I’ve never been so angry with flies in my life. When they start buzzing in your ear as you attempt to eat your dripping-with-sweet watermelon in the summer, I hate them. When I would go out to the barn to care for the animals at my house and they burst off of their previous resting position in front of me, I hate them. But I have never hated them as much as I did when I had to sit and watch them invade the lives of the special needs kids we cared for that day.
One of the saddest things I’ve seen in my life was the infinite amount of flies crawling their disgusting little selves over a child whose body can’t wiggle to shake them away, whose mouth can’t speak to ask for someone else to do it for them, whose eyes can’t even see what is crawling over their fingers, neck, face, lips, ears, smile. Their smile. Crawling over their beautiful smile.
The kids we held and talked to and played with in the house of handicapped children in Rwanda were so open to any kind of affection we had to give them. We laughed and played with them and I held my 10 year old girl for those 2 hours and shooed away flies from her every few seconds, growing angrier and angrier that after a minute of looking away, they had already infested again. I hate those flies.
This is a picture of what I wrote in my journal the day we left that orphanage. That morning, we did some evangelizing and exploring in the village where Alex and I teach English at. I call it the best/worst day of Rwanda.
But when all I see is children with no purpose, He sees one of the greatest forms of His glorification. He sees a beautiful smiling child. He sees kids who are going to impact the way other people live their lives, just like their joy and constant affection affected mine. He sees purpose like no other. I see ashes. He sees Purpose. He makes Beauty from those ashes and sometimes gives me just a glimpse of what that looks like, just like when He showed me what kind of purpose those children have for Him when I was blinded by anger at the flies attacking these vulnerable kids. His kids. Jesus, thank you for guiding me through seeing these kids through your eyes. Thank you Jesus.
