I’ve recently been challenged. My flesh has reared its ugly
head, and I don’t like it. My conceptions of what I have considered “mine� have
come into question, and I’m finding that I don’t extend NEARLY the amount of
grace that I’d like to think I do.
The other day, we were visiting a Gypsy village on the
outskirts of Bucharest. We went there with our contact to play with some of the
children.
This village was a joke, really. We found an empty lot, next
to a house one of our squad mates lovingly compared to “Post Katrina�. Amidst
the rubble, we found some items we could use as “goals� (an old mattress, some
kind of broken tub, and half of a tv screen frame) and played soccer with a
half deflated tinkerbell ball.
To make the game even more challenging, our field had been
defined by a row of thorny bushes on one side and shards of glass and ceramic
tile on the other. I’m shocked none of us sliced our feet open, as we played
nearly barefoot in chacos and flip flops.
I had put my nalagene bottle on the windowsill of the
Katrina House, knowing that we were in a Gypsy village, and wondering if it may
walk off. So I kept an eye on it. It is bright red. It’s really hard to miss.
So as the soccer game tapered down, I found myself chatting
with some squad mates, since the ratio of gypsy kids to world racers was WAY in
our favor. I watched as some of the others laughed and took pictures of the
kids, and some of the guys played a version of basketball with some gypsy boys.
I felt like SUCH a great missionary. Like I had done my good
deed for the day, and how I was somehow partaking in something so great,
watching the other members of my squad “experience� some of the things I have
done on other trips. I guess maybe I felt I had “put my time in� so I didn’t really
need to engage any more.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of red, and I
notice an older Gypsy woman with my water bottle. She’s walking towards some of
her friends (?) and a little gypsy girl.
Without really thinking, I walk over to her and put my hand
out as if to say, “That’s mine.� Like I expected her to give it to me.
I think she sees me, and actually smiles, and then proceeds
to open my water bottle, and wash her hands with my water. MY WATER. Then she
cleans her child, and proceeds to give her child a drink out of MY WATER
BOTTLE. Of course, she helps herself to some water before she puts the cap back
on and lets her daughter play with the bottle, slobbering all over the top.
I kind of stand there. Stunned. A million things start running
through my head.
That’s MY WATER. You’re WASTING MY WATER. Who knows when I’m
going to be able to refill it? And now you’re DRINKING from it? I don’t want to
get sick. I don’t want to get a disease. I can’t believe you would just TAKE
that without asking. I’m so thirsty. . .
My flesh is writhing. Every ounce of my being wants to rip
that bottle out of her hands, ESPECIALLY before she drank from it. I can
literally FEEL my insides twist with desire for the water I had previously
forgotten about. My selfish heart screamed to be heard.
That was one of the hardest things I had to watch, and I
hated myself for it.
Why was this so difficult? I wasn’t even THIRSTY before she
had touched it. I was so mad. Mad at myself for not keeping my bottle in my
hand at all times. Mad because I got so MAD at the fact she took it upon
herself to drink my water.
The war between flesh and spirit raged that day… and I still
cringe to think at what a horrible wretched being I am. Who knows when the last
time this woman washed in CLEAN water, let alone DRINK clean water?
Who am I, that I think I DESERVE the RIGHT to have something
that is MINE. . . especially if I am going to call myself a Christian and DIE
to the world?
I don’t know what I hated more in that instant. The woman who
took my water. Or myself for being upset about it.
Oh to have that compassion that Christ has. To love people
unconditionally. I don’t know how to do that. I THOUGHT I did, but how wrong I
was.
I finally got my water back, and dumped the rest of it on
the ground to avoid drinking it and “contaminating� myself. Uggh. My spirit is
still grieved that I can think so lowly of another human being.
I have a lot to learn about myself.
“For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty and you
gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you invited me into your home.� Matthew
25:35
