Because this is my second immersion I have had many experiences traveling back and forth on bodas (motorcycles) to the nearby village to get food and supplies.
This specific time I went with Quinn, one of the student who lives here in Uganda. She was picking up something she ordered from a shop and I was asked to wait outside by a sweet girl whose parents owned the shop. She was the size of a 6 or 7 year old with the face and pubic development of a 13 or 14 year.
I was touched by her immediate pull to come sit in the shade on a rock that just a moment before was used as her cooking stool. She brushed it off and asked me to make myself at home because I was “most welcome there.”
I watched as she prepared porridge for her twin brothers who couldn’t have been more than a year old. Everything she did was with intentionality. I could see her making considerations for sanitation, portion, speed because her brothers were fussing and hungry, and also considerations for me. She kept looking up and smiling and asking if I was okay or if I needed anything.
When I tell you that her eyes told a story, it was like looking into a moving picture. I could see that she had been through so much, that her circumstances matured her way beyond her years, that she was malnourished and that each day she lived to get through it and sacrifice so that her baby brothers had enough. She finished making the porridge for her baby brothers and began feeding one of them while her dad fed the other. They were comforted by her touch and her care for them, like they would be if their mother picked them up to feed them.
As I watched her feed them and clean up the dishes she used to prepare the bottles, I noticed the small tub that she used to wash the dishes in. This green little plastic tub was a compassion international shoe box that she had received. I have no idea how long she had it for but I was shocked when I saw it and how new it looked. I remember packing those with my siblings growing up and thinking that those boxes were changing the life of a little child in Africa who didn’t have much. I had no idea who was receiving that box on the other end nor could I have guessed accurately the circumstances of their life. This moment caught me completely off guard. Now I was seeing it. I was seeing the life of the little child who one Christmas was sent a shoe box of small items.
She was still a young malnourished, hard working, overly mature, child who was skipping school to take care of her baby brothers so that her parents could run their business and provide for their family. The truth is, though that box may have blessed the child for just a moment, her life was still the same. She was in need of more than anyone could have known without seeing her life face to face and looking her in the eyes.
This made me see the value again of Jesus commands to go to the ends of the earth, to listen to people’s stories, to teach them Gods word, to sit with them and look them in the eyes, to show them that God sees them, that he cares for them, that he loves them. These things can’t all be shared without physical contact and presence.
I love the way that Jesus humanized people in his life time and the example he set for us. Jesus sat with people, he let them tell their whole stories, he taught them his word and emphasized the value that they had, not the value of the possessions they owned. They were his treasure and his created image.
I left this moment feeling so many emotions, but one of them was gratitude for the chance to be able to look these people in the eyes and show them Gods love. Part of the reason that I love coming back and serving God here in Africa is because it wasn’t enough for me to just send that box every Christmas, not knowing who would receive it or getting to look them in the eyes and tell them that God loved them.
God gave me a conviction to go and to sit with that child face to face. To see the conditions that she lived in, to pray with her, to recognize that she has so many gifts and a capacity that God can use if she has people to invest into her and cultivate the soil that is so soft. She needs people. Physical presence and love that only comes through those who carry Gods spirit.
She was beautiful and she was strong. The world she was born into no human would have chosen for themselves. But God sees her and loves her and I am so grateful that I had this moment to reflect on the importance of face to face ministry.