Category Archives: poverty

what matters

April 28, 2010

I sit watching the monitor for every slight change of heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen rate. It passes through my mind that I would choose different colors for this place – the walls, the chairs, the machines, most definitely the drapes. But then I come back to my senses.

My brother Jay is fighting for his life in a Boston intensive care unit.

It came out of nowhere, this horrible thing that they now call ARDS of an unknown origin. One day he had a cough, the next he was in ICU on a ventilator where he has now been for three weeks and where he remains. They did not expect him to live 48 hours, so the fact that he is here is – though still critical – is literally a miracle.

The details are neither necessary or appropriate – this is not the place. But as I change the cool rag on Jay’s face, I think deeply about who he is. A brilliant man – to use the word genius is no overstatement. He’s the kind that only does the hard New York Times crossword puzzles at the end of the week. The first book I pick up on his shelf in the room where I sleep is by Kandinsky – Concerning The Spiritual in Art , which I read some time ago, but am enjoying  re-reading late at night.

He also loves the sea and his home is filled with model sailing ships and pictures of ships, plants and seashells. He’s an amazing cook and has a collection of hot peppers like I’ve never seen. He’s a Texan, of course and you can take the boy out of Texas and all that…

He’s also a professional musician – a french horn player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra – a town that actually supports the arts. He’s also a keyboardist, a composer, a writer, a singer. There’s so much more and his friends and family could go on and on,  but you get the point.

Most importantly I think of how deeply he is loved by his sister and brother in Texas who dropped everything to run to his side. His sister, Kathy – well there are no words to describe her loving actions and what I’ve watched her do. Ken came as soon as he could and stayed as long as he could, but had to tearfully drive home yesterday morning. The nurse tells us Jay’s heart monitor jumped 20 points as they were trying to say goodbye – but of course, we saw that. He’ll be back, of course.

I think of all this as I watch Jay’s monitors, watching his every wince and expression of pain, and praying not only for survival – that is not enough. But for complete recovery in the painful and traumatic months of acute rehab ahead of him once he is well enough to leave ICU.

Oh – and my own beloved father was life-flighted last weekend. I won’t go into those details either but long story short, it was a blood clot. He was on the floor not breathing and we thought we had lost him. My own brother Kevin, who qualifies for sainthood in my book, texts me daily to assure me that he is doing great. Dad’s home and cooked a great turkey meal for everyone for Sunday dinner, And if I know my dad, there was a little Irish jig involved. My hero.

Of course, all of this leaves me thinking of what matters and what doesn’t. I feel like I don’t know much anymore. I used to have so many answers and now I only have one: God is love and our only safe place is in that Love.

I know that God loves Jay with a love I cannot begin to comprehend with my breaking, and sometime sobbing heart. I know that He loves my family members that are bravely coping with so much stress and loss ( no, I have not told the whole story of all that is going on:) – with a love beyond words. I silently fall back into that Love this morning, floating there as if in a sea that is neither calm nor warm, but definitely safe and familiar and real.

And then, before I close my computer to head back to the hospital this morning I stop to pray over the children that cover the wallpaper on my computer. I stop to look at the latest photos out of the Mikea Forest where I will be heading in July – children so happy to be in school, so many of them are merely skeletons with smiles. And I sink deeper and deeper into the love of God. This love that is deeper than illness, than grief, than poverty, than suffering. The only thing worth clinging to in this unforgiving, unpredictably yet still terribly beautiful world.

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jailed missionaries in Haiti

February 10, 2010

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I’ve been following this story with more than a casual interest and my emotions are engaged on several levels. First and foremost, I worry about the children and the parents who felt the need to give them away in order to save them. I wept when I read the stark commentary from one of these parents a few days back. She said “This is our culture. We often give our children to others to raise, so they will have a better chance at life.” Others may give one child away to finance the feeding of the other 6. These children are called restavecs – no more than child-slaves in the household of a better-off family.

