brokenness

I began this journey full of excitement...I loved the idea of going to a hospital where chaos reigned, where HIV runs rampant, and where supplies are few and far between.  It sounds like such magical idea.  What a good story to want to be a part of...going to love the hurting people in South Africa. 

However, I showed up the first day and realized the idea and the reality were two completely different things.  I was more than ready for the idea of this journey but I couldn't have been less prepared to deal with the reality of it.  In my first day at the hospital, I saw things that at the time I thought no one should ever have to see.  I saw a mother watch her little boy die.  I saw an 8 month old baby who weighed about 6 pounds because of malnutrition...it was being fed water.  I saw a baby who was dying from hydrocephalus and his parents had just abandoned him at the hospital.  I saw girls who looked like they were about 13 years old trying to care for severely disabled babies on their own with no income and no support.  I saw so many babies lying in beds crying alone with no one to take care of them and learned that one of the main reasons was that the moms couldn't afford money for a taxi to get to the hospital.  I saw an 8 year old girl dying of stage 4 HIV.  The stories go on.  The heartbreak was incredible.  I think I lost about 5 pounds in a week because I felt nauseous for a week straight.  It was gut-wrenching.  I had no idea what to do with what I was seeing.  I couldn't figure out how it fit with what I believe.  It was mind-boggling.  It stirred up so many hard questions.

Since that first week though I've been able to process through some of it.  Three weeks ago I would  have told you that no one should have to see what I was witnessing.  Now I would give you a different answer.  It's hard...really hard..to see what I'm seeing.  But it is so good for me.  It's so healthy to be forced to see reality.  I think in the US it is incredibly easy to be sheltered from brokenness.  It seems like usually when suffering happens in the US it comes as a surprise.  It's not typical that people there expect suffering.  But I think that perspective causes alot of problems.  If you don't expect suffering, then when it happens you get pissed at God and you question his goodness and you are bitter and believe that it shouldn't have happened to you or the people you care about.  But if you accept the reality that we live in an extremely broken world then you aren't shocked when suffering comes.  It no longer makes you doubt God, it makes you long for his restoration like never before, but it doesn't make you question His goodness.  I have never really understood the depth of our need for restoration like I do here.  Every day as I walk around that hospital, I long for heaven.  I spent one afternoon holding one of my little kiddos with spina bifida and hydrocephalus and I told him how happy he was going to be in heaven.  How he was always going to have someone to hold him.   How he was going to be able to run and jump and play.  How he would always have enough food.   How he would never lie in his bed alone crying.  How he is going to smile and laugh all the time instead of being so sick.  He just looked at me with great big eyes.  I can just imagine God holding that precious kid in His arms.  Derek told me that he just thinks about God's heart for those kids and that God is going to more than make up for the suffering they experience on this earth when they get to heaven.  I can't wait for that day.