My Worlds Collide

I come from the land of plenty where hot showers, fast internet, and reliable electricity abound. From the place where what we "need" is really more what we want to keep us comfortable. In that home of mine, I am not confronted on a daily basis with the reality of poverty, hunger, or desperation just to stay alive. Now I know that these things exist in the US, but I am able to go into my comfortable home and close out the hurting. I can walk away from what is hard and be content for a long time in all my stuff!

I have come home to this other land of mine, where the harsh reality hits me in waves as new days bring deeper understanding of the magnitude of suffering that can exist here. Little things like showering from a bucket when the water is off, letting my crazy hair air dry because the electricity is out, or packing into a bus to town where I don't think it is humanly possible to fit another person and then doing it somehow are a few things that make life here different from my life in the US. These are not the things that bother me. In all reality, it has been much easier to get used to the unpredictability of certain parts of life here than I thought. I find that I don't miss my big bed or hot shower. I don't need TV and constant internet. I can feel completely refreshed bathing from a bucket and get used to the pace of life that is very different from the rush of home.
It is stepping into the lives of people in these villages that wrecks me. That is what changes me and has me asking so many questions. That is what puts my comfortable, numb little life in Rock Hill into ugly perspective and leaves me reeling as I attempt to process what God could be saying or teaching me in all of this. I am in a place where DAILY I encounter someone's pain and need. Where the reality is that a child this ministry serves, died two weeks ago simply because he didn't have enough to eat. His little body starved to death, and I worry about not being able to eat my favorite snacks or missing my night time cereal for two months. I met a girl who at 14 is pregnant with her father's child-not by her choice and feels such shame that she tries constantly to keep her stomach hidden. I sat eating at a restaurant while a child on the street called to me that "he was hungry too." I spent yesterday in two homes (huts with no more than two "rooms") where the number of children is more than the amount of food they can afford because renting this house we wouldn't dream of living in takes more than they have. The children hadn't eaten for the past three days. Sometimes I hear that and it doesn't even resonate with me. Seeing those faces, there was no denying the reality of their need. I feel entitled to food after a few hours and they don't know when they will eat again. How do I reconcile this in my mind? How do my two worlds exist in such stark contrast to each other? What allowed me to be born in the land of plenty while these beautiful little ones were born into such need? It hurts my heart and brings a heaviness that is hard to shake. There is no crawling into my safe little cocoon and forgetting what is out there. These faces stand ready to remind me what life is really about.

So with my heart broken over what I see here and over what people (myself included) are completely missing at home, my dilemma becomes...how do I live in these two worlds??

How do I live in a world where I have everything I need and most of what I want, but can be so spiritually bankrupt? A world where I have TV or other forms of entertainment that allow me to make the choice to go numb and ignore the call to love others more than myself, and more often than not I make the wrong choice. How do I not only stay afloat but spiritually thrive in a place where my material possessions put me among the world's rich and not have to dull my senses in order to leave behind this other world of mine?

But then how do I live in a world where the daily reality I face is difficult struggles, heartbreaking stories, and overwhelming need? How do I love like Christ loves day in and day out without becoming hardened to that around me or so burdened that the inability to "fix" all of this leaves me depressed? In this world that is hard, sometimes lonely (as one who stands out in any crowd around here haha), and heavy with a responsibility to always do more, why do I feel such an intense joy that words can't capture? Why does my heart find such peace and comfort in the faces of these children? How can they be so full of life, real -beautiful -meaningful life, and I seem to so often be missing it when I am not here for them to remind me???

Honestly, I don't really know how to end this post in a lot of ways. I have more questions than answers for sure. I am asking a lot of my Jesus these days, and my heart is sometimes so desperate to reconcile what I see and feel, regulate my emotions, and settle in to somewhere comfortable with all of this. You know what happens when I start longing for that though? He reminds me that the comfortable, the ordinary, the numb is exactly what I asked Him to get me out of. The ability to dismiss the lost, needy, and hurting with excuses for how little I can do to change things or just a heart that doesn't love like His, is what I have been praying against. So here I am getting prayers answered and then wondering why I feel this way...why my heart hurts ( a feeling I know so many others have shared).

So my conclusion is this- my questions are many and are about really huge things, but my God is bigger. He is so passionately in love with me and these beautiful lives whose paths I am crossing. When I can't do everything I wish I could do, He reminds me that each day He is calling me to just the one(s) in front of me. That yesterday it was enough to give some money, buy some bread, and pray for the family of seven children who hadn't eaten in days. It is enough to hold children that are lonely or sick or hungry and remind them that their Jesus NEVER leaves! It is enough to put my tired head to the pillow each night and thank Him for another day of providing and ask Him to give of His abundance to those who so desperately need Him. Jesus is enough! He always has been for the destitute and broken here in Africa and for the lonely and needy hearts in America. Although it hurts, may I never return to the place of complacency! THAT is no longer enough.