February 13, 2017.
5:30 am: Wake up. Move as slowly and quietly as humanly possible to try to lessen the sounds of the rickety bed I’ve been sleeping on to avoid waking my fellow squad mates. The sun doesn’t rise until 6:30, so I grab my headlamp and my Bible and head to the kitchen in a separate building across the yard. I turn on the gas, light a match and place the world’s largest kettle on the stove to boil water for coffee and oatmeal. With a mug in one hand and a bowl and Bible in the other, I carefully make my way back across the year to sit outside our dormitory to watch the sunrise.
7:45 am: The van arrives to pick us up for ministry. All eight of us pile in and someone says a prayer for the day before we depart for our intended destination: PRESCHOOL. Our host, Joan, works with 27 preschools in the area. Every morning, our team divides in two and visits different preschools. Our first stop, a decent sized preschool. We meet the principal, or pastor as they say, and she says we can each have our own classroom, but we elect to stay in groups of two. Myself and my teammate EJ walk into a classroom where the children are hesitantly walking in. The presiding teacher in the room saying, “Say hello to your new teachers! You have new teachers now!” And so we became preschool teachers for 37 four to six year olds for the next 2+ hours. We teach body parts, relying heavily on the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, days of the week and months of the year. And that takes all of twenty minutes. So we sing more songs before eventually going outside to play games. We start with the Hokey Cokey (the British version of Hokey Pokey, thanks Clare Mabel, ya old bean) but then three of the kids fall and start crying. So EJ ends up standing at one end of the fence and me at the other end and we tell the kids to run back forth and give the other one hugs. Finally lunch and recess (BLESS), which means 200+ toddlers running around. What a time to be alive.
11:00 am: Time to be picked up from preschool. We make the drive back to the farm. Saved my French toast from breakfast and I use it to make a bomb sandwich with peanut butter, honey and banana. Grilled of course. We spend most of our break time napping and resetting from our morning chasing around the preschoolers.
2:00 pm: In the afternoon our ministry varies, this day is a planned trip to the dump and a Buddhist orphanage. Once again, we all pile into the vans and head to the dump. The ride is fairly silent, all of us preparing our hearts for what we know we we’re about to see and experience. As we get closer our host begins to explain the dump in more detail. How the government and police don’t even enter. How abuse is common, especially the sexual abuse of young girls. The smell hits as soon as we enter. My chest heavy and my eyes full before I even step out of the van. Smoke fills the air as young men burn plastic nearby to collect wire to sell for a living. Children are scattered here and there. Timid. Barefoot. The ground covered in shards of glass from the broken bottles of alcohol. The bottles purchased by the parents who sent their children into the dump to scavenge for goods to sell to buy said bottles.
photo creds: Molly Doble.
In the middle of it all is a little girl. Wearing a pink beanie ripping at the seams on her head and a tank top covered in scorch marks as pants. She keeps her face to the ground, staring at her bare feet, and both hands forcefully in her mouth. I crouch down to look in her face. Her head bows even lower. “Hi, friend. What’s your name?” I ask to no response. She’s terrified. “She has a beautiful smile,” my teammate Amy says. She looks up slightly. That’s when I notice the burn marks covering the left side of her body. I attempt to tickle her, she risks a slight smile. Which causes me to smile way more than slightly. “She sure does have a beautiful smile. You are so loved, gorgeous. So so loved.” Amy prays over her. For her protection. That she would feel the warm embrace of the Father here in this place. I pick her up and she immediately buries her face in my neck. I continue to talk to her, her hands no longer in her mouth, her eyes finally meeting mine. I tickle her again, this time a full smile. I take the risk in turning her upside down and it works: a chuckle. I find out her name is Norma. She is five years old. She does not attend school even though she is of preprimary school age. Soon after it is time to go. “It’s time for me to go, pal.” I hug her and put her down. She puts her hands back in her mouth and walks away. I can already feel the tears welling in my eyes. I walk as quickly as I can back to the van. Covering my face with my shirt, I let the tears fall and I feel the hands of my teammates on my back. Our host gets in the driver seat and starts driving away; praying over this place, these humans with faces we won’t soon forget, for a strengthening of our hearts.
photo creds: Molly Doble.
3:30 pm: Next stop, the Buddhist orphanage. One of several in southern Africa. Our host explains to us how they take children like the ones we’d just seen at the dump, and promise to clothe them and feed them and teach them self-defense, while also teaching them Chinese and traditional buddhist practices. Our goal here is simply a prayer walk; to walk around the campus and cover it in prayer. We drive up and the place is massive. Colored cutouts of buddha line the 170 acre space and the buildings are adorned in traditional Chinese architecture. Tears again. Our hosts goes to ask if we can simply walk around the campus, they end up giving us a tour instead. We are walked through every single building, martial arts studios and temples and dormitories and classrooms and gardens and dining rooms. We pray for Light and Love and Life and Truth. We pray for dreams and visions of the face of Jesus. This woman unintentionally led our prayer walk, which meant she unintentionally let 16 carriers of Light walk into and pray over and in every building on that campus. The campus is currently on Phase 3 of 10, able to house upwards of 100 children. In the last month, their numbers have increased from 27 to 62 orphans. By phase 10 they would be able to house over 500 children. We pile back into the van. This ride once again silent, except for our host, who continued to remind us that, “Greater is He that is You than is in the world.” He reminded us of the Father’s goodness and faithfulness. “Who is God, huh? What does the Bible say He is? God is Good.” And we all went around and answered, “Just. Love. Truth. Sovereign. Life…” And he began to sing hymns the rest of the way home.
5:00 pm: Arrive and home and immediately head to my room (that I share with two others) and shove my headphones in my ears to process everything I just experienced. As the tears start to well in my eyes again, I was graciously reminded that I was up for cooking dinner for the sixteen of us that night. Keeping my headphones in, I walk to the kitchen to start dinner on the verge of tears the whole time. Two of my squad mates follow me in. One offering to take my place in cooking while the other hugs me and says, “Paigey, we love you so much.” And the tears that welled easily fell. I walked back to my room where I spent the next hour processing with my fellow squad leader. Being prayed over. Praying over myself. Releasing everything I needed to release and sitting in everything I needed to sit in. Asking God why I experienced what I just experienced and how I can let this truly sink in and change my heart forever.
*note: most days on the race are not this eventful or emotionally heavy, these are just the ones that we will never forget.
**the Lord speaks to every individual differently in every situation. Check out the blogs of my fellow teammates and squad mates to view their perspective on this day:
http://zoetorres.theworldrace.org/post/when-a-buddhist-lead-our-prayer-walk
