is constantly asking when is this going to happen. I have no answer for him, it's a very dejected feeling.
The combination of Peter and my conversation with the pictures of all the mud walled houses we went through kept filing through my head as I went to bed.
God, what do I do?
There are SO MANY IN NEED. Clean water in Kenya, medical aid for special needs kids in Guatemala, houses for orphans in Romania, money for street kids in Honduras to get an education. And what about the needs in the States? Just because I'm halfway around the world doesn't mean that I forget that there are families struggling to put food on the table back home. Then once physical needs are meant, what about spiritual and emotional needs? The whole Earth needs Jesus.
Needless to say, last night I was a mess. It was like last night God opened up His heart and let me feel a small apart of His pain for His Children. I don't feel called to one particular country or ministry, lots of times I wish I did. But I don't. They are all so needed, they all help make up the body of Christ. How could I choose?
This morning I still don't have answers to any of this. But I still have faith that God does.
