It’s difficult to believe that this time, one year ago, I was in the beautiful African country of Zimbabwe beginning my World Race adventure.
It’s also difficult to remember an “almost year” of crazy experiences of living country to country for 11 months. But my prayer since returning from the race would be that I wouldn’t forget.
So today I want to remember, as the locals say, Zim.
After a morning of working at the feeding ministry, Tafara, the local Zim women (who volunteered there) asked if our teams would like to see where the children who come to the feedings lived. We said yes, eager to see where these children we’d come to love and adore came from…
…Myself and a few other ladies from my team walked around the neighborhood. I was exposed, for the first time to third world living conditions. I’m not sure anything can prepare you for the smell, or the filth, or the incredibly small living quarters. But it was there, it wasn’t flashing before my eyes on my television screen. It was real, it was tangible, and it was almost unbelievable.
Of the houses that we saw and people we met, one particular woman remains in my memory. I remember her pain, the way she sat uncomfortably, clearly sick. She was a single mother, with, if I remember correctly, four children. As young as 2 and, I believe, her eldest was 8 years old.
She began to tell her story, the locals that led us translating.
…. Her husband had died, and she was left to raise her children alone. She was also dying from AIDS. A tragedy, no doubt, I remember feeling helpless. What could I do for her?
So with my small faith, we prayed for her body to be healed and made well so she could care for her children and live comfortably, and that they would be provided for. [I had always heard Jesus healed people in the gospels. I think this may have been the first time I actively prayed for healing without the aid of medicine.]
Then, I’ll never forget the question,
“If she dies, who will take care of her children?”
The locals said, “No one. No one will come.”
I remember feeling despair; I wondered if that woman was familiar with the feeling and if her life felt helpless and lonely. If I were in her shoes, I would think that God had forgotten me. I remember sitting across from her as she laid on her mat outside her house in the dirt. I think I wanted to cry overwhelmed by the circumstance.
Now, one year later, I am sitting in my living room in Los Angeles, California, remembering her. I don’t want to pretend to have the answers to the question, “Why?” There are a lot of things in the realm of “pain, suffering, and God” I don’t understand myself.
As I live, grow, experience, loose, gain, risk, trust, hope…I’m beginning to find so called “universal truths.” I believe it is the human condition, whether by outside circumstance or inner turmoil, that we all experience pain. While my sufferings may look different than that woman’s, I can sit across from her equal, no less or more. Pain is humbling.
I also believe that Jesus suffered in the body, and that he suffered emotionally, he was familiar with sorrow. As a Christian, I am comforted that the God who created the cosmos, even me, lived in bodily form among us, and experienced a simple life filled, I’m sure, with joy and pain.
Pain is real; it is a deviation from the garden of Eden- the place where humans had harmonious relationship with God, free from all pain before what the Christian narrative likes to call “the fall.” While it frustrates me that pain is real, that pain can even be experienced at the hands of human’s choices: rape, murder, war, corruption leading to destruction, death, hurt. It’s not anything new.
In the midst of what feels like such hopelessness, I’ve taken a stand to believe against the question, “Why?” and trust that God is still good, that He is still at work in the world, that He is worthy of our trust. He sees that woman and her children and knows their needs, their heart cries, and is familiar with their pain, more than I will ever be. He knows me too, is familiar with my sorrows and comforts me.
The story of the gospel is that Christ is redeemer. That He enters into the brokenness and saves. It’s not clean or quick, it is an ongoing story, a story that is still being written right now today.
The beauty of this story is that God invites US in, and creates in us a desire to be a part of the work He is doing in the world. I said “yes” to Him, and he took me on the race- He led me to that woman in Africa, in that country, in that neighborhood on that particular day to teach me more about Himself.
And now he’s taking me on another journey, one of many, to uncover more of the biblical teachings on the poor. The question: What does Christ have to say about the socio-economic conditions of the poor? Whether the poor exist in my homeland, America, or in another country. And what are the roles of the church for the poor?
My desire to uncover these answers isn’t just on some intimate level of how much money I can give to a homeless man I see in Los Angeles. Though I do believe that small acts of kindness and love are massive in God’s economy.
I also want to know what that looks like on a global level. Far from having the answers, I am searching, that’s where I am at today.
I found out that month in Zim that HIV/AIDS treatment pills could be purchased at the equivalent of 2 USD. It would have delayed the process of the virus for this woman, maybe giving her more years of life to raise her children.
2 dollars.
““I have spoken these things to you so that you shall have peace in me. You shall have suffering in the world, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” -Jesus, John 16:33
