Right now, I’m sitting at Mugg & Bean, sipping a black coffee, on wifi, reading Naomi Shihab Nye poetry (because senior year english class got me hooked on her words.)
This is not a normal picture of life in Swaziland- but I’m sharing it with you, because it’s a bottle up moment. I’m a big fan of grabbing onto the sweetness and delicacy of those. They are fleeting- and I know I can’t live them again- but they’re beautiful testimonies of the goodness and rawness of life.
I want to call out that the world race is real life. I’m here today, missing America and coffee shops and driving my car. I’m here today fighting entitlement and complacency and mind numbing distraction from the pain and poverty and reality, that really exists everywhere, but is glaringly obvious here. I have less than two months less before I’ll be in America, and it’s easy to count down the days- at school I sure would be.
But there is goodness here. I want to press in. I want intentionality and growth and long slow days. I want to see God’s movement more, His miracles. I want more days where 12 year old Gregory Prince walks me home with a box over my head for shade, and talks about his favorite part of church is all the people who love God. I want to have more days where Spider skips up to me, tries to steal my phone, and then peels part of his toe off, and we connect, as human beings, who don’t speak the same language, but feel the same feelings. I want more days where five year old Tuba climbs onto my back to escape the 50 cent rand piece being stolen out of his pocket (1/28th of a dollar).
I’m not intending to romanticize the African sun and shoeless kids on black asphalt and bullying; this is simply the reality of daily life here. I want more days like this, because these people are deeply loved by our Creator God and a lot of them have no idea they’re loved at all. I want more days like this, just so I can spill out love to them that is overflow from Jesus giving me love. I want all this, I do, I do.
Then Tuesday will come, it will be hot, I’ll want it to rain, and I won’t want to pick up the pee stained girl with the open scabs. I won’t, I won’t.
But I will.
I won’t want to do anything but lay in bed and watch a movie in the afternoon, because then maybe- subconsciously- I’ll forget that 40% of our kids have AIDS and aren’t expected to make it to adulthood. I’ll forget that I live in a room with 18 girls and 1800 bugs for a little while. I’ll forget that I have things to work through before I go home, because those take work to work through and that takes effort.
But I will push in. It will be worth it. It will be rewarding. It’s okay to let my heart- your heart- be broken for people around the world. These kids I play with everyday have some weighty statistics placed on them. These bugs are actually massive and sometimes fly in the window and land on my face or food, but actually, that’s how everyone lives here in Swazi. With the people and the bugs and the dirt. It’s all worth it. The hard, the good- the hard is good.
So all of this is a praise. Thanks God for the days where I lack motivation, but you are good, and you push me on. Thanks God for the days when it’s hot, and it would be easy to complain or be exhausted, but you fill me up and provide everything I need, and make it surprisingly easy to love and find joy. Thanks God for the mud and the bugs and the people that always break entitlement, always make me grateful, always teach me empathy, and always drive me closer to simplicity. Thanks God for the opportunity to love Gregory Prince and Spider and Tuba and every single kid that comes through our care point. Thanks God that we can’t fix their situation, we can’t tangibly help, but that you can. Thanks God that you see each and every kid and love them; you love the ones who try to steal the money and beat up the others and have open wounds and who kiss up to the white people and who cry at the white people. You love them all.
These are my prayers. My heart. My daily life moments, the ups and downs, internal battle in my mind. Guys, it’s really hard to choose the things that are good for me. But, isn’t that always the truth?! It’s hard to choose that salad over that mac n cheese. In the end, it’s worth it.
Whatever you are fighting in your life right now- whether it is wanting to ignore the bad relationship, being called to long term missions, crossing the street to talk to your neighbor, asking for help, learning to stop asking for help, eating healthy- choose the uncomfortable. Growth happens in the uncomfortable. Goodness comes out of the uncomfortable. Go on that bike ride today, read that chapter in the bible, ask the hard questions or have the hard conversation. This request is equally for me and you. Saying that it will be worth it even when it’s hard to see or believe, is equally for me and you.
I don’t know who I wrote this for, but I know one of you needed to read it. Please send me prayer requests any one of you has.
Lots of love,
Cait
