Everyone is hit with the reality of poverty differently. We can go along for so long without really realizing the implications of the statitstics we hear of 27,000 children dying every day from preventable causes. Of 1.6 billion people living off the buying power of a dollar a day—or less. But once you open your eyes, you can never truly close them again. You can refuse to do something—but there will always be a voice inside you somewhere that whispers “something isn’t right about this.”
How do you find a new normal?
Once you have experienced a different life
And your perceived reality
Can never return?
The answer isn’t to give the Living Stones children a life that looks like ours in the United States. It isn’t to take them out of their communities. It isn’t even to take the out of their crumbling dirt houses…it is to love them, right where they are. To see God, in the middle of hunger. To laugh instead of cry, and to cry because there is a time for that too.
And slowly, through personal relationship—because that is the only way real change happens—to break and be broken for God. That is it. Cross out my endless lists of dos and don’ts. Quit trying to figure out if I have all the numbers straight in my ledger…what am I doing? Loving. What is my goal? Love, and teach how to love.
I read a book about street children. Sitting on the couch across from a man who was once a street child. The book said most all of the groups, religious or not, failed in their attempt to remove the children from the street. The children would come and go, but in the end, returned to the street. The book suggested that maybe their definition of success was off: maybe their goal shouldn’t be to remove the children from the street. The author wasn’t sure what was the answer, because about 90% of them died on the street…but he stirred up just enough dirt to be a good book.
I know the answer: God. I am still working on what that looks like. What my definition of success is supposed to be.
Because in the end, what I do doesn’t matter. Let me say it slow: what I do doesn’t matter. They are the only ones who can choose change for themselves. Who can choose to love. To make a difference in their own lives.
I can give them a new home, good ideas, a perfect education, food for a lifetime…but only they can choose to accept it. To make a different life.
The leaders from Massa Humana were a little discouraged last week. They are building a home for this woman, and she was having petty problems with someone else. Reminds me of that story where the king forgave a million dollars, and the forgiven couldn’t forgive $20. And it is hard. It makes you want to stop giving.
I was stolen from. One of my boys, whom I love, planned to rob me, found the right opportunity, and then took my money and phone. Afterwards, he gave me a big hug and looked in my eyes and said it wasn’t him—he would never do something like that to me. It cut me up. I am still raw inside.
I don’t want to buy another phone. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to see him again, but I am afraid he will never come again because he feels he is past forgiving. And I want to forgive him. I do forgive him, but it is a choice, and it is a hard one.
