When Africa Cries

She came to church during our after-school program on Wednesday. Her head hung so low, it was almost dragging on the dry, winter dust. The baby on her back almost overpowered her fragile body that is buckling under debilitating illness. She came because she was desperate.

In her own language, she shared with our local volunteers that she’s at rock bottom. There’s no money, no food, no family, no health, no home, and absolutely no hope. Her name is Zihle. 

We praised her for coming to our family when she needed help. We invited her to stay, and to come back. And then I broke the rules in a culture where sickness infests with shame and eye contact is disrespectful. I put my hand on her sorrow-filled face that has been overcome with a condition that her body cannot fight off, and I said, “Let me see you.” I brought her eyes right by mine. And I said, “You are beautiful.”

And she broke. She cried that messy, snotty, uncontrollable cry.

She cried, and she stayed. Slowly, as she fed her child and as she watched the other children dance and play freely, beautiful Zihle’s head rose higher and higher.

The next day, we sat outside of the tiny, rented room that she had just been displaced to, along with her baby and her sister. Beautiful Zihle wept and she shared her story of being a perpetually homeless orphan whose body betrays her youth. Her greatest dream is to bring her 8-year old son home from his father’s because his father is a dangerous, abusive alcoholic. She just can’t make the journey alone due to her weak condition.

No food, no bed, nothing to stay warm for the winter, nothing to cook with, and nothing to cook… but mama wants her baby home safely.

She does not cry for her health, her hunger or her hard-knock life.

Africa cries for the family to be together.

…

Sunday morning, I greeted Ruth at church as usual. I look forward to this strong African queen’s powerful smile every week. Again, breaking through cultural norms, she looked into my eyes with every ounce of her. Her strong jaw quivered, and her eyes filled the moment our eyes met.

Without hesitating and without proper greeting, she said, “Kacy, my sister’s baby passed away at 6am. She was two days old.”

Speechless. She still came for church and for Sunday Lunch because she needed to share it. She brought her nephew, the big brother of that lost little sister. We watched that gentle little boy create weapons with sticks and pulverize anything in his path in the Sunday Lunch yard.

She is not looking for sympathy, handouts or a solution.

Africa cries for our family together.

…

As strong Ruth, encouraged just by being in the safe embrace of Sunday Lunch, helped the other mothers serve the meal that day, I notice sweet Esther separating herself at a picnic table. Esther typically has 3 babies tied to her body and/or in her arms, plus one 12-year old son. With sickness and physical disability, no family to support her yet so much family for her to support, Esther is often overwhelmed and shut down.

This time is different though. This isn’t blank-faced, checked out Esther. This is sweet, sweet Esther openly weeping. Tears I’ve never seen stream down her weary face.

She called Ruth over to help translate, and the women explained that Wandile was the source her consuming grief. This undersized, angel-faced boy is riddled with anger and has seen more in his life than I think I could ever fathom.

His bitterness is toxic and is breaking the already fragile will of his mother. Wandile is not ready to be the man of the household, yet he always has been… and has 3 underdeveloped babies and a sick mama. He’s demanding “his portion” of the meager monthly stipend Esther receives and showering her with condemnation. He recently wrote his mother the most cruel hate letter that his little broken heart could concoct.

Esther was starving to the point of being hospitalized with her infant in January and overwhelmed to the point of wanting to surrender her children to social services just months ago. But in those moments where so many lives were in danger and so many broken parts were surfacing, she never shed a tear. She bore those burdens like the rest of Africa does.

That day and that letter left Esther doubled over with tears streaming.

She is not broken by the unbearable daily burdens.

Africa cries for her family to be whole.

…

Those tears are the real Africa. And they are you and me.

Those are the tears of the Father, the ones that will be wiped away soon.

It’s become normal for me to walk into unfathomable depravity, indescribable desperation, and insurmountable need. It’s life for so many here and all around the world. People learn to live without food, without warmth in the winter, without health.

Death is a part of life here. The funeral industry is one of the most prominent businesses. Survival tactics replace coping skill. Tears are not part of the equation. There’s no time or space to break, or you might not be able to keep going.

But there were so many tears this week.

I believe those tears came because, somehow, someway, the Way, the Truth and the Life broke through the unbreakable in these women. They came into the presence of His Family, and wept the same tears the Father weeps.

The circumstances are fleeting. But the Family is forever.

