This month, my new team of six women got to work with an NGO in the small town of Ghanzi, Botswana. The ministry supports orphans and vulnerable children in the community through mentorship, feedings, after school care, youth programming–and above all–the love of Christ.
In Swaziland, I caught myself daydreaming a lot about life back in the States. Then my parents showed up in Africa to join me for their first missions trip, and I saw their world’s get rocked.
Things that have become second nature to me were shocking to them: the poverty, the thatched huts, the dirt floors, the big bellies of hunger, the children left parentless by a generation lost to AIDS, and the way they would cling to your arms and legs just to be touched.
I’ll never forget the day one little girl ran up to me with her arms outstretched. With the limited English she had to communicate with me, she expressed the desire of her heart with these words: “Touch me,” she yelled out, with her arms outstretched, wanting just to be picked up.
What a joy to sit in the grass surrounded by the Swazi mountains and hold these kids in my arms.
I prayed a dangerous prayer leaving Swaziland: “God, wreck me more for your people the last three months than the first eight.”
I guess I forgot, God answers prayers.
Week one of this month I had a break down.
Here I am, daydreaming about the life waiting for me back at home, and I’m looking poverty in the face more in Botswana than an in any other country I’ve been in.
He began to caution me not to become comfortable or complacement by giving me another tiny, glimpse of His compassion.
My heart broke all over again. Looking into the face of poverty, it makes your insides ache and your stomach turn.
It makes you wrestle with questions like, “Why them? Why do their lives have to be marked with so much suffering and hardship? Why do I have everything and they have so little”
But sitting in the village one day where we go to share the Word with a minority tribe, God opened up my eyes. He let me know that he hates poverty and oppression and the inequality of what man has made the world into EVEN MORE than I do.
That’s why I sent my Son, He reminded me.
He showed me that even though these people lack resources, they don’t have to lack hope.
I love the poor. I love the dirty. I love the broken, He said.
I am here, Katy. I am the only One who can fulfill their needs. And I never run out or give up.
This is temporary. But I am setting everything right again.
I love that God is truly the King of a reverse economy. He lifts up the poor of this world and calls them beautiful. And the rich? He calls them to humble themselves, like Christ did, to sit in the dirt with the poor and love them.
In the midst of our world’s brokeness, this is my Ultimate Peace.
I had the chance to make a video to bless our ministry, Window of Hope, this month! Check it out to see where and how our team has been serving as this ministry’s first ever World Race team!
Some of the kids that come to play and eat at Window of Hope.
This lady is so goofy and fun! She was all about making silly faces with me.
A home in the village that we visited this month. We fellowship with the people, sing, pray and share the Word of God. The people here can’t read and it’s incredible to see how much attention they give to the messages; they know it’s their only way to absorb God’s Word until they can learn to read their Bibles.
I see so much of God’s Face in these amazingly powerful, yet gentle and gracious creatures. An animal trainer let us lay down with his pets! These cubs were only a year old, and very gentle.
