A little girl watched them all fall away in the midst of the
pulsing, ravaging HIV crisis in this land. By the time she was 12-years old,
she was left alone in a shack to raise her 8-year old brother. That was in
2006, and now that little girl has her own little girl. At the age of 21, she is
desperate to pass grade 10 so she can complete school and make a better way for
her family.
Last week, we started a tutoring program for her family and
another family with a similar set of circumstances. We loaded seven of them and
their ginormous backpacks into our vehicles, and they sprawled out their
insecurities, questions and calculations with visiting mission teams at the Ten
Thousand Homes base.
After she finished her homework, I took that 21-year old
girl for a walk to the construction site for my new house. I couldn’t help but
think back to 2011 when we built her
house. Some of my most powerful memories in this country are when we went to
her construction site every week with truckloads of people to sing, dance,
teach God’s word, and bring that Kingdom down as those walls went up. Here’s a story about it. That was real-life church in the yard.
I stood there in my own pile of bricks with the girl whose
house we sang up in 2011. She popped out her hip and didn’t skip a beat,
pointing to the pile of dirt that will become the bedroom she would like to
spend the night in. Then I watched all the sass and silliness melt away as we
stood under that doorframe and she said, “Kacy. I dream my mother.”
This young un-mothered mother who just tries to keep her
head above water, much less pass that geography test, poured out her secret
dreams of her mother crying from her grave. She shared, for the first time ever,
the story of her mother dying in her 12-year old arms.
I have nothing to
offer in these moments.
We stood together in
the messy place that is becoming a house.
And I had nothing to
offer except standing together.
I stayed up late and woke up early thinking about that
moment she trusted me with. I don’t understand why there’s so much broken or
why she trusted me with those stories. But
God is making space for them.
…..
The very next day, a woman walked into the churchyard with a
smile on her sweat-beaded face as she pushed an un-toddling toddler up the bumpy
hill in a wheelchair. This is a
lady who’s been in hiding as we’ve watched her older 3 children struggle and
starve. She locked herself up in the self-made prison of shame in the formerly-beautiful
home we built a few years ago.
We never saw her new baby for the first 2 years of her life,
but had only heard a rumor there was a new family member. For some reason, now
this mother has emerged, and we can see this immobile, unseeing baby girl with
a spinal cord injury is the object of her affection.
I wanted to pounce her and kiss her and do a dance around
her when she entered that church gate. SHE CAME! I didn’t even care why she had come.
She came.
I figured that, after two years of locking her door and
pretending she wasn’t home when she saw my Condor, I should play it cool and
just bring her a chair and a plate of food instead of going in for the kiss on
the lips. (That’s real self-control in action.)
She speaks no English, so I just lingered long enough for
her to know she’s worth lingering and loving. Not long later, a young woman
from the church came to me to tell me why that mother had come. She had found
work and wanted someone… someone white... someone who is me… to care for her
baby full time while she worked.
I was shocked.
This mother has taken great measures to not see me, know me
or be known by me for years, despite her incredible need and great effort on my
part.
Now she was reaching out and trusting me with the most
treasured part of her life. I was devastatingly humbled. I stayed up late into
the night wanting to give up every other responsibility I have in this world to
take care of this little girl’s broken body and to acknowledge this mother’s
reach. Instead, we will stand together with her and pray for the right
resources and the right support system for this family to thrive. Please pray
with us for this.
I have no idea why
she came or where she got the strength to reach. It didn’t come from her prison
house, and it didn’t come from me. God is making space.
He’s lengthening, and He’s strengthening. He’s building up
His Family, even when His kids have nothing to offer and when His households
are messy. I’m going to stop trying to understand or trying to build up a
storehouse of things to offer. I’m going to spend myself standing together in
messes and in beautiful.
He’s going to keep making space that I don’t know what to do
with.
And that is beautiful.
"Enlarge the place of your tent,
and let your habitations be stretched out;
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes...
For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,"
says the Lord who has compassion on you
from Isaiah 56
Beautiful.
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