Something that I have been dealing with is the struggle to not feel numb in the overwhelmingness of the everything.
Here is just a partial list of some of the things I and my team have experienced over the past couple weeks: I have seen narrow roads, crumbling sidewalks, sticky amber dirt, heaps of trash, makeshift homes of thatch and other random materials. I have seen the disfigured, the dirty, women in burkas, and babies in beautiful clothing. I have felt the moisture in the air, breathed in the pollution, and noticed the stars over the city from a rooftop. I have felt the face pace, felt the busy-ness, and have dodged traffic and people. I have stuck out. I have become part of the mass. I have seen street vendors selling practically everything, except peanut butter 😉 I have met great businessmen, extremely hospitable hosts, and people with wondeful stories. I have eaten food that has made my lips tingle, tried my hand at bargaining (not very successfully), and enjoyed “leisurely” rickshaw rides. I have felt distrustfuI. I have felt welcomed. I have felt cheated. I have felt blessed. I have turned down children (and infants) begging.
There is one particular scene out of these many that I want to paint for you all. This comes from a journal entry from last week: It is 7:52am . I am sitting on the back porch. The air smells like sweet burning wood. In front of me, through the screened-in windows, over the stone wall that has pieces of glass cemented on its top, in a field of grass, dirt, rock, and a type of tree I do not recognize are three women picking through trash. Also in this field is a man and there is a baby who I had heard earlier and almost mistook his cries for that of a bird. He is waddling behind the man’s footsteps. I just know that I love him and so does he. So does He.
Our dad is so good. He used one baby to begin the process of cracking my heart so I could begin to see and feel for the people here as he does. I am also reminded that as this father and son from one morning is being used to change my world that one father and son also changed the entire world and that is why we are not only here, but is also why all of us can have whole lives that are greater
than just ourselves.