I’ve seen this in Africa. I’ve had many conversations with grown women who, though they nonchanlantly tell their stories, have obviously never emotionally recovered from being given away as children. Most of them spent their childhoods tending cows, hauling water, watching younger children, cooking, washing clothes – and so had no opportunity to go to school. And when the sun set in the village, most of them were molested.

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Then there are the cow-boys of Malawi. Little boys taken far from their homes to tend cattle as slaves in another village. This is illegal in Malawi now, but I’m told that when government officials enter a village to inspect, they simply hide the boys until they leave. The law is nearly impossible to enforce in the  villages where traditional authorities and cultural practices reign.

As I’ve read similar stories in Haiti, the frustration of the aid workers and doctors is palpable. Their hands are tied and they know it. But the 10 jailed missionaries shook off those ties.

I’ve been surprised at how emotional I’ve been about this event. I don’t even know where to start – but let me start here: I won’t impugn their motives. I understand the heart that took them to Haiti and respect their courage to wade into the carnage and try to make a difference. But even as we press against the things in the culture that victimize innocents, we must respect that nation’s laws at all times. The bible clearly states that we must respect those in authority – and any remnant of a colonial mindset that sets itself up as the law is arrogant.

As someone who has spent many long days and years in Madagascar running after some important little piece of paper – what we call “zee leetle paper” – I do understand the frustration. You need “zee leetle paper”. You go to social welfare and social welfare tells you to go to the ministry of whatever and the ministry of whatever sends you to the ministry of whatsit and 10 hours later there is still no leetle paper. But you don’t run around their laws unless you want to be their guest for a couple of decades. It’s called respect.

We tried to adopt a little boy from Madagascar some years back. For several years, we supported him in an orphanage run by a pastor and wife – who assured us he was an orphan and that they would help us gather his paperwork. We personally sent monthly funds and large sums to procure a birth certificate – but no such certificate ever materialized. To make a long story short, on a final trip when I thought I was in the last stages of the process, a mother emerged. He was not an orphan – something the pastor knew all along. The mother didn’t want her son back, however – she just wanted money.

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At that moment I had to make a decision that broke my heart. I told her to take her son back to the village. The little boy was inconsolable, as were my husband and I, but there was simply no way around this. This woman wanted to sell her son. In that split second, I knew I had to trust God with his young life. I could not violate child trafficking laws to try to save him myself. It wasn’t an easy decision but I still know it was the right one.

Which brings me to the jailed group’s leader – Laura Silsby. She is being villified in the press and now we’re told the group has turned against her, passing notes through the bars about her controlling nature and how she deceived them. I don’t know about any of that – but I can’t help but wonder why we always eat our own. Quote scripture all you want and sing Amazing Grace until you’re hoarse, but Jesus said they’ll know we are Christians by our love for each other.

On the other hand, I would call on Laura Silsby to act in love towards the team entrusted to her. Stand up and take full responsibility for your actions and ask for the immediate release of your team members. They trusted your judgment in an unfamiliar culture. They trusted your decisions and your word. These decisions – no matter how good the motive – have led them smack into this tense situation, causing fear among their loved ones. Speak up, Laura, it’s the price of leadership and also the price of love.

Photo Credits: Haitian Child by lauri koski; Cow Boy by Patsala, a young village boy in Malawi who participated in an Ancient Path photography project.

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8 minutes 24 seconds

January 6, 2010

I saw a 60 second commercial the other day featuring two well-dressed men discussing the clear reasons we should all own gold in this unstable world.  Well, here’s 8 minutes and 24 seconds  featuring the children who mine that gold in Congo. This is their unstable world.

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giving thanks

November 21, 2009

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I’m back from Africa in time for the Thanksgiving holiday – always a harder time of year to cope with “re-entry”.  I still remember melting down in the cereal aisle of a grocery store on my November return from Madagascar a decade ago.

