Today marks 3 weeks away. It has been 3 weeks since I left my home and my loved ones. I can’t believe how fast the time flies. I had an incredible experience with the team for the first two weeks, and I won’t lie, it was tough watching them leave. Now, I have reached the end of my first week of being here alone, working with Chosen Children of Promise and living with the Behr family. So much has happened in the past week, and I find it frustrating as I write this, because my emotions and experiences are too difficult to describe in words.
The only word that comes to mind as I reflect on the past week is…Intense! I have reached the point where I am no longer just a visitor on a trip, but involved and living amongst the day-to-day lives of these people in Kawangware.
This week I have spent each day in the heart of the slum working with the CCP social workers. I’ve walked about 10 miles, visited over 30 homes, and interacted with each family. We visited with the guardians and the children to share life and check up on their home situations, health, education and spiritual lives. Over the past 2 years I’ve grown to know and build relationships with so many of these children, and it is such a different experience away from the community center and actually present through their everyday lives at home. It is one thing to know a joyful, energetic child at VBS and another to know how they live in one room with their 8 family members and struggle to eat each day. I can’t quite explain the feeling, but it isn’t an easy one. The kids were beyond excited to see me walk into their homes though, and holding them in my arms while they clung to me tightly with huge smiles across their faces is another indescribable feeling!
There have been so many amazing moments in each day. I’ve been filled up by the joy of the children. I’ve been inspired by the faith of many welcoming, generous and lovable guardians. I’ve been overwhelmed by the kind, servant hearts of the staff I work with. I’ve been transformed after witnessing the way many live their lives simply for the Lord, and I’ve been left in AWE by the way my God has worked in and through each experience.
On the other hand, there have been some extremely difficult moments. Each day has been filled with heartbreaking sights. I’ve heard so many stories of abandonment, death, and diseases in each home. I’ve seen children living in hunger, and parents striving for funds to provide for their families day to day. I’ve prayed with widows and orphans who are dealing with the pains of lonesomeness and loss, and after a while this stuff takes a crazy toll on my heart and emotions.
As I reflect on the week, I see how it has been some of the most amazing and hardest moments of my life. But here is what else I see... My emotions can be everywhere, my body can be tired, and my heart may ache, but I find that I am left with a peace that transcends my understanding. I am filled with hope for what is to come tomorrow. I grow more in love with this place and the people daily, and I have faith stronger than ever before because I believe in a God bigger than any poverty, pain, disease or longing.
It may be intense, but it is the exactly where I am supposed to be, and I will take each moment, the easy and the difficult, and let God continue to work through them in ways I can’t even begin to imagine.
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