If not, I recommend it. Let God wreck
you for the poor, or the people you interact with, or the nations, or
orphans, or the American church, or human trafficking. Anything
really, just let yourself be open to that. He will literally give you His heart, if you ask. And even when you don’t, the
Lord often has other plans…
Here is a story, from Seth Barnes’ blog, of how one family was wrecked for the orphans of Swaziland. I was at these same carepoints this past year. It’s long, but worth it!
Kevin writes: It was a 100 degree day. The
drive through the sugar fields was amazing and beautiful. Then as we left
the paved roads and passed through the sugar fields to the land behind the
facade, it was a dry parched land. Kriek told us as we were driving there
it was the only truly God-forsaken place she had ever been. You thought
she was exaggerating until you pulled up and saw it.
A mud hut they
called the kitchen where the GoGos cooked for the 120 orphans at that care
point. Water was over a mile away. No trees, just brambles and
dirt. The “church,”, the only covering anywhere was a stick
frame with a tarp draped over the top. A tarp is only temporary shelter, and its time was up, as
it had developed holes and rips. Still better than nothing.
Christi writes: I really struggled with going to
Africa. I didn’t want to leave the kids
for that long. Kevin was really reaching
towards spiritual things more and more.
I liked what I saw, but I wasn’t ready for all that yet…I
thought. Anyway, I knew that if I didn’t
go on this trip with him to Africa, it would only make this spiritual gap
between us bigger, so I decided to go.
People said it would change my heart, but I didn’t believe them.
Sure enough, the first time we got to a
care point, I came alive. This is it,
“this is what I was made to do,” I thought.
I held one of the younger kids, and immediately started crying. My heart just broke.
The
third day, I was in Kreik’s
car, and she talked about the carepoint we were going to that day. She
said it is God-forsaken country. When we arrived at Big Bend I saw why.
There was NO shelter from the sun, and it
must have been 110 degrees outside. When
we stepped outside of the car, we stepped onto the driest earth I have
ever
walked on. Everywhere you looked the
land was parched and cracked and barren.
Their were bur plants everywhere, and thorns easily 3 inches long. I
got burs in my shoes. Once they got in there it was impossible to
walk. You couldn’t get away from
them. As you stopped to pick the burs
out, more would get into the shoe you were balancing on. My husband had
a 3 inch thorn go right
through his shoe, and up into his foot.
There was pain and ugliness everywhere you looked and stepped. You got
the feeling that the very earth you
stood on had been cursed by God. I
wondered why.
As we approached the kids, one
little girl in the crowd stood out to me immediately. She stared right at me…right into my
eyes. I had to look away to break the
stare. She was unlike the other kids I
had seen and played with. She didn’t run
and jump in my arms. She didn’t ask to
be held. She just looked at me. I felt something inside me say “go get
that little girl”. But then
something else said “no don’t”.
We had been told by other people, that some of the kids are afraid of
white people, so I believed that I was doing the right thing by distancing
myself from her. I wasn’t.
About an hour later, Jumbo showed
up with some water, and Kreik mixed some drink mix in with it. We helped line the kids up to get their
drinks. I noticed the little girl
again. She had gotten her drink, and was
aimlessly, almost deliriously, walking through the crowd. She had no one to go to it seemed like, but
it looked like she needed a place to rest.
So I picked her up and sat her on my lap. It was then that I felt how feverish she was,
and the walking around delirious, made
sense. She didn’t
feel good. It was the middle of their summer, and she
had this nagging cough. She was also
sneezing a lot, and there was green stuff caked around her nose.
Purplish OPEN sores COVERED her body, and
fluid was oozing out of most of them.
Bugs were on the sores, and flies were swarming around her. The meal at the care point had been served,
and all the kids were eating. She was on
my lap so she hadn’t gotten her bowl of food.
These kids walk MILES a day for one meal, so I didn’t want her to miss
it. I pointed to someone else’s bowl,
and asked her if she wanted a bowl. She
shook her head no, and laid it on my chest.
My motherly instincts kicked in, and I began asking around to see where
this little girl’s mother was, so that maybe her mother could make sure she ate
something. The adults told me she didn’t
have a mother. It was safe to assume
that she has no father either…so she was completely orphaned.
She had to walk there; it must have been hard
for her, given the condition she was in.
And then once she was there, she was forced to walk around deliriously
in her feverish condition, as there was no shade, no shelter, no adult to rest
on. It was then that I began to regret
not picking her up when I first arrived in this God-forsaken place. She could have had another hour to just
rest.
As I held her, with her head on my
chest, tears came flooding down my face.
I turned away from her, because I didn’t want her to see them. I couldn’t help but think of my own children
at home. When they are sick, they become
a prince or a princess for the day or for how ever long they need to be. I put them on the couch, and I prop a pillow
or two up, just right, behind their sick head, and I cover their bodies with a
warm blanket. They get a bell, or a
noise maker that they can ring to get my attention whenever they want it.
I send my husband to the store to get sprite,
and whatever else I feel might be good for them, and their condition.. I cried because their was no one to do that
for this little girl. I wanted to, but
the sad reality was I was going to be taken back, in an air conditioned
vehicle, to one of the nicest hotels in Swaziland. I was going to get a hot shower, and be taken
to a nice restaurant for a hot meal.
After I was done with my hot meal, I had the option of swimming in a
nice pool, and I had a comfortable bed to get a good nights sleep in.
I
have never been more ashamed of
how I take my blessings for granted. At
that moment, I could have given all that up to stay there with her. I
didn’t have that choice though. As they called me to the car, I had to
give
her up, I had to let her go, and again she just stared at me…she
stared into
my very soul, and all I could do was kiss her and tell her I was so
sorry. I was sorry for a lot of things. I was sorry I hadn’t listened
to God’s spirit
in me telling me to pick her up earlier.
I was sorry I had wealth, and she didn’t. I was sorry she had to
continue living in God
forsaken country, while I got to return home to America. I was just
sorry.
I wanted to be so much more than just sorry. It was there that God told me He would bring
us back, and that I would be able to do so much more than just be sorry. I was going to step in where there was no
mom, and be a mom. I was going to be
able, one day, to bring hope into a hopeless situation.
