Genesis - Update 7: Debrief Blog 1
Journal prompt: What is one lesson I’ve learned from my East African friends that I will never forget?
This is such a challenging prompt because I could list out 100 stories. I was very impacted by my experience teaching a Bible class with a new and dear friend of mine who is also a part of our new GOD EA leadership team, Esther. We were in eastern Uganda, and I was sickened by the poverty I was facing. I was angry and hurt.
I taught a small ending segment of the Bible class but mainly my role was to monitor my friend Esther. I wasn’t feeling the best, and so I sat on some dirty that came out from the ground like a small mountain. I felt my aches growing worse paired with a hurting heart from staring at the wall-less classrooms, seating 9 students to one 4 foot bench with nails sticking out from it.
Swollen bellies. Malnourished bodies and faces. Infected skin and scalps. Open foot wounds. Homeless men sleeping naked on the outskirts of the classrooms. Baby teachers teaching with their own children lying on shredded thin mats. One child being clothed straight in the dirt, genitals directly open to wahtever bacteria the ground and mat held. Ugh. I felt so sick. Then one of our leaders came over to me and asked me to hand out water to the students Esther and I were with. They recommended I give some words of scriptural encouragement along witht he water. “Of course I will.” I said to myself and the Lord. I stood slowly. I felt sick. I grabbed the water we’d just bought and walked it over to them. I waited for Esteher to finish and stared at this small boy and girl with such chapped lips that were slightly open, bloody, raw. I felt sick.
I exhorted them. I told them about how much God wanted to remind them he SEES their suffering and he loves them. I told them he thought to send us particularly to this area to visit THEM and to spend our time with THEM because they’re precious and fun and worthy. I said much more, but the heart of the message was all of this. I’ll never forget this moment. I’ll never forget how sick and helpless I felt facing such abject poverty. I could only pray. I could only ask and groan, asking God to use everything I had in that moment to breathe some life into these precious babies. Their eyes were locked in on me the entire time. They had smiles behind them. .I’ll never forget these faces. Those beautiful, precious faces, becoming visibly more alive as I shared God’s Word with them.