Break My Heart for what Breaks Yours

...Open up my eyes to the things unseen / Show me how to love like you have loved me / Break  my heart for what breaks yours / Everything I am for your Kingdom's cause
- Hosanna

This past week God has been repeatedly breaking my heart for what breaks His. While that may make it sound like I've had a very sorrow-filled or saddening week, that actually has not been the case at all. On the contrary, the moments that have stuck out to me the most from our time spent at the hospital and visiting friends in Kijabe Town were, while heartbreaking in many ways, also full of God's overwhelming comfort and redemption. Let me explain...

My ministry team spent Tuesday and Wednesday in the pediatrics ward and the maternity ward at the hospital, just spending time talking with the patients and also the mothers of the children and newborn /very young babies. The language barrier was at times a bit frustrating because we didn't have a translator with us, but we did the best we could and with little children and babies we couldn't exactly carry on a full conversation anyway so we communicated in other ways through smiling and giving high fives and hugs. One of my favorite parts of the first day was spending a couple hours talking with three mothers in the maternity ward - all three of their babies had spina bifida, and two of them also had hydroenchepalitis. All the mothers - Winefred, Josephine, and Jennifer - were in their twenties, and were SO excited and appreciative to have company and just someone to talk to. As we got to know them and hear their stories (and love on their precious babies), they began to share with us some of their pain and their fears about their babies' conditions. They told us that before they came to Kijabe Hospital and encountered numerous other children with the same conditions, they thought their child was the only one in the world born with that illness and visible external problem. They shared the anxiety they felt for weeks not knowing if the doctors would be able to do anything to help them and they expressed their fears for when their children grow older and have physical problems that the other children around them do not have. We spoke encouragement and truth over them to the best of our ability, telling them that their children are overwhelmingly LOVED by their Creator and no matter what the world around them says, God sees them as perfect, made in His image and flawlessly knit together by His hands. And as my heart absolutely broke seeing these little tiny babies suffer and seeing their mothers suffer emotionally as well, God gave me waves of comfort and love to pour into them. And the next day that we spent at the hospital, I felt even more prepared and more determined to bring the Lord's comfort to these brokenhearted and hurting people. As I got to spend hour after wonderful hour staring at and playing with the most adorable and precious children and babies EVER, I realized that God's purpose in "breaking our hearts for what breaks His" is not that we simply feel and accept what is painful, but rather that we fight injustice when we see it, offer love and comfort when we witness those in distress, and pray for the things that God has the ability to heal and change. 

On Thursday, we trekked to Kijabe Town for the last time to see and say our goodbyes to some of the people we have made relationships with there. We spent most of our time with Mary, an older woman who we had met the previous week. We learned during our last visit with her that she is still very much grieving over the loss of her son, who passed away from cancer less than a year ago. She shared more with us yesterday about Peter (her son) and the emotional struggles she has been dealing with since his death. I am not a parent yet, but there is no doubt that the loss of a child is the hardest thing anyone could go through, and my heart broke for Mary in her grief and the spiritual and emotional wrestling that was clearly going on deep in her soul. I remembered what I had felt at the hospital, that God has put us in these peoples' lives to fight for them and pour strength into them when they have literally no strength left to fight for themselves. And so we did just that - again, to the best of our ability - we spoke encouragement to Mary and prayed healing into her life. When Matt told Mary that he will remember her as his Kenyan mother, she smiled through her tears, and I felt that we had been able to bring her maybe just a little bit of comfort and a glimmer of hope.

What I saw and heard this past week may have broken my heart, but it also grew my heart for God's people, His children. And I feel like through these experiences He has been strengthening me and maturing me so that as I continue to come into contact with hurting people and unjust situations, I will not even hesitate to join them in fighting for hope and healing.

Well that's all I have time for right now - I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to blog again before we leave a week from Sunday (wow, that's a weird thought), so if you don't hear from me before then please pray for strength for saying our goodbyes, safe travels, and I'll catch you up on everything when I'm back in the good ol' USA!

Love, 
Bethany