Honesty

Written on July 2nd:

Today I felt like my heart was on a roller coaster - I experienced such a wide array of emotion and thoughts in just one day that I feel tired and spent. To be perfectly honest though, I needed today. I was slowly starting to believe the lie that the compassion I once so strongly felt in my heart for the oppressed - for the world's victims of injustice - had somehow faded away, petered out...maybe even all but died. I knew down deep that I still have SUCH a heart for the hurting, such passion to drive away and fight against injustice, but I think I expected to feel that intensity every second of every day here in Kenya, and it just wasn't happening. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely been feeling the weight of poverty and oppression - it's everywhere you turn. But it hits you in such mass quantities here that it is almost as if the sheer force of it all numbs you to it. I couldn't take it all in at once or process it all at one time, because if I had and if I did I think my heart would have exploded by about day 2. So instead, I think it's almost as if I have allowed myself to be affected by it just as much as my fragile heart can handle before it bursts. And honestly, I had been keeping it all pretty well in control until now - neatly emotional but not too messy - until today. Today, my heart burst a little bit.

We were in the Maasai village going house to house as usual, talking to those we encountered and praying with people. It was hot and nearing lunchtime and I was starting to wish I'd brought along my water bottle instead of leaving the extra weight back at the campsite. And then we came across Mary. She was sitting on a stump outside her home and something about the expression on her face told me she was hurting, but I didn't think much of it at first. I wasn't paying complete attention as our translator Francis talked to her for a little bit in Swahili, and then all of sudden I half-heard him say with wide eyes, "Mary has lost 7 children." I actually thought for a moment I had heard him wrong. I looked over at Mary, who had tears streaming down her face. I felt my heart shatter, and I lost control of the emotion that had been building up inside of me for so long. And in that moment, I finally understood what it meant for God to be the only one we can count on, the only one we can rely on, turn to, plead with, fall on, cry out for in our times of deepest, deepest sorrow and need. And our team (the 4 of us - me, Matt, Claire, and Emily) did the only thing we could do, offered literally the only thing we could offer this woman that has the potential to bring healing: we prayed. We prayed healing and restoration over her wounded and broken heart, and we prayed the enemy OUT of her home. I felt Jesus weeping with us as we wept and I felt His presence come into that place, more strongly than I have felt in ages.

And then this afternoon, there was the little girl I fell completely in love with. I don't know where she came from, or where her parents were, or even what her name was. But she was standing there, very quiet and very still, among the swarm of screaming, jumping children watching our volleyball game with the locals in the village. She couldn't have been more than a year old, and I didn't hear her say one word for the whole hour that I stood there holding her. She was wearing a coat at least 5 sizes too big for her and she didn't have on any shoes. The second I had her in my arms, I didn't want to let her go. She seemed unresponsive and expressionless at first, and I worried that she might be very ill or just plain terrified of me. But then, I stretched out my hand to her with my palm open, and she looked first at me, and then at my hand, and slowly, gently, she put her hand in mine. I could feel my broken heart from earlier today melt back to whole. I held her to my body, as close as I could, trying to squeeze as much love into her as was supernaturally possible. I knew I wouldn't have very long with her, so I began praying over her, that God would grow her strong and healthy and that she would be deeply blessed throughout her whole life. I slid my dirty friendship bracelet off my own wrist and tied it onto hers, knowing that although one of her siblings would probably take it from her once they discovered it, I still felt like for a few hours, we could be connected, and she would have a little piece of me. That silent, still, beautiful child took hold of my heart the moment she took hold of my hand. And I don't even know her name, but both our names are written on God's heart, and for just an hour our lives intersected - and for those brief moments with her I will be eternally grateful.

The sweet joy I felt holding that child stood in stark contrast to the pain I felt earlier today when we shared in the sorrow of Mary's extreme loss. But somehow God used those two completely different emotions in me to help me realize and reconcile the deep, searing beauty of a place like Kenya - a place filled with both desperation and hope, despair and resilience, immeasurable pain and immeasurable love. As I wondered why I wasn't feeling that weight that I always feel pulling on my heart when faced with depictions of injustice and oppression, I realized that the reason I feel differently here is that this country is in no way dead to pain and poverty; it is, in fact, the opposite: it is ALIVE in the midst of those things. Kenya is teeming and overflowing with beauty, hope, hospitality, love, and a joy rooted in the Lord that is unparalleled by any I have seen ever before. And because I have been striving for years now to live a life of joy - to choose joy when it may be easier to be consumed by grief - I know that this is the perfect place for me to be.