Dirt socks and soap mittens.

It is now day 18 in Africa.  It’s been hard to get myself to sit down and write a blog… I don’t even know where to begin, or what to include.  Africa is a unique place.  Every day brings unique challenges and celebrations.  One day could hold a moment of such intense joy that you think your heart will burst, and then less than an hour later the desperation and hopelessness of certain situations overcomes you.  

 
Let me set the scene for the average day-
 
I sleep with most of the other girls in a room connected to the church.  I wake up around 8am and we have team prayer at 830am. 
 
We all eat breakfast around 930am.  The women in Pastor Adam’s family cook breakfast for us every day.  We have chipati, sometimes boiled eggs, cucumbers, sometimes spaghetti, and sometimes bananas.  When I say that they cook breakfast for us, I don’t mean that they throw some dough on a skillet for the chipati and some eggs in a pot.  They sit in a small, smoky “kitchen” and cook everything over an open fire, and the smoke is overwhelming.  I can hardly even be near the doorway of the kitchen while they are cooking, let alone be in that room.  I don’t know how long it takes to cook this small meal for 16 visitors, but I do know I once heard someone chopping wood at 4am.  I guess making breakfast along with other morning tasks takes quite a while. 

 
Every morning (and throughout the day) we say hello to Isaac.  Isaac is the guard that is hired to keep us and our things safe this month.  He sleeps in a sleeping bag in the entryway of the property (it’s all enclosed with multiple small buildings) and there is a thin mat that separates him from the cold cement.  Nighttime temperatures go down to the fifties.  Isaac usually looks pretty tired in the morning, but he is so friendly and we all talk with him (as much as we can, since he doesn’t really speak English) and sometimes play music with him too.  He loves music.

 
After breakfast we have free time to do prayer or worship, Bible studies, write blogs, exercise, or whatever we want.  Sometimes we play with the children that hang out around the property of the church.  I spend a lot of my time thinking about these children.  More on them later.
 
We eat lunch between 1 and 2pm and then prepare for the church service which begins at 4.  There are four church services per week, but there have been so many special events since we’ve arrived here that we’ve had church almost every day.  Our main ministry this month is to speak at each one of these services.  After the service we have dinner, do our nightly feedback with out teams, and then go to bed.

 
Back the children.
Most of the children that we see during the day have free time because their families can’t afford to send them to school.  They are often wearing clothes that are clearly overflow from American Goodwill and Salvation Army- shirts that say things like “Someone who loves me very much brought me this shirt from Cancun”, “Seniors 2008” or “Built Ford Tough.” I used to think that just America and sometimes Europe sent these clothes to Africa, but since I’ve been here I have seen that they come from Asia as well.  One of the little girls that hangs around here a lot has a little yellow sweater with Korean writing on it, and I saw another kid wearing the main character of a popular Chinese cartoon on his shirt.  This really gets to me.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because our goodhearted attempts to help clothe poor Africans have killed many textiles industries on this continent.  Maybe it’s because I wish the kids could get brand new clothes once a year, just like I enjoyed getting when I was a kid.  Maybe it’s because countries all over the world are using Africa as a dump for things that they don’t want.  It sounds dramatic, but it’s true.  I see it.  I see it every day here.  This is why my heart is heavy.

 
Last week we had a five day crusade outside the church.  This was basically an elongated church service- lots  of music and dancing, a message, an offering, and prayer.  Tens of children from the area come to spend time with each other, with us, and to listen to the church service (well, sort of listen.)  A lot of times they don’t wear shoes.  I know that sometimes they are just kids that don’t feel like wearing shoes, just like kids in the States run around without shoes on.  Then again, a lot of them don’t have shoes.  I looked at one shoeless girl in particular and thought to myself, “Her feet are so dirty that from here the dust looks like socks.” 

And then it hit me.  The juxtaposition of my life and her life came crashing together as a childhood memory cam to my mind…
My mom’s mom, Grandma Ruth, taught me a hand-washing trick when I was little.  She told me to rub the soap into my hands so much that the suds turned my hands white.  Soap mittens.  When your hands had soap mittens, then you knew that they were really clean and you could rinse them off.
 
Why does Isaac have to sleep on the ground? 
Why does Adam’s family have to sit in a hot smoky room to cook every meal?
Why can’t these children go to school?
Why don’t these children have shoes?
Why did I get soap mittens and they got dirt socks?

 
For those of you who don’t know, I spent four months studying abroad in Tanzania in the spring of 2009.  For four months I asked myself these kinds of difficult questions from a political standpoint.  It was exhausting.  It was hard.  If  I look at politics and economics and governments and aid and plans and projects and all those kinds of things, it’s enough to make me go crazy.  It’s enough to make my heart break.  It’s enough to make me want to almost blindly throw money at any organization that looks like they are doing something good because trying to think of something on my own is just too overwhelming. 
 
But God is teaching me something this month.  It’s a hard lesson, but I KNOW that it’s truth, and I HAVE to hold onto it, or else I just may cry myself to sleep every night. 
 
Even if all these kids got shoes, went to school, and had enough to eat every day, they would still just get old and die.  Even if Adam’s family lived in a mansion, that would only last them until the end of their lives.  Even if Isaac had a steady job for the rest of his life, that doesn’t mean anything for what happens in the afterlife.
 
What we are doing is more important than aid and politics, because ultimately, eternity is a LONG time.  Much longer than anyone’s life.  And the real difference that we can make in these children’s lives is loving them like Christ loves them.  Telling them about Jesus.  Praying salvation over them.  Giving them a hope for their future, their future with Christ.  Reminding them of their real treasure in heaven, where thieves cannot steal and moths cannot destroy.
 
These are the hard lessons that I think many people, including myself, have tried to avoid while living in the comfort of the Western world.  But I can’t avoid it anymore.  I hope you won’t either.