It’s our second day in Zimbabwe and our ministry host has decided to take us around the village to get a feel for who we’ll be working with. We meet a woman on the street who asks us to come to her home and pray for her son. Sure, why not? We walk up on the small 10×10 home and in the doorway we see a small pile of bones. That small pile of bones is her son. His name is Simbarash, he is 15, and he has AIDS. He is reminiscent of the photos you see of Jews in internment during the Holocaust. I remember seeing those pictures years ago in school and being devastated. We leave the home, and I’m fighting tears. It’s our second day and we’re already being confronted with pain, death, and darkness. Our team regularly visits his home to pray for him. His mother is confident that he’s getting better, but the reality is that he’s dying. Simbarash is dying.
Entering Greece I felt that I was supposed to lovely wholly and fully, without holding anything back. While there, I also struggled with the idea that this earth’s suffering will never end. In Zimbabwe, I’ve been confronted with that suffering again, but in another form. However, the same scripture still applies. My two lessons from Greece converge here in Zimbabwe. I can’t heal AIDS. I can’t take away pain. But I can love fully. I can show the love of Christ to Simbarash in his last days. Because he is in his last days. That’s my role in this suffering. To love like Christ and to show His presence in this broken and hurting world. I find it no coincidence that Simbarash means ‘The Power of God’ in English.
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Note:
I wrote this blog just hours before finding out that Simbarash had passed from this earth.
Thanks be to God he is now dancing in a new body in front of the throne of Christ.
Life is short, but God is great.
