She turned her head in confusion as Alina and I called to her from the edge of her yard. She was pulling apart wood scraps for kindling, sitting on a little bucket in the midst of a jungle of weeds. The shack in the corner of the property was no bigger then 12 x 12. Shack is a loose term, describing what was really pieces of metal and cloth strewn together. Smiling, we held the pamphlet out to her, explaining slowly that we had some bible versus worth sharing, but unsure whether or not she knew english. Getting up slowly and turning around she made her way over to the small haphazard fence and took the paper. Beautiful. She was beautiful. At 81 years old, Ida stands under 5 feet, white and grey hair was piled into a bun, and her clothes were old and torn with big sloppy stitching, done by eyes that can’t focus anymore. She mumbled under her breathe before she looked up with slanted blue eyes, dark skin wrinkled and aged, a smile on her lips before she said to one of us and then the other, “born again?” Poor, she’s very very poor. That’s what she repeated at least 10 times within the first 3-5 minutes of us standing at the edge of her overgrown little yard. Taking her bible versus and motioning us to follow, she made her way into her house. A single bar that we had to duck under acted as her doorway. She lead us to two bamboo rods an told us to sit as she motioned around her home, explaining to us what each corner was as if she was giving a tour. It was dirty, a fire place in the corner that had rice cooking, filled with smoke, a bed of bamboo with clothes and pieces of cloth piled high, a small wardrobe hanging from the ceiling, umbrellas strung up over her bed as holes in the roof filled the room with little streams of light. Cramped, messy, unsafe. This was her world. We learned over the next little while as we sat there, forgetting about the rest of our pamphlets for a while, that she was alone. No family, no close friends, no job, no money. Her neighbors give her rice and bring water, but she can’t walk well and her body aches. Her head hurts and she pointed to her knees over and over as she rambled on in broken english. She gripped mine and Alina’s hands as we stood with her and prayed, and she listened as we shared with her what we knew that Jesus thinks of her. She was answering at first, telling us about her food and her family and learning english, how she never married or had kids, and as she talked she started switching languages more and more. She kept on looking up at heaven intermittently as she spoke and saying “help me God..where is God…help me God.” At first Alina and I sat there with smiles, loving that Ida so quickly invited us into her home, but as she talked she shared more of how she was struggling, and before long she was crying. Not a silent tear or two, but sobbing. Looking up at the ceiling and wailing. Tiny and thin and broken, she cried out to God as she held onto my hand tightly and shook her head. Whimpering, she said that she was hurting and didn’t understand why life was like it was. How did this happen. When did she get to this point. As she sobbed I realized that she didn’t need someone to make up comforting words, she just needed someone. She just needed someone to cry with her, to share her pain for a moment. So I did. Alina too. We sat there holding her and as she cried so did we. Sobbing at moments hard enough that I couldn’t bring myself to look up or speak. My heart hurt more then it ever has today. I have prayed the last 7 months for the Lord to break my heart for what breaks his, and today at Ida’s he did that. I didn’t have anything physical to give her except me being there…but I know that the reminder of how present God is in her home comforted her somehow. Ida is not poor. In her brokenness she was calling out to heaven. She was praying. She was listening to what the scriptures say about the faithful. 30 feet from her house, as we walked away we stopped to pray for Ida but I couldn’t finish, so I stood in Alina’s arms crying as she prayed until I was ready to say my piece to the Lord. The impact I felt wasn’t because she was living in poverty. It wasn’t because she lives in a little shack, or because she doesn’t have people in her life, or because she’s 81 and sleeps on hard bamboo. I was impacted because in her helplessness she lifted her eyes. She took a step, like Peter did when he was on the water and he had no where to go other than towards Jesus. And He did. He took a step and as long as his eyes were on Jesus He was taken care of. Ida is beautiful. She is strong. She is VALUED. She is absolutely NEVER alone. And she is not poor. Ida has an amazing future. I hope that she keeps faith, I hope that when it’s raining and she’s cold, or when she’s hungry, or when she is longing for someone’s hands to hold, she does what she did today and looks up at heaven. Jesus did what he did for moments like that. When we are walking through pain or suffering, he is walking alongside us. God doesn’t just love us and help us through pain because Her is God, He walks through life with us in the hard moments because He knows what we are experiencing. He knows pain. He knows what rejection and hurt and being at a loss feels like. Today was the most sincere moment of sharing the gospel I have ever experienced. It kinda sucked. It really made me sad. It really made me cry. But it was also the most beautiful thing to be a part of Ida’s life for a short moment.
