There’s a painted canvas with smoky gray brushstrokes soaked deep into the fibers; the color is deep enough that it resembles a midnight sky without light. Splitting through the dank gray is an explosion of vibrant colors swirling together – mahogany, cherry red, golden flecked yellow, brilliant blues.
This is how I pictured Malawi before we arrived here. There would be unshakeable joy where suffering existed but the spirit of the people would be resilient. That there would be life despite the widespread poverty and pain; you wouldn’t be able to stamp out their vibrancy. Their joy would split through their hardships and would create such a contrast that it emphasized their joy even more.
For the most part, this is the truth of Madisi, Malawi.
“Auntie!” This is the title the children a part of the organization Rise Malawi call all the leaders including my team. The kids stumbled over themselves and yelled after me as I shuffled backwards from them with the basketball dribbling in my hands. Their blinding, toothy smiles flashed as they giggled at each other. The smallest things make them happy.
“Auntie!” They wanted me to throw the ball to every single one of them at the same time. I reflected their enthusiasm back – my smile easy and my laugh escaping often as they reached their tiny hands after me. Their laughter, smiles, and joy constantly refuse to be diminished.
We were in the darkness, the electrical power fizzling out again. Our lamps kept the room aglow as a couple of my teammates prepared dinner. Then I heard it. A child crying hysterically in the home in front of us. I could tell it was a boy and I instantly thought it was one of the street boys who always wants the warmth of our attention.
I couldn’t tell what the child was saying over and over as he was sobbing. Each cry carried the feeling of one of the red bricks of this village dropping a sick weight in my stomach. I desperately wanted to storm to the home in hero mode to find the child to comfort and protect them. But a wise teammate of mine shared,
“I hear children cry like that at back home in San Francisco. I’ve learned it is best to not get involved. Often you could make the situation worse because eventually you’ll leave and the child will be in the same situation. You can’t take them with you.”
While there is laughter, smiles, and joy here there is also brokenness, suffering, and widespread poverty in this village.
Hearing that cry, it wasn’t just a boy. It was me remembering the discussion with Tanashea, co-leader of Rise Malawi, telling us about child abuse in Madisi. That cry to me sounded like the collective cry of the children hurting in Madisi. It almost sounded like uncontrollable howling.
I couldn’t handle it.
It may have been a fixable, small cause for the child being upset. Maybe the child was mad at a sibling for saying something not nice or maybe it was result of the horrific home situation the child was in. Either way, all I could think about was behind the children of Madisi’s buoyancy and smiles there is an unfathomable pain some children experience here. There’s child abuse, threat of starvation, and child trafficking.
My mind was churning about taking action but I concluded I couldn’t do anything beneficial. I felt helpless. My feet carried me outside and I started walking towards the home. I stopped. I didn’t know what I was planning, I didn’t know why I was outside. Maybe the child would be right there, crying in the red dirt, and I could scoop him up and make him feel loved. Instead I stared at the home still hearing him cry with my teammate’s words ringing in my ears.
“Lord, I don’t know what to do. Can you make it stop?”
I wasn’t sure if I was asking him to comfort the child in that moment as much as I was asking Him to stop this madness and stop the brokenness that carves wounds deep into the innocent hearts of the Madisi children.
I looked up.
The stars feel closer here; it reminded me of bonfires with friends back home in the open country. Stars feel like a fairytale with their twinkly lights and beautiful display of constellations. A shooting star may breeze by and we utter a wish quickly under our breath.
The stars feel weightless, other-worldly, and a place of imagination. It reminded me in that moment of the children here. All brilliant in their laughter, joy, and smiles.
Then there was a flicker of lightning in my peripheral. It wasn’t the main display but it still existed in the sky. The lightning felt like a threat in that moment and felt dangerous. It felt like a paradox next to the stars.
That’s what the Lord keeps showing me here in Madisi. The painting canvas description, the widely polarized emotions of the kids, and seeing the stars next to the lightning, Madisi has sharp constrast and I am struggling in reconciling the joy and deep pain.
At times, the Westernized mindset in international missions is to fix it. We want to send shoes, food, etc but that’s a temporary solution that in the long run doesn’t sustain families here. I’ve had the concept taught to me that I’m meant to go and share Christ and love people in the exact situations the locals are in but I’m now experiencing it for myself. I am continuing to learn about resources the directors here connect them to which is often times their own organization.
I want to yank out my toolbox and change these kid’s lives by rapid hammering. I want to remove them from child abuse, from threat of child trafficking, and from poverty.
I’m not the hero of the story though.
The reality is there’s brokenness we want to fix in the States too, not only Malawi. You could be a teacher in America for example and have kids that don’t have food at home or children that live in an abusive home. You want to be the hero but sometimes we cannot be in the ways we want to be. We can help in the ways we can see and we can give gallons of love to the kids. We can connect resources to them. We can speak encouraging words about them they may have never heard.
Ultimately, Christ is the heroic figure in the cracked and bruised world that exists and will exist until the end. He knew there would be suffering and He calls us to be ambassadors of Him; messengers that share of His hope and His love.
While I cannot change the world or even a child’s situation, I can surely pour out every last ounce of Christ’s love and truth on their tiny hearts. I can stand in the gap for them and fight for them by the means I’m able to.That’s the difference I’m capable of bringing today and I have to be okay with that.
The tension of the paradox of the stars and lightning, of the joy and pain remains but Christ already answered my question about making it all stop.
One day. One day all that will exist is the vibrant colors, the twinkly stars, and joy. One day there will be rejoicing in the presence of the Lord for eternity and the children can dance freely before Him with no more tears and no more pain.
P.S. I will include pictures once I have better wifi!
