Living Like Lynn

For the last two weeks my team and I have been in Bungoma, Kenya. We’re staying with Pastor Jackson and his family. Our ministry is somewhat scattered, as we’re doing a little bit of everything this month: door-to-door evangelism, teaching at the local school, spending time with kids at an orphanage, morning prayer with the church congregation, speaking/singing at the church, cell groups etc. We’re loving it here, and are looking forward to our last two weeks in Kenya! In a week or so, we’ll be reaching the half-way point of our journey. [This is difficult to wrap my head around]

On Saturdays Pastor drives us to Bretheren Children’s Home (an orphanage) to spend time with the kids. There are eighty nine of them, ranging anywhere from six months to sixteen years in age. This home provides the kids with food, shelter, and an education. The first time we visited, I saw something that I’m not likely to forget. Ever.

Seven year old Lynn was next to me in the dining hall, eating her lunch (a small bowl of boiled corn and beans) when two younger children came to the table to join us. Lynn noticed that the younger children didn’t have very much water in their cups, so she got up from the table to grab the water pitcher (from the next table over). When she saw that the children at the other table didn’t have any water either, she decided to leave the water pitcher on their table, returning empty handed. She then grabbed her cup and poured all of her drinking water into the two cups sitting opposite hers and slid them across the table.

I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed. Lynn has 88 other brothers and sisters. Food portions are pretty small, and drinking water looked scarce. Most of the children wear shredded rags for clothes. Only 40 of the 89 had toothbrushes, and the smaller kids sleep three to a bed. These kids have nothing. I assumed that this would cause them to fight over what little was offered to them. How foolish I am! Lynn gave what she had to take care of those she could. Could her cup fill the other 88 empty ones? No. But she didn’t let that stop her from giving what she had to meet the immediate need in front of her.

This ten-second story has forever wrecked my life. I can’t look at my “stuff” the same way anymore. The lap top that i’m typing this note on, the giant back pack of clothing I carry around, the ipod in my purse, the three pairs of shoes in my room…this trip was supposed to be about being uncomfortable. This trip was supposed to be about giving myself–in every way–to the point where my life is a radical display of what Christ has done for me. And here I sit, in Bungoma, Kenya, with luxuries like a lap top and multiple pairs of shoes as I sit next to children who literally have nothing, and give what small, simple necessities they have to those around them. What am I doing? And why/how have I tried to justify it?

Many of you have made great sacrifices to help support me financially on this trip. You, like Lynn, have given to the point where it hurts. You’ve given to the extent that, if God doesn’t come through on His end, you will suffer. I don’t have a propper thank you for this. A blog just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. Seeing what that type of giving did to Lynn, knowing that that afternoon a little girl didn’t have any drinking water because she chose to give like Christ, broke my heart. And yet, all I could do was watch. I could have taken the three cups of water and distrubuted it evenly among them…but then I’d be stripping Lynn of her reward that awaits her. It is with that same mindset that I fall to my knees and praise God for your generous giving.

Thank you.

Thank you for giving like Lynn.