There is so much more to beautiful Zihle, strong Ruth, and sweet Esther’s stories. I’ll try to fill you in soon. But all of them smiled at the end of their tears. All of them were able to grab onto something greater than themselves after they released those tears. All of them came to our next after-school program to participate and serve in a Family that is bigger and goes beyond their circumstances.

Africa does not cry because of her circumstances. She cries for her Family.

An Everyday Meal

Sunday Lunch started with a fluttered word in my heart over 2 years ago. A few moms and me – plus their buckets of children. We’d pile 8-12 people in my little 5-seater Mazda and giggle until we could unfold in the churchyard. We worshiped together and then went home to share a prayer and a meal.

Two weeks ago, we loaded up 21 people in my 7-seater Condor and bumped, bounced, and thank-you’d from church to the base for a meal together. I fed what felt like an army of people, and then gathered the family together for a family meeting.

Well, mostly. Kevin and Karabo were building houses with my microwave box. Wandile, Macbeth, and Gift were playing soccer. And there’s a good chance that Pokasi, Milicent and Mangaliso were eating grass.

Just like family... or something.

The week before that, with tears I couldn’t feel and with an expressionless face, I said words I thought I’d never say about my most God-directed, baby-kiss-filled, anticipated day of the week. “Sunday Lunch is not working anymore.”

Their eyes bulged. Their lips pursed. I was at my wit’s end.

I told them I am struggling financially to feed this many; our car is overloaded; I spend 6+ hours cooking before they arrive; and then, with so many little people with very big needs, I never sit down for the entire meal.

I’m maxed out.

Busi said, “It’s ok! Don’t feed us! Just pick us up for church.”

But a thousand thoughts flashed behind her eyes, and she said, “But some of us really need the food.”

It’s true. Out of the 28 people I fed that Sunday, 20 of them didn’t know where their next meal would come from. I love boosting those bodies with as much nutrition as they can absorb - and then dessert!

We took a week off to pray. I needed to hear Him about Sundays and about living my everyday life with and for His Family. Ten Thousand Homes already feeds and cares for children all week long… My Sundays were not designed to be just another feeding program or a childcare center.

The next week, gathered on a picnic blanket with dessert, we read about God’s family and the real purpose of Sunday Lunch.

To devote, to learn, to share, to pray, to praise, to grow. With everybody’s hands in.

Acts 2:42-47

So on that Sunday, my tired hands reached for their sticky hands. 

I gave them an out or an in, but not an in-between.

I gave them their Sunday afternoons back and told them I needed mine. I am happy to do Sundays together, but I can't do it on my own anymore. I will buy; I will prepare; I will drive; I will do all that I can do… if it’s about the One who satisfies longer than that one plate of food I set in all those sets of hands. It has to be about doing what God’s family does.

I wondered what the dessert-slurping faces that bear burdens of disease, poverty, homelessness and hunger would say. I promised that if they decided they were out, they wouldn’t go hungry. I would find a way to provide food for them if they were coming for the sole purpose of feeding their children because moms have so many mouths to feed. But this Sunday afternoon time and space was designed to be sacred. It was made to be more.

Every single one of those burdened faces looked straight at mine and committed themselves to a specific way to help. Mama Charity and Busi would serve the food. Ruth and Mama Siyabonga would do the dishes. Esther would clean the yard. Felicia would teach the Word. And they would all come willing to speak about God’s Word every week. They would keep cramming in to the Condor because we’re made to be together… even when it’s really, really close together.

They all wanted a family more than they wanted to eat.

They were in. So am I. So I had to get real about our family’s capacity and go behind the scenes of our bread breaking. I shared that I cannot feed 30 people meat every week, and, some weeks, I’m not even sure about the beans. Other weeks, I just don’t have the prep time.

They sat on that picnic blanket and took up their Sunday afternoons in a personal, practical way -  like a real family -  instead of like guests waiting to be served.

One of the mothers there is learning to live with a new, life-altering diagnosis and has a son whose prematurely toothless smile and distended stomach tell a story of trauma and malnutrition. She didn’t miss a beat on that blanket. She looked at me and said, “When there’s not enough, we just use what we have. We’re family. We do what we can.”

And burdened faces beamed. 

Weighted shoulders and spirits soared with satisfaction. 

“YES!” They delighted.

Right then and there, we started laughing and making plans together. The next week we’d have a traditional South African meal for the first time because they were going to put their hands in. They would teach me how to make the pap, and I’d use the traditional spices and seasonings for the kind of beans they eat with it. The kind of beans that I cannot pronounce - They laugh every time I try to say it.

