We were walking along in the slums when the somewhat startling statement came out of nowhere.
“Marissa, I want you to continue to pray for me when you move on.”
I automatically told her “yes, of course I’ll pray for you.” Something I’ve gotten used to saying over the course of the last five and a half months.
But she didn’t stop with just the request. She continued to tell me why she needed prayer. She said she was a widow with two young children and that it was hard for her to provide for them.
“I have my parents, but they can’t help me. Did you hear? They can’t help me. When you‘re a widow, you have nobody.”
I nodded quietly as she showed me the door to her house.
“This is where I stay.”
We were in the slums and until that point, I didn’t realize Vivian, the woman who I’d been partnered with at church, actually lived in the slums where we had been assigned to go and find the ones who were the most needy — orphans and widows.
We were looking for them because the church we’re working with believes their purpose is to serve people who are most in need and we are the tools that will connect them to the church. A bunch of “Mzungus” (white people) walking around in the slums creates enough of a stir to get people to let us in to pray and invite them (and they even show up!)
Vivian and I were partners for the day and she would lead me into people’s homes…some she knew, others were total strangers. Every single one of them let us in and let me pray for whatever need they had.
As we zig-zagged between the streams of dirty, smelly water, hopping over the biggest ones and the ones that looked especially dirty, I said, “Vivian, can I ask you something?”
She said, “Of course.”
“You are in need yourself. Why are you spending your time asking other people what they need?”
I would see their joyful faces because they had a delicious meal and flash back to my nephew eating his food in his high chair. It was so normal to him…eating, that is. To them, the laughter they had indicated that it wasn’t normal at all.
From that day on, I’ve struggled with the enormity of the needs people here have. Each day as we headed out to ministry, I dreaded seeing those faces again, walking through those slums again because it was too much to bear. Too overwhelming to really feel like we’re doing much of anything or making an impact.
So when Vivian voluntarily decided to walk the slums with us, despite being in need herself, I didn’t understand. Here I was, fully clothed, well fed and, even though I technically don’t own much back home, I know I still will have a roof over my head when I go back, and I didn’t even want to bring the hope of Jesus to people. Because when you‘re faced with such poverty in real life, not just on TV, it‘s hard to see how praying and inviting someone to a church is helpful.
“Because man can provide for you one day and the next day he can’t. My Lord provides for me day after day after day,” she answered.
She listed several things she was thankful for: she was alive, her kids are in school, and most importantly God is her comfort when she feels alone.
I nodded, walked into the next house, and prayed some more.
The poverty is too overwhelming for me. I can’t do much of anything to ease people’s physical hunger each day, but my prayer is that at some point along the way, someone somewhere in the slums we’re walking finds comfort in what sometimes I can’t.
And they will be richer than I am on most days.
