Life in Mozambique is so different from my "normal" life.
My team and I just came out of Month 6 in South Africa doing Unsung Heroes for AIM, and hooking up with American missionaries and generous South Africans that made last month seem like we weren't even on the race.
Starting the very first travel day to Mozambique, I knew Month 7 wasn't going to look anything like the month prior.
We're working with Kedesh boy's orphanage in Chamba; an amazing place where teenage boys learn life skills and are loved deeply. We've been partnered with a boy this month and we work along-side them and help with their school work.
I can easily point out differences between life here at Kedesh and my life back home or even life last month in Cape Town. Almost everything is different. I can go around and tell you about what I’ve done for the first time, and there has been a number of them.
Every morning there is a 5:30 AM wake up call, and then breakfast at 6. And then the boys start working. They watch the cows and goats, clean up around the property, water and maintain the garden, clean up after meals; everyone has their assigned job. Most of the jobs are a little foreign to me….I've never had to sit and make sure goats don't get too far away from you.
I've never had to worry about stepping in cow poop while playing volleyball.
I've never had to make bread from scratch for almost 50 people.
So much is different here. But there is something else that is so different that has stuck out to me:
Their feet
Most of them walk around with no shoes, and I can't help but notice the differences in their feet. Normally, I would never pay attention to anyone's feet because I get super grossed out by them, but the boy's feet are different. I want to describe them to you. Let me try…
All of their feet are wide, wide to the point of almost looking funny on a small boy's frame, and their chubby little toes stick out even wider. They're rounded at the bottom; like the bottoms of them have been flattened out from being on them all the time, so it looks like they don't have an arch at all. Most of the boys have at least one toenail that doesn't look normal. They are always dirty. All the boys are barefoot almost all of the time.
I love looking at their feet.
I love watching them climb up the trunk of trees with their bare feet.
I love watching the yellow under-sides of them flip up as they run down the football field.
I love the footprints in the dirt.
Looking at their feet has made me look at mine as well.
My clean, un-calloused, prissy feet.
If you put our feet side by side, you would definitely know, without a doubt that the boys aren't from wear I am. You know without a doubt that they have had a harder life than I have. You can tell without a doubt that my life is a lot safer than theirs.
It’s funny what you learn about people by just looking at their feet.
And I think looking at their feet and looking at their lives has made me want my life to be different.
This might be a little bit of a rambling, nonsense rolling around in my head that I had to get out blog, but I’m thinking of what I want to do differently in my life because I’ve met and spent time with these boys.
Maybe there will be a part 2….maybe not.
But I know that my life with never be the same…all because I looked at these boy’s feet.