It’s Thanksgiving eve and I’m hunting down pumpkin pie ingredients under screaming fluorescent lights when – without warning – my two worldviews collide in a very public-and messy-manner. The bright faces on the cereal boxes suddenly morph into the faces of dying children I have just left and I begin to sob incoherently about injustice and Lucky Charms. My husband has to carry me from the store.

Malaria may have had something to do with that particlar episode – but even after all these years, I still find it difficult to traverse back and forth between such starkly different worlds. It has, however, taught me to be grateful for even the smallest things – and to find meaning in each day.

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For instance, I’m so grateful for clean water flowing from a tap inside my house. I don’t have to haul water on my head, back and forth from a dirty river or a deep well in a neighboring village – or suck on dirty tree roots for my moisture. I’m grateful that I don’t have to chop firewood each time I want to cook even the smallest meal. I’m grateful that I have meals – even a simple bowl of soup and something as insignificant as a dash of salt.

I’m grateful for a warm bed and a house that keeps snakes out and won’t fall down when the rains come.The children have told me how frightening it is to find huge snakes curled up next to them in the middle of the night. Pythons, no less. (A little mouse would be welcome in their houses. Well, actually it would be breakfast.)  I’m grateful for soap, a hot shower and a clean towel, for books, music, art, beauty and a 1969 VW that still runs.

I know the US economy has taken a hit. We’ve had difficult times ourselves and are one of those families without health insurance – but I’m so grateful that we make more than a dollar a day, like 65% of all Malawians. (And no, you can’t feed and clothe a family on that – even in the Malawian economy.) I’m grateful that I’ve never had to send my children to bed hungry or choose which ones would go to school and which would go to work in a sweat shop.

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I’m grateful that we’ve never been driven into refugee camps through war and violence – like so many African families. As I think of the increasing  violence in Darfur – or in Congo – I’m grateful for the peace in our nation and for the military men and women and their families who give up their lives to keep it that way. When I think of the corrupt and brutal dictators who stand with their boots on the necks of the poor, chopping off the limbs of innocent children, I thank God for democracy – that works better here than anywhere else in the world.

Our parents are all battling illness, and that has been painful to watch – yet I am so grateful for the skilled and compassionate professionals whose care beats back the cancer. And I’m grateful to God who allows us to enjoy our loved ones for yet another day. I’ve just left a country where people are stacked two to a bed – and under the beds – on teeming hospital wards. Where life-saving surgeries are canceled because the national blood bank is dry, where people die of liver cancer with no more than tylenol to ease the pain. Yes, I’m grateful. I’m grateful for a husband who treats me with loving respect, for the opportunities my children have had, for the health and well-being of my beautiful granddaughter.

But I’m also grateful for the songs of the African widows who never give up, for the woman with AIDS who radiates joy as she talks about the goodness of God, the skeletal orphan child who clings to me, laughing, singing, hugging, still hoping, still believing in life and the love of God. These are my teachers.

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And there is one teacher in particular that I think of every Thanksgiving – let me take you back a few years…

I’m in Madagascar.  Since arriving I have preached nine times in 3 days, trudged up and down mountainsides, stood helplessly, surrounded by starving street children and heard more horror stories than I could possibly digest. I’m tired, sick with fever, rapidly sliding into a bad attitude and I’m getting ready to preach again – on love, no less. I’m praying for strength, shivering as the cold concrete floor chills my very bones, when the pastor begins to lead us in the simple worship song:

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks for He has given Jesus Christ, His son
And now let weak say “I am strong”
Let the poor say “I am rich”
Because of what the Lord has done for us

And out of the corner of my eye, I see her – a woman who looks to be in her 60s or 70s but is probably younger than me. She’s wearing a head wrap, a ragged shirt and simple cloth tied around her waist; she is barefoot on the cold concrete floor.  As she sings wholeheartedly, head thrown back and arms extended, the tears roll down her wrinkled face, soaking her shirt. I learned in that moment how to give thanks with a grateful heart – and have never forgotten. That doesn’t mean I always remember to be grateful – but when I take time to reflect, God takes me back to this humble teacher who still instructs my heart each time I think of her.

