It’s amazing what happens when you tell God “yes.”
In just nineteen days (NINETEEN—I can count that on my
fingers and toes!) I will board a plane to Uganda. For those of you who are
geographically challenged, that is in AFRICA. And I get to go there! Praise the
Lord!
Like most people, your brain is probably teeming with
questions already. Where in Uganda? What
will you be doing? With whom are you going? From where did all this spring up?
Do you like bananas? I won’t be able to answer all of them in this post. I
will, however, share with you a poem I wrote in college that will give you a
small picture of what God has been doing in my heart for quite some time:
Barren Beauty
Sand stretches
farther than God’s reach.
The Ethiopian sun
shoots spikes of sunlight
Through a dusty road.
Three years and no rain,
not a drop. The landscape thirsts.
Hundreds of homeless
stomachs thunder
in unison. Bellies
expand, empty as the barren
wasteland. Feet wade
through dust and sand,
sidestepping the
occasional scorpion
on a trek from empty
rice bowls to sustenance.
Starvation everywhere, death is everywhere.
A woman’s sandy
deathbed buries her half-eaten
stomach, yet still
breathing. And her son.
Her son. His
moon-sized head nearly crushes
a wiry body. Skin and
bones? Bones would not
fit in those arms.
And his eyes—hollow.
Two sunken sockets,
bruises left from the bully
life had been to him.
Hundreds of people pass
by, their own hungry
eyes unseeing. How
could people be so
human?
The TV screen
flickers and blackens and I am left
with drowning eyes,
cowering beneath the weight
of the world and
counting my blessings
with disdain.
My fleece blanket
caresses the goosebumps
on my arms. Wet eyes
wander over DVDs
in the fridge because
the bookshelves are full.
Computer light grows
and fades, the respiration
of technology. Two
beds. Two desks. Two mirrors
to reflect the face
that used to smile back.
Beige carpet protects
my feet from cold linoleum.
Photographs of Rome,
missions to Missouri,
people I had thought
I helped. We have no
idea what courage is. The more I look, the less
I see. What I once
thought was beauty
now churns my stomach
and I fear my possessions
will suffocate me.
God, what can I do? What
can I do? The room is
constricting and empty
of meaning. Maybe we
got beauty wrong. Maybe
hope can only fill
the space emptied by tears
and hunger, a
beautiful possibility
most visible when
barren.
This poem describes my reaction to a movie called Beyond Borders. I saw it for the first
time in high school, and ever since then, God has been stirring in my heart a
passion for children in poverty, particularly in third world countries in
Africa. And in nineteen days, I get to become a part of His work there.
Here are the basics: I will be volunteering in an orphanage
and children’s ministry center called Noah’s Ark Children’s Ministry Uganda
(NACMU). It is located about ten kilometers outside Kampala, the capitol city.
There are about 150 children who live at the orphanage, ranging from infants to
teenagers. Beyond that, the center brings in an additional 350 children from
the surrounding villages for school, medical services, and ministry. Those
involved are committed to a holistic development for everyone in the area,
rooted in and fueled by Christ’s love… and I can’t wait to become a part of
their team for three months!
I have said “yes” to God. I know it will be hard. I know it
will be scary. I know it will pose more challenges than I have had a chance to
consider. But with Him as my guide, I am jumping, running, dancing at the chance to finally serve the least of these. Check in
here every week or so to hear stories about the places I go and the people I
meet… and of course, the God who makes all things possible.
