As I wade through the dirty, poopy, garbage filled water to get to my neighbors house with my rubber boots on I look into the broken down, falling apart homes made of wood, metal, sheets, and sticks. I see the barefoot kids walking in the gunk that I wouln't even think about letting my foot touch. I see the brown, crooked, deteriorating teeth smiles from the faces all over. The young twenty year old pregnant girls. The 7 people living in a box about the size of my room back home.
This picture is of Rachel and I rafting to our neighbors house in our rubber boots
My eyes open really wide and just think about how anyone could live like this. This is just like the pictures you see when someone sends you a card to support a child, to feed the hungry, to help the poor in need. This is their reality. Here I am to live it out with them this month.
Everytime I leave my new home, a rooftop of a church, the people ask where I am going. Usually, it is to the market where my team daily buys groceries for our meals. Everywhere we walk, I hear a loud ,"hello!" and see a hand waving with a smile. It doesn't matter whether it is my neighbor, a street kid, a person I bought vegetables from in the market, or someone walking by, if they ask for my name they will remember whether I see them tomorrow or 3 days later. All of them call me beautiful. I am sure you can imagine that these new friends of mine don't own very much. But let me tell you, if they own something they try to give it away to us as gifts.
All of these things I can't even fathom. I have a confession. I am horrible at remembering names. I have been a younglife leader for 6 years and I still fail at remembering some of them. It takes me about 40 times saying a name and seeing their face or something that reminds me of them to remember. So the fact that they know my name after meeting most of them once is incredible to me.
Being here makes me think of how I can really help these people. Before coming on the race, people asked what we would be doing out here. I knew we would be doing all sorts of things and helping in any way possible, poverty being one of them. But it also made me wonder how I, not having much, will be able to help them. What do I have to offer? Do they even want what I have to offer? Then I realized one night while sitting on our rooftop home watching the sunset, that these people show me more of Jesus than anyone else and that they are actually helping me.
These sweet people always care to know where I am going. Jesus cares about where I am going. They always call me beautiful and genuinely mean it. Jesus made me in His image and calls me beautiful. They know my name and always remember it. Jesus knew my name before I was born and will always know it. Even though my wonderful friends don't own much of anything they still want to give me what they have. Jesus always wants the best for me and gives me exactly what I need and blesses me with more than enough. Even with their crooked teeth, they always smile at me. Jesus is always smiling at me.
This is who they are. Their homes may be broken on the inside and out but they are so alive and it humbles me to know that I want to strive to be like them. By my own strength I am not physically able to get everyone out of poverty, which I wish I could. But what I can do is what they do for me. Be like Jesus to them. Love them well, give what I can, smile at them, remind them how beautiful they are, hug them until our arms are sore, remember their name, serve them in anyway that I can.
I want to be that ball of energy, the friend that cares for them no matter what, that will sit by their side and talk about life, that cherishes every word that leaves their mouth. Thank you to all my new friends, I want to be like you.