I’ll be thinking of her on Monday morning when I have a dentist appointment. I’m even grateful for this – which is nothing short of miraculous. I’m grateful for my dear friend who gives of himself and his talents to care for me and my family in this way. I’m grateful for his skilled, compassionate staff who coax me into the office and into the chair. I’m grateful for sterile instruments, novocaine and antibiotics. An oh yes – let’s not forget the gift of nitrous oxide. (PS – Just meet me in the parking lot with the tank on high and then hit me on the head with something heavy. I’ll be grateful to you.)

But enough from me. What are you grateful for?

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more children

November 6, 2009

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Today we have 45 children packed into this small room. There is no breeze and we are all sweltering – even the children, who are used to this heat. But no one minds. The new flannelgraph board is leaning on the wall and the children lean forward in anticipation.

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Today Moses tells the same story that I told to the smaller orphan group yesterday – how the angels appeared to lowly shepherds in a field to announce the birth of the Savior. He’s animated and the kids are mesmerized. They love coming up to the board to place an angel, a tree, a bush. We change the scene to the birth of Jesus and talk about how He emptied Himself of all the glories of heaven and was born as a helpless infant into a poor family. They understand.
They begin to pray and raise the tin roof.

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It’s time for play and we’re a bit more organized today, though even more children have come. I love watching the joy in their faces at a tiny thing like a colorful lego block, or a 99 cent ball and jacks set. Blessings comes to show me that his matchbox car has a light and a siren – he can hardly believe his eyes…and ears.

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Outside they jump rope and play netball – the place is a flurry of activity. Inside, it’s chaos. I teach them how to get quiet whenever the leader raises their hand. When I raise my hand, they must raise theirs – and when their hand is up, their mouths are closed. To practice, we make a racket – and the moment I raise my hand, their little hands shoot up and the room is silent. We practice this several times and they like the game. Later, it’s not quite as efficient…but they’ll learn. This is all new. I tell them that now we are a family and ask them what that means. They tell me ” it means relationship”.

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Now it’s time to eat – little hands are washed and food received gratefully. Watching a hungry child eat an apple may be one of the highlights of my entire life. This is a real treat. These children would never taste an apple outside of the Chifundo program or another program like it.

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Today they hold out their hands for their “sweeties” – vitamins, actually – and chew them right up. Their reticence is gone. When it’s time to leave they line up for two things – a package of candy from Moses, and a hug from Amai. I’m surprised at how open they are to hugs already. This is the part of my job I love the most – taking each child in my arms – as if they are not my arms at all, but the arms of Christ, telling each one just how much God adores them. I’m here to be an apostle of love….we all are.  Nothing more, nothing less.

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barefoot travels

September 23, 2009

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I was in Washington D.C. last month for a couple of days – supposedly just doing the tourist thing with Ken and Hana – though we’re not really the touristy types. We head immediately for the Holocaust Memorial Museum where we have a little delay getting in since the man directly in front of me is packing a full-sized machete in his pants. The guards are on it immediately. They just lost a comrade in June when a lunatic rifle-wielding white supremacist entered the museum and shot Officer Stephen Tyrone Jones dead – and they’re not messing around.

We eventually get in, but I can’t write about it. I bought the huge official museum book and read it cover to cover – I can’t count the number of books I’ve read on the Holocaust – but I still can’t write about it.  I’ve been to Yad Vashem in Israel and haven’t written about that experience either. I will one day, but I just don’t have words yet – except to say go see and hear for yourself.

Bear witness.

We head to the National Museum of the American Indian – which after the Holocaust memorial is a bit like stabbing yourself repeatedly with a shard of  broken glass. It’s all too much to take in.  And definitely impossible to write about until I have begun to take it in. One thing I did walk away with was a sense of awe at the artistic talent inherent in all humankind created in the image of Creator God.

