So I’m really not that good at keeping up with a blog :/ ….
I started working at a school for the blind called Salaama on Tuesday. I’m going to get to work in a 6th or 7th grade classroom and teach science :) I’m really excited! It’ll definitely be challenging and a totally new aspect to teaching- but I’m really, really excited about it!
Tala’s birthday is on Friday so we’re going to Kampala to celebrate :) Our first girls night out on the town :)
In one of our classes we’re reading the book, ‘When Helping Hurts.’ It’s about how to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor and yourself. It’s an absolutely incredible book and I’d recommend it to anyone! There was the really, really amazing story in part of it that I wanted to share because it really, really made me think about some things…
“One Sunday I was walking with a staff member through one of Africa’s largest slums, the massive Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. The conditions were simply inhumane. People lived in shacks constructed out of cardboard boxes. Four smells gushed out of open ditches carrying human and animal excrement. I had a hard time keeping my balance as I continually slipped on oozy brown substances that I hoped were mud but feared were something else. Children picked through garbage dumps looking for anything of value. As we walked deeper and deeper into the slum, my sense of despair increased. This place was completely God-forsaken, I thought to myself.
Then to my amazement, right there among the dung, I heard the sound of a familiar hymn. There must be Western missionaries conducting an open-air service in here, I thought to myself. As we turned the corner, my eyes landed on the shack from which the music bellowed. Every Sunday, thirty slum dwellers crammed into this ten-by-twenty foot “sanctuary” to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The church was made out of cardboard boxes that had been opened up and stapled to studs. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a church, a church made up of some of the poorest people on earth.
When we arrived at the church, I was immediately asked to preach the sermon. As a good Presbyterian, I quickly jotted down some notes about the sovereignty of God and was looking forward to teaching this congregation the historic doctrines of the Reformation. But before the sermon began, the service included a time of sharing and prayer. I listened as some of the poorest people on the planet cried out to God: “Jehovah Jireh, please heal my son, as he is going blind.” “Merciful Lord, please protect me when I go home today, for my husband always beats me.” “Sovereign King, please provide my children with enough food today, as they are hungry.”
As I listened to these people praying to be able to live another day, I thought about my ample salary, my life insurance, my health policy, my two cars, my house, etc. I realized that I do not really trust in God’s sovereignty on a daily basis, as I have sufficient buffers in place to shield me from most economic shocks. I realized that when these folks pray the fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer—Give us this day our daily bread—their minds do not wander as mine so often does. I realized that while I have sufficient education and training to deliver a sermon on God’s sovereignty with no forewarning, these slum dwellers were trusting in God’s sovereignty just to get them through the day. And I realized that these people had a far deeper intimacy with God than I probably ever will have in my entire life.
That day in the Kibera slum, God used the materially poor, people more visibly broken than I, to teach me about my own brokenness. They blessed me, even while I was trying to bless them. We are all broken, just in different ways.”
Pretty humbling, right? The story still leaves me in awe. Much like the people here in Uganda, I have noticed this so often- I am being blessed, even while I am trying to be a blessing. And it’s so true, you feel such a deep intimacy when your prayers to God are no longer prayers for convenience but actually prayers of desperate need. It’s kind of beautiful what happens when you really do need God’s guidance to help get through the day safely.
But all in all..
We are all broken, just in different ways.
Just something to think about.
“Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time, thank God no matter what happens.” -1 Thess. 5: 16
<3, Bethany Diane Joy :)
PS: My roommate and I got a frenchpress for our room- so now we can make coffee ALL the time :) it’s great- our room always smells like fresh coffee :)
