Hey everyone, here comes blog number one at ya, I’m physically doing great, I’m emotionally well! Besides being freaking COLD all is well!!
We are staying at a hostel this month, so cheers to beds! We are like a 10 min walk from the beach, it’s so beautiful, but like I said it’s so cold that I am not being a beach bum by any means, and I didn’t bring any long pants haha, so that’s always fun.
But this month has been….interesting, to say the least.
I’ve been spoiled.
Food is great, we have beds, we have hot water, we have coffee at all hours (I mean, hello, I ain’t gonna complain about that! Nor will I complain about our other accommodations)
But it’s not what I expected.
Our ministry this week included hanging out with kids from a really impoverished community called Phumlani (Poom-la-nee), literally tin/wooden shacks lined up side by side. And after the first night I saw the town of Phumlani, during team time later on, I just cried and cried. All I could think about was the babies being so cold at night, living in those conditions: no good nutritional food, clothing that is made for a spring day not winter winds, and no idea what their idea of love is like. My heart was broken for them, and the people living there. I mean their HOUSES were the size of my ROOM back at home. MY ROOM.
I knew God would, and will, break my heart over and over again seeing that kind of poverty. It shakes me to the core, literally.
But I expected that.
What I didn’t expect was how our ministry time this week would be just hanging out with kids, and basically being a human jungle gym/baby sitter, almost. I expected to be more challenged emotionally, and for those kids to be VASTLY different from the kids in the US. But honestly, they’re really not that different. They are kids. They have their bratty moments, they have their whiny tendencies, and then they have their sweet angel moments. I think the biggest differences are that they are the happiest kids despite their circumstances…All they need is an old tire to push around the yard and they’re more happy than an American child with all of their toys.
And you can’t tell that they have hardly anything, you can’t tell that they might sleep on the dirt floor, or that they might not eat but one meal a day. They are just happy little beings! Which is really cool.
And I can say that wiping their runny noses 50 times in an hour is humbling, letting them get their dirty bodies wrapped in your clothes is an honor, letting them cough and sneeze in your face makes you laugh, and letting them wipe their unwashed hands and faces on your face can’t help but make you smile.
Spiritually, I expected to be already climbing leaps and bounds, being challenged left and right. It’s like my challenge is not being challenged. I’m not learning huge lessons so far, but… maybe I don’t need to yet.
Maybe I need to start laying down my expectations.
Maybe I just need to start saying “thank you” for what’s not challenging, for great things the Father provides, and for just being a baby sitter for a week and just being able to love on kids.
It’s all in the Father’s loving timing. I trust that. And who knows what next week holds…but I’ll say this, I don’t have expectations J
Until next time!