We need to create art. We need beauty. It’s in the DNA of every people group.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote that “earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.”

For me, D.C. is a barefoot experience from start to finish – crammed with thin places, where the veil between heaven and earth stretches beautifully and terribly taut. God is everywhere.

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There is the stooped Chinese woman fighting the wind to hang her garish red and gold banner protesting something or other in China. Just as she gets one corner tied tight, another collapses – and on and on it goes.  I watch for some time, transfixed by her tenacity and the traditional music squawking from her tiny boom box. No one is paying attention, the world is hurrying by, but she has something to say and she will say it – whether anyone listens or not. (yes, God – I caught that….)

The sound of live jazz drifts out of the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden as we pass by, so we drift in to see what’s happening. Teeming with young professionals picnicking on blankets and carrying large pitchers of overpriced Sangria to friends seated around the large fountain, it is obviously the place to be after work on a hot summer’s Friday night. I notice how well-heeled everyone is and suddenly feel self-conscious in my sorry, well-traveled crocs.

We edge close to the band (an excellent band whose name escapes me at the moment) and I’m just beginning to forget my cracked and crusty crocs and enjoy the scene when I see him. There are at least a thousand people here, but now all I can see is the sole homeless man, grasping his plastic bags, making himself small behind a stone column whenever a guard glances his way.  When it starts to drizzle, the man takes a flimsy poncho out of one of his many bags – the cling-wrappy disposable kind of poncho. He sticks his head through what looks like a crinkled bag with arm holes.

He isn’t strong and shifts his weight constantly to take the strain off his back.  When he spies a sliver of space between two women on a stone bench by the band, he makes himself visible and gestures feebly – silently asking if he can sit next to them. At first, they pretend not to see him, but as he inches towards them, they instinctively curl their  bodies inward, creating enough space for his frail, thin frame.

And there he sits – among the elite of Washington – gripping all his worldly possessions under his grimy poncho. He closes his eyes and his body moves to the rhythms, the emotions changing on his face with each featured instrument, each riff, each exhilarating ride. Here is a man who can see and has clearly taken off his shoes, drinking in the sheer mad beauty of sound. I wonder where he’ll sleep tonight. I wonder if he’ll still hear the music in his dreams. I wonder if he even notices the masses around him plucking blackberries.

We move on to two white-haired men weeping openly at the Viet Nam Memorial wall, tracing the names of their long -dead friends with shaky fingers.  What they have seen they can never forget and I can not even begin to imagine. But I can hear God breathing at this wall. There are angels here.

It starts to rain heavily, sending all visitors scurrying – except for us, of course, and one limping man who looks to be in his early 60’s. Wearing a ragged veteran’s hat and shirt, I hear his dog tags clatter as he passes by. Having just slipped on the wet walkway, and worrying that he might take a tumble on the slick surface, I catch up to him and grab his elbow, cautioning him to take care.

Don’t worry about me, he says with a smile. He stops and makes a sweeping gesture toward the wall – I live here. I spend every day of my life here with my friends.

He asks me where I hail from and when I tell him Ohio, he rattles off these words:

Panel 23W Line 112. Her name was First Lieutenant Sharon Lane and that’s where you can find her name on the wall. She was from Canton, Ohio  - the only woman actually killed by enemy fire in Nam. She was hit in the neck by shrapnel  at Chu Lai as she was bending over a young Vietnamese girl, pressing a wound to keep her from bleeding to death. 1st Lt. Lane  was decorated for bravery and there is a statue of her in Canton. Go there. Go see it.

As this man continues to talk, both of us oblivious to the rain, I realize that over the years he has memorized this wall – not just the names, but the panel and line numbers. He tells me that he spends every day here to honor the fallen, so that they will never be forgotten.  I can see that he’s not well, his arms and legs are swollen, his skin mottled, his eyes glazed. He didn’t survive the war either. There are different ways to die – some are quicker than others.