The orphan mindset in this culture instills a starved feeling of being shortchanged when there’s no meat or small portions. Yet this family moment gave each member a voice and asked for a hand when there just wasn’t enough. Suddenly, I sat on a blanket with a family full pride and overflowing joy over a small, everyday meal.

Maybe that’s why Jesus put the bread back in the disciples’ hands when it was time to feed the 5,000. Their starved state of mind demanded the Holy of Holies meet that moment’s need. Instead, the Son of Man asked them for what they had, and they were invited into a miracle of an everyday meal. It  only required a little bit of breaking and the family’s hands serving together. 

Can you envision the contagious happiness when a mountainside of people sat with hands and stomachs full?

 Can you fathom what the disciples felt like while their family hands gathered baskets of leftovers?

Can you imagine the after-glow and shock of that miraculous everyday meal – when heaven was unleashed from the palm of everyday hands? The burden of that Sunday Lunch was not just for that one man on the mountain whose followers had stomped up with their hunger, fear, burdened faces, and capacity to only see and experience that day’s hunger.

The beginning of my pap making lesson

Mama Charity and Busi = resident experts

This is a HARD job. They were already cackling
and demanding photos by this point. It was awesome.

Can you dream of the freedom as the family of Jesus had that same picnic blanket moment we had and realized, “When there’s not enough, we just use what we have. We’re family. We do what we can.”

I can. This Sunday, everybody’s hands got busy to serve an everyday meal. It was nothing fancy. But it was a miracle meal indeed.

And dessert was a HIT.

Thank you, Father, for the freedom of Your Family. Thank you for a Home that makes ordinary life extraordinary and turns everyday meals into extravagant feasts. Thank you for hands and for bread broken in the name of Love that never leaves and has obliterated the orphan cry. Amen. 

Favorite picture and joy moment of all time. LOOK at them.

This is when I caught Busi and Mama Charity teaching
their toddlers how to bring on the sass.
I was so proud. 

And this is how I knew the big boys felt loved and a valuable part of our family.

Made to Move

Kim stood over the hospital bed and massaged a stiff, broken body while the 2-year old trapped inside of it wept from his confines.

She kept rubbing while she stood over that broken baby body and told the story of her own youngest daughter’s miraculous recovery and adoption. Kim massaged that testimony into the baby who finally fell asleep under the hands that have held miracles before.

Moments later, a father walks in. Kim’s massaging hands immediately reach out to greet this smiling man who defies his culture to sit at the bedside of his vulnerable son. He’s proud to be his father.

I have to ask, “Do you have dreams for your son?”

“YES!” He says, “Big, big dreams. Too many dreams. I have some dreams if he recovers and can have a normal childhood and even dreams if he cannot and he stays like this.”

The father shares that, not long ago, his son was a normal, walking, talking 2-year old boy. One day, he suddenly seized and froze. His body curls and tightens, and he’s undergone procedures on his brain. The problem is unclear as to what is plaguing this little body, but his father dreams dreams for him no matter what his body becomes.

We tell him we’ve prayed. The father beams. He shouts the name of Jesus right there over that broken baby body, and we talk about how the Healer draws close when His hands and feet come together. So we draw close around that bed one more time, join our hands together, and we pray for baby boy.

As an afterthought, I asked the father his son’s name. It’s Bayanda. I asked what it means, and he said, “It means the family is growing larger and larger.”

“YES.” I said with explosive joy. “And Bayanda was made to move.”

In that hospital moment, Kim’s hands were made to move a soothing peacefulness over Bayanda’s body. And our hands were meant to join together and call Heaven down in that fluorescent room. Bayanda was made to move.

The Family was made to move. To grow larger and larger.

It happens with a whispered prayer and a gentle rub.

It happens with an enthusiastic reach for a family member or for a total stranger.

It happens when a dream is shared, when the Name is spoken, and when hands come together and wrap around the broken bodies, hearts and stories in this world – all over the world.

Thank you Kim for holding miracles and calling them family.

Thank you for massaging them in with your story, a deposit for the next miracles.

Thank you Citymark Church for coming again and again.

The Family is growing larger and larger. And it was made to move. 

The Day We Danced

I've been living in SouthAfrica at Ten Thousand Homes for 4 1/2 years now. We've had the same mission this whole time: creating hope and homes for Africa's orphaned and vulnerable children.

