My mind has been overwhelmed a little bit these days. It is hard for me to lay down at night without vivid pictures of orphans, street kids and hopeless families circling through my mind. In fact, I have come to believe that some of these individuals have been burned permanently into the backs of my eyelids. And to be honest, I’m relieved because I never-never-never want to forget.
When I was 18, I remember an eight-year-old boy telling me that his father had just left the night before and his mother didn’t know how the family would eat. I remember saying I was sorry and turning the other way. This was the eighth person to ask me for food that day. I remember the regret I still feel today that I didn’t do something more.
I remember looking into the desperate eyes of a mother who had spent the month watching her newborn slowly starve to death, simply because she didn’t have the money needed to take care of him. I remember the unspoken joy as we provided the little resources needed to change her world. And then, I remember the sea of hungry eyes at the city dump two months ago, whose eyes remain desperate.
At a Bolivian orphanage I remember the pain that filled my gut when a young orphan asked me why and I didn’t have any answers. I remember holding her and crying with her when words seemed just too shallow a response. I remember leaving a chunk of my bleeding heart behind when I had to go.
I remember the feeling of getting on the plane to the USA and trying to reconcile these two worlds into one. I remember failing miserably and resorting to living a double life. I remember that I have to do this all over again in one week and my stomach still lurches at the idea.
But then I remember other truth. I remember that God has called me to do something. I remember that He is allowing me to do something. And I remember that this calling is not limited to any border, language or need.