He walks away and I stare at my soaked shoes. I tend to see more clearly in the rain. This man makes me ashamed at how little thought I have given to the intimate price of war – each precious life represented not only on this snaking black wall but at the Korean War memorial, the WWII memorial, in the daily news coming out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Each life cut short – but their stories living on tortuously in the minds of those who love them, those who trace their names on aging marble or finger photos until the corners curl.

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I think of the price of one human life to God – and what the price of one human life should mean to me. Whether it’s a fallen soldier, a holocaust survivor, or another nameless, faceless genocide victim in Darfur.

Thin places always make me think. They teach me to see differently – and they are everywhere, every day,  for those who can bear to look.

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Surrender

June 4, 2009

boat532A protestant girl from Belfast shouldn’t admit a fondness for monk music and books by Thomas Merton, Jean Vanier, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna, to name a few – but there it is. Lately I’ve been thinking about the  early Celtic monks  who used to push off from the rocky coast of Ireland  in small, wooden or wicker-framed, hide-covered boats – without oars and sails. Braving the harsh elements of the open sea, they would sing and pray, clinging only to the Creator of the wind and the waves.

Their 6th century faith told them that God alone stirred the currents that carried them. God alone carved a path in the sea for their little boats. God alone delivered them to distant shores. God alone provided for them.

Of course, such a venture sounds childish in our highly structured society that has a plan for everything. Education plans, career plans, financial plans, house plans, wedding plans, phone plans, insurance plans, business plans, pension plans – you name it, we have a plan for it. In the church we have ministry plans, Bible reading plans,short term mission trip plans, building campaign plans, fund-raising plans. And if you don’t have a plan, you’re branded as irresponsible, naive …and childish.

The very thought of setting ourselves adrift on the gracious and merciful will of an unseen God seems foolish. The thought of abandoning all control over our lives is terrifying. It makes for a good song, but a scary reality.

Our 21st century faith – in the west, anyway -  tells us to lean on God, but not completely. Trust God, but tuck something away for a rainy day…just in case.

And when we’re worried that things aren’t going quite the way we had hoped and planned, we pull out a familiar verse from Jeremiah and reassure ourselves with the words: I have plans for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, to give you hope and a future. But deep down we still worry that things might not turn out that way we planned.  What if I never get married, have children, get promoted, achieve my dreams?  What if I lose my job, have an accident, get sick?

When plans fail and dreams come crashing down around our ears we comfort ourselves with the idea that God often brings death to a vision before he brings it to full life. Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a seed... We don’t even realize that we are still rowing hard against the current, convincing ourselves that it will all work out the way we planned in the end.  Maybe it will be Plan B instead of Plan A, or Plan C instead of Plan B.

But if enough plans fail, enough people disappoint, enough dreams come crashing down around your ears,  you either grow bitter  – or you let go + let God, as they say.

I find it easy to let go in the middle of the Mikea Forest surrounded by devil worshippers, where I may be stalked by bands of armed thieves. God is, after all, much bigger  – and perfect love really does cast out all fear.

I find it easy to let go at 35,000 feet when the plane begins to shake. I decided long ago that my life is not my own. He can end it however He chooses.

I find it harder to let go when I watch a beloved parent suffer with a cancer that eats the bones. I find it hard to let go when injustice goes unanswered and the liars and cheats seem to win the day. When I know the truth but cannot speak it, a full-force battle rages in my mind. When I know that God sees, but it is not enough, I beat the waves furiously within my own heart – and I get nowhere.

I think of the celtic monks and long for a simple, 6th century faith – for the faith that truly leaves all things in His loving hands. I long for abandonment to God and the peace that comes with it. I long for the humility that says not my will but yours be done – and dances joyously away, confident that God will fulfill His perfect purposes in me and on the earth.

I close my eyes and set myself adrift.

The knots in my stomach begin to relax, my heartbeat slows down.

