A few months ago, after James sat down from his preaching at LGWM and everyone said their Amens, Pastor Phiri looked at me and asked me to say something to the church. He said he was asking me because I was "enduring" as he put it, so many things over the weeks trying to help them.
I smiled, thinking “enduring” is a word I would use for someone that is having a hard time. Life’s just rough at the moment, their circumstances are hard and all they can do is “endure”. I feel like it is a word that needs to be reserved for something important, real hardships...lump it in with hanging on by a thread, and then you pretty much have my understanding of “you’re enduring”.
I prepared to speak, but in the back of my mind I pictured many other people and families enduring right now...But what he was referring to, was one day when I came out to his church to get supplies for building materials. We were driving around and had to check on prices at several different places downtown and had to heckle with people even over parking places and prices of items. We went to Buseko and had to walk through the mud and rocks to the builder, and as Phiri said, I had insults being said to me. On that one I knew in general when people are saying things, but I don’t know specifics because they always say things in Nyanja - most likely just inappropriate things which were more embarrassing for the guys with me than it was for me because I didn't know what they were saying. We then had to go back to the other side of town talking to a few different welders about a gate for the church property.
It was just a long day.
So I stood up and told them that it is funny he mentioned those things because after that day as we were driving around and the air conditioning wasn't working in the car and it was dusty and hot and I was hungry. (Because those last 2 always factor into the comfort scale!) I was thinking to myself, THIS is what helping orphans and needy people is like. It’s not the stuff that makes it into the tv commercials or advertisements about orphan care. It typically doesn’t even come up in the letters written home to supporters.
What helping people looks like is...
Doing what needs to be done, no matter what it is or how comfortable it is.
It’s sweatiness.
It’s smells...lot’s of smells
It’s dust
It’s heat
It’s complaints and being taken advantage
It’s being expected to just give handout after handout.
It’s finding the balance between helping and empowering someone to do for themselves and giving them a gift and doing for them.
It’s rarely sitting on the floor on a carpet or chitenge with needy children circled around you and gathered in your arms reading books and singing songs... ( insert pictures of flowers in your hair and laughter all around - if this was the case this would be my favorite part!)
It’s disappointment and heartbreak when kids drop out of school for what they think is a “better life” only to come back years later knowing they made a mistake.
It’s wrestling through what to do when a girl gets pregnant and their own family couldn’t even provide enough food for them to eat or pay for their education and now this “child” is going to have a baby.
Helping looks like, caring more about other people than your own comforts.
So I told the people gathered in the church that day,
Sometimes we may have our own ideas of what we want to do to serve God.
But it doesn’t always work out that way.
Many times it looks totally different because it is not exactly what God wants from us.
So hot long days running around with what may seem like pointless errands and tasks, keeping up with receipts and money might be exactly what helping people looks like.
We have to be open to whatever it is, even or maybe I should say, especially when it isn't what our own expectations were...
What helping people looks like is... a willing heart, to do anything that needs to be done, for others. And when our heart is willing, and when we are thinking of others, the personally inconvenient and uncomfortable parts don’t even matter and can't even be said to have been "endured".
*This post is from several months ago that I just now got around to writing.
Look for the next post soon on more “exciting” / “upbeat” encouraging news of what helping is also like... But you had to first read this one and experience it with me this way, before the other. :)
