Walking along in the dirt without shoes because I can’t afford them.
Tiny bugs crawl under my toe nails. They quickly invade both of my feet.
The entry way is the toe nail but soon your entire foot is their home.
They are not nice visitors to my body. They cause me much pain.
I can’t sleep at night because they are constantly eating at my flesh and walking is unbearable especially without shoes. Without shoes, I will have more of them entering my skin.
I sit alone in agony praying that God will help me, take away the pain and preserve my feet.
Then, I begin to feel them invading my fingers. The same itching and pain I felt in my feet is now in my hands too. My hands that I use to fetch water, cook meals, harvest crops, and take a bath. Hands and feet paralyzed in pain! What can I do? I pray. I pray. I pray some more. That’s all I know to do. I live one hour from a city and the doctors don’t know what to do either nor could I afford to go to one. Jiggers are killing me slowly.
This past Saturday, my team and I went to a village called Buriquay. Some of the people I met there had an infestation in their bodies of a small insect called a jigger. The above monologue is what I would imagine goes through their minds as they deal with these treacherous insects. Before going, some of my teammates had showed me pictures of jiggers. They looked horrible.
However, when I knelt down to wash a girl’s feet who had been infected with them, I could not believe what I saw. This was what I saw!
Her toes were swollen, the skin cracked open, and her heel was deteriorating. She stared at me in fear not knowing what I was about to do. Our pastor that we are working with had told some doctors had found a cure for jiggers in vinegar. So as I knelt down and washed her feet, then began applying vinegar to her tattered and torn feet, she was scared. The smell was almost unbearable for me and evoked an immediate gag reflex in me. 
I continued with what I had come to do. Then after we finished her feet, her fingers looked just as bad so we treated them as well. We prayed
during the process and after we finished. Then as if my heart wasn’t already broken for her, she got up and walked away bare footed. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to buy this girl shoes, but we were in a village where those are not easily accessible. (I did buy her some the next day and sent them to the village by way of another woman.) Then, my teammates proceeded to wash three more people’s feet—one child and two older gentlemen. The gentlemen both writhed in pain as they were being treated.
Once again, my eyes were opened to something I had no idea even existed. Once again, I feel like I want to do so much more than I am doing. I began to thank God for the shoes on my feet, for health care when I need it, for knowledge I can easily access via the internet, for His healing power, for His love for these people who live so far from any city, for the love the people of the village showed us, for this opportunity to do something Jesus would have done if He were there with me. I love that Jesus was not a man of words, but of action. He loved through his actions. I’ve never wanted to be more like Jesus than I did after this day. Open your eyes to those around you. If you have something to give, give it. If you don’t, love anyway. Love your God and love your neighbor…that’s ALL He’s asked us to do!
