“Mzungu,how are you?! How are you? How are you?” …about fifty times and they
throw out their hands in the air waving hello. Most likely in the crowd
I always find a dirty naked baby (and when I say baby I mean any age up
to about 5 – maybe even older sometimes). If the children aren’t
clothed – girls in bright pretty, yet dirty dresses, then most likely
they have on clothes that are so thread baren, full of holes, that
barely stay on the kids and wouldn’t even be good enough to be
considered a rag in the States. Other young children most likely have
just a shirt on with their bare butts hanging out.
And then you’ve got the naked
ones. Dirty and naked. Just hangin’ out with everyone else. Standing
their with their swollen bellies protruding out (malnourished) and
quite often with an outty belly button sticking out in the shape of a 3
or 4 inch cone (apparently born with a hernia). These naked dirty
children are sitting on the dirt, or playing with their toys, or
yelling Mzungu, how are you! … not minding the fact that they’re in
their birthday suit. In fact, it doesn’t really phase them. There seems
to be no difference to them or anyone else if they’re clothed are not.
Every
time I see them I just want to scoop them up in my arms out of the
dirty pile they were playing in, love them, then wash and clothe them.
Then I want to give them an education, a home. I want to give them
Jesus. I want to give them hope. A future without malaria or AIDS. I
want to give them a better way of life.
But the other day I started to
think, ya know what? we’re actually not much different from these naked
dirty kids. We’re not. We’ve just mastered how to cover our dirt. Sure,
we walk around with often our cleanest clothes, those designer jeans
that cost more than $100 and quite often more than what a family will
earn in one year. We wear the latest fashion for every season. And some of
us pride our trendy selves on wearing or acquiring the latest fashion
before anyone else. If it’s not our clothes, then we, in a sense, wear
our gadgets. We never leave home without the music, phones, and electronic agendas – most of which we use for “survival,” right? But I think if
we were honest with ourselves we also use those things to express
ourselves. To express who we are by what we wear and what we carry with
us. To be unique.
Don’t get me wrong, I [Melissa] love
fashion. It does make it quite difficult to consider spending money on
some of these things after seeing people live without and knowing that
one of these items would feed families for a long time. But that’s not
what this is about.
I think we draw people’s
attention to our clothes, gadgets or fashion because we want people’s
attention to those things. Maybe we want people to base their decision
about us based on what they see on the outside because we don’t want to
expose some of the dirt that’s inside. So we’ve mastered how to divert
attention, even our own attention, from the things that really matter.
Matters of the heart.
A quick and easy way to feel dirty and naked (or exposed) is COMMUNAL LIVING.
Even some of our best and well
formed communities of families, close-knit friends, co-workers are
great. But even in these communities, we can get distracted. We live so
independently from each other that we may live in the same house, share
meals, share the same space, we share friends, interests. We serve and
work together. We may even share the same struggles and issues – we
even watch the same TV at the same time and yet be closed off. We can
live so independently from each other that all we’re really doing is
co-habitating. 
No, the community I’m talking
about is a community that prefers each other. They not only live
together, share meals, space, time and even their budget. This
community also works together and serves together, worships and loves
God together. This community doesn’t have much to distract themselves
with except for maybe a book, a few minutes alone, or plugging into some tunes. The difference in this community is you can’t hide. Well, maybe
for a short time, but not for long. You can’t hide behind any outfit or
fashion or electronic because you don’t have any to show off. You can’t
hide behind things like your intelligence, busy-ness, careers, or life
experiences, street smarts, maturity, education, or self-reliance. You
can’t hide behind beauty or your individualism because sooner or later
the people in this community see some of your dirt. In fact, they
become like mirrors to you.
Living in this community
doesn’t provide a way of escape. You can’t just jump in your car and
drive off to be alone for a while. You can’t easily distance yourself
when there’s a conflict or disagreement or if you’ve just had enough of
that person. You can’t just go home and not see them for a while and
let a few days pass until you or they have a better frame of mind and
you meet each other again, fresh and the past forgotten. Nope. In this
community you all go home together. There’s no car to drive away in.
Even if you tried you might get lost or need one other person with you
anyway. This kind of community forces you to deal with things that
you’d normally like to brush off, escape from, or sweep under the
carpet.
This kind of community, if
it’s the right kind of community- again, one that loving, prefers one
another over themselves, and provides safety and grace, along with the
truth, will eventually expose some of the dirt hidden inside that you
maybe knew was there, but maybe not.
You quickly begin to feel
exposed before them. You can’t really escape or hide, especially the
parts you don’t want anyone else to see, like the fear, the
insecurities, the loneliness, the feeling of inadequacy, the need for
love. But then you find that once you’re exposed and have the freedom to
be exposed and not judged, and shed light into others dirt without them
raising up their walls of defense and ending their friendship because
they feel offended or slighted – you realize you’re not the only one
with the dirt. We all have dirt that we hide – it’s just different
dirt.
But, it doesn’t have to end
there. You’re not left feeling dirty and naked and exposed with all of
your crap and feel like a loser. No, instead the whole reason why this
community thing works and lasts is because this community loves you
regardless. And you love them too, no matter what, because you’re
committed to each other. You’re committed to make each other excellent.
You’re committed to love each other, and give grace to each other, to
speak truth into each others lives with love, to receive it and to
encourage each other. You’re not there to tear each other down but to
build each other up. You prefer each other. You’re quick to forgive and
quick to accept. This kind of community speaks life into each other,
not death. They choose to honor and listen to each other. Seems like a
perfect world, I know, but it is attainable.
So maybe we’re not much
different from those dirty naked African kids after all. Or maybe we
should be more like them. Be more willing to open ourselves, be
vulnerable with each other, let others speak in to our lives, and
maybe, just maybe, we’d find healing, acceptance and the very thing
we’re longing for to begin with…