The ways we live it out have evolved as we are grow. Just like you have to change your parenting styles as your child grows up, everyday we are learning to embrace new spiritual parenting principles as we walk deeper and further with orphaned hearts and orphaned children.

After four years of family-building, some of the ones who have never known family are learning, leaning and letting us in. 

We are waiting, watching, and running as the sons and daughters start realizing they have a place at the Father's house. Just like the "prodigal son" in Luke 15, the journey home starts when you're empty... when you're hungry and homeless. 
So that's where we started. With food and with houses.

When the son shows up, hesitating and hovering outside the gate, the Father runs. That son was met with a big ole, manly 'Welcome Home' kiss and a ring that sealed his place in the family. He was welcomed home with dignity, love, adorning and feasting. And then they danced. 

Before he encountered his father, that spit-up-and-chewed-out boy had been practicing a speech. He just wanted to get lucky enough to sleep on a familiar floor, to be a servant in his father's house instead of slurping somebody else's pig's slop.

But Daddy said, "DANCE." 

On the day the orphan comes home, dragging his feet and heart, the Holy of Holies says, "DANCE."

So we dance too.
On earth as it is in heaven. 

But they did not... I repeat DID NOT do the Cupid Shuffle. (This Texas girl hates line-dancing.)
REAL dancing is a response and not a command. Real dancing is an interaction, an intimate conversation, an outrageous celebration. 

Real dancing has the capacity to bring heaven down to earth. 
We keep learning new moves to keep up with heaven's coming and transforming.

I do NOT want to spend my life doing a Sunday School shuffle. Or a lame missionary march... oh, Lord, please no... I want to do a victory shimmy when a mom's eyes light up and chains fall off. I want to do a little poppin' and droppin' in Jesus' name when a newly-built house becomes a Home and an orphan becomes Family.

I want to respond with all of me as we draw nearer to all of Him.

Today is my good friend and leader, Carla's birthday. Riiiiiiiiight when we were about to buckle up in my Mazda for her birthday breakfast, we heard her name being called over and over again. We popped out of the car, ready for an impromptu celebration or some other fabulously appropriate birthday morning bombardment. Instead, we heard, "One of our vehicles has been stolen."

Some intruders came silently in the night and pushed away our newest ministry vehicle. It was parked right in the middle of the other cars, security lights, all the houses, and all the big, barking dogs.

Birthday faces went blank. We started and stuttered. Then we shared some un-birthday like words and thoughts... until Jared said we couldn't do that. (Two points for the new guy.)

We stood by those tire tracks and spoke Truth: 
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10

We prayed. And then we danced.

In the empty parking place, we sang and danced the birthday song to Carla. We even did the perfectly South African, "Hip-Hip-Hooray!" for the grand finale. We smiled, clapped and danced. We celebrated Carla's life.

Later, I was gathered in a room of tired and weary local community volunteers. Dwaleni was really dragging. Even our staff and visiting team looked beat down. We called out every point of suffering in that room - a headache, a toothache, foot and leg pain, a dying family member, a stolen vehicle, physical exhaustion, a deep cut; the list went on and on...

We stood with those tired, broken bodies and spoke Truth. 
We prayed. And then we danced. 

And you know what? Just an hour later, after we had danced, opened our hearts and taken orange juice communion together, we got a phone call...

THEY FOUND THE CAR.

You don't understand.

That DOESN'T happen here. 

It was far away and literally in the bush. And that never happens. 

So, guess what... We danced again.

A new dance. A thank you dance. 

Then, without even thinking twice or realizing what I was doing, I went outside and danced with the children. I danced so many kinds of dances with the children whose needs and stories are unfathomable. 

We just kept dancing.

We sang the same line over and over again, but we made up a new move every time.

(I taught them a New Kid's on the Block song - and who can ever remember more than one line of a NKOTB song anyway? Don't judge.)

This morning, we danced to celebrate a life in an empty parking spot. We hip-hip-hoorayed on the enemy's tracks. 

Today, in that yard, we danced a hundred different dances over the empty places and the enemy's tracks in those little lives. 

We danced out the darkness, doubt and fear. We danced both the empty parking spot dance and the "Welcome home, son" dance. 

This is the day we danced. 

This is the day we celebrate a life, a miracle, a communion of the saints, and children eating until their full and then taking home leftovers. 

Let this be the day you dance. Whether your parking space is empty or your stomach is full. This is the day to dance.

Happy Birthday Carla!!!