It took everything in me to smile today. I was too tired. Too sad. And feeling too numb to feel. Home from a long day at the orphanage, all I wanted was a bath, glass of wine and a movie. The first two weren’t gonna happen, so I settled for the third. “My Best Friend’s Wedding” provided perfect entertainment for my thawed-out brain. I was so grateful. Also curious though, what I would do had this not been an option? Had I been one of the “normal” people in the world who doesn’t have the choice of food, festivity, or cinematic option on a tired evening in July?
A friend of mine wrote a book called, “Under the Overpass,” where he essentially lived as a homeless person in six American cities for one month each. He has an interesting section that talks about him never ‘really’ being able to be homeless. He was always a phone-call away from getting out. I feel quite the same tonight.
As those living in a first-world country, and many of we “those’s” being white, we will really never experience how ‘they’ feel. We will really never feel what they experience. We’ll never be homeless. We’ll never be poor. And we’ll never be hungry.
What do you do with that?
***
Infant Revelations.
I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to infants. —Jesus
At any other time in my “care-about-investing-in-others” life (probably sophomore year of college, my second year as a Christian), I would’ve preferred to spend a summer with fourteen, or twenty-four years olds, far quicker than babies—let alone sick babies. I’ll flesh this out, so bear with me, but I don’t even like babies that much, at least compared to “adults.” I could literally count on two hands the number of babies I’ve sat for in my entire life. But at this stage, the infant breed is who I best relate to. And they’re also who God seems to be using to best relate to me.
Prior to this debut year under a heading of “Spiritual Formation,” a summer spent in an orphanage would’ve seemed selfish in enough ways that would’ve deterred me from going. Or even considering going. I wouldn’t have felt like I was “doing” enough. I would’ve felt like leaving an orphanage, or country, or summer with sixty kids still orphaned and sick meant no progress. I would preferred “changing lives, challenging relationships and discipling hearts toward God’s”…not changing diapers and dealing with screaming babies. What I would’ve missed though, and have missed in a lot of ways up to this point, was my heart. And you can’t help but ask me then, “If I could really care for another’s heart, if I didn’t even know my own?” And I would probably say, “No, you’re right. I’m just starting to learn how to do both.”
Never have I endured an intentionally selfish season where I sought the classroom of Christ and the discipleship of His teaching, as oppose to attempting my own. Never had I sacrificially sought to “stay and be made,” before I would so willingly (and willfully) “go and make” (as we are told to by the “Great Commision” in Matthew 28).
As of this day, I connect with the babies in more ways than I connect with anyone else right now. My faith, especially, connects with their immaturity and raw levels of learning to depend, trust and believe the Hands that are holding them. I connect with their vulnerability and susceptibility—with their uncontrolled emotions and unending need for help, love and being served. I’ve spent the majority of my life pushing away being helped, loved and served and yet through a slow process of humbling and painful peeling-back, God is re-raising me—teaching me what it means that He is actually my fullest Father and Mother. He’s teaching me to be loved, that one day I may mature from this place and start really understanding how to offer the same to my neighbor.
***
Random.
*I told God this morning that if I saw a snake, I was on the next flight home. Low and behold, I did. I hate snakes, with a passion, and I saw a Black Mamba today. If one of these bites you, you’re dead in a matter of minutes. In the last 24-hours, I’ve seen a rat, frog, mouse, massive cockroach and lizard—all in the vicinity of where I sleep. And a city girl can only take so much. Okay, so I’m not exactly a city girl, but I’m also not completely granola. And snakes are my biggest nemesis. Gross.
*Many of you have asked how I feel physically. Well, we’re literally around baby snot, throw-up, sue-sue (#1) and ka-ka (#2) all day and sanitation isn’t quite the catch-phrase/action it is in the States. So between that and bad water, pollution (breathing feels like what I imagine asthma would…can’t breathe too deep and you wheeze if you get out of breath) and living under a roof with fifteen to twenty other quasi sicklings, it’s tough to avoid some sort of malady. But to be honest, you get used to it. You get used to feeling sub-par and learning to function. Or maybe it’s more that you get used to asking God periodically for strength to function—and He provides. Basically, I would say a seven on a the “1-10, How am I feeling in America scale?,” marks a ten in Africa.
*Many of you have also asked about safety. In some ways, I feel safer here than I would at home, but in others it fits the bill for one of the most dangerous places on earth. “Mass Justice” is the norm here, so that the present mass of people decides the punishment for a person. If you yell “thief” at someone, he will be attacked immediately, regardless of whether or not it was true. If someone shoplifts, or steals, public stoning to death is not uncommon. On the dangerous note though, disease and “male dangers” are prevalent. I would never go out after dusk due to higher mosquito populations and the risk of men (though I do it all the time during the day).