I open my hands …and drop the oars.

Photo Credits: Beached Canoe by Alistair Williamson

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social distancing

May 3, 2009

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There’s nothing like a global pandemic to bring out the best in human nature. CNN tells us that as swine flu – or the pork industry’s preferred title, the H1N1 virus - spreads around the world, people are withdrawing from one another.

Dr. Richard Dawood, the director of a London travel clinic, elegantly dubs the trend  social distancing. He says that “People don’t want to get too close. There is going to be a move towards less handshaking, less greeting people with a kiss.”  He  also predicts that fear of infection may lead the business world to conduct fewer face-to-face meetings.

Well , I say hurray for that. The world could do with a few less meetings and alot more walks in the fresh air. But as an unabashed hugger who believes in the power of touch to convey love, friendship, acceptance and warmth – whether I have known you for 30 years or 30 seconds – I also say let’s fight this new social trend.

For a start, people are getting hysterical, as we tend to do when the media fans the flames.  A recent London newspaper headline – Swine flu Could Kill up to 120 Million with it’s accompanying photos of machine-gun toting Mexican police in surgical masks  – would make anyone push their dresser up against the bedroom door and pull the blinds tight.  Newscasters reporting through masks – with only their perfectly coiffed hair and furrowed brow visible – make for good entertainment, but also give us new reasons to roll up our borders, lock our doors, and hide our families away.

Dr. Dawood worries about how people will act as H1N1 continues to spread, noting that “People historically have resorted to socially ostracizing those who have suffered from diseases like typhoid and leprosy . Hopefully, we don’t see that again. We will have to control our urges in our relations to other people.”

This, of course, is as old as time. A story in the gospels tells of Jesus healing a leper – and what amazed the crowds as much as the miraculous healing was the fact that he physically touched the man. Lepers were complete outcasts from the community. No one walked on the road with a leper, let alone touch someone afflicted with the disease. When Jesus touched him, he healed the man, body and soul. But he also was showed us what fearless living looks like – and said “follow me.”

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All of this brings a certain memory to the surface. It was some years back, in a remote village in Madagascar. The village had been wiped out by a cyclone and most families were left without even a spoon – their most precious possession. (A Malagasy wife has been divorced for breaking or losing the family spoon.)  Our partners had been working hard to restore the village and we were there to bring hope through an arts presentation called The Story of Love, as well as supplies and funds.

After an afternoon performance, we walked through the village and into the few mud huts that remained standing. Peeking through the doorway of one tiny, dark hovel I saw what appeared to be a pile of rags on a makeshift bed. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out a figure under the rags when she began to cough uncontrollably, A young woman stepped out of the shadows to apologize, telling us that her mother was dying of cholera.

We were still standing at the threshold, out in the fresh air. We could have blessed the dying woman from a distance and moved on. No one would have blamed us if we had practiced a little social distancing.  But the  next thing I knew, I was holding the frail sickly woman in my arms, and kissing her face. In a moment, she was surrounded by all of our other team members, touching her, stroking her hair. The tears rolled down her cheeks – and her daughter’s -  as we told her of the love of God and prayed for her recovery.

I looked at the other faces in that dim room. Healthy faces, loving faces of people who had raised their own funds, taken out loans, worked extra hours just to be there in the fetid atmosphere of that little hut. It never dawned on them to distance themselves. If they did stop to consider the fact that cholera is an extremely contagious and dangerous disease, it didn’t show. No one flinched. On that day I saw perfect love in operation – and that perfect love cast out all fear.

I wouldn’t trade that moment and the memory of that moment for anything. My travels have taken me into countless less-than-safe scenarios over the years and at the end of each one of them are people desperate for love, for warmth, for hope and truth. The funny thing is, I used to be a terrified person – afraid of everything and flying to scary places was at the top of the list. Not too many years ago, I would probably have stockpiled surgical masks and pushed the dresser against the door.

But there’s something about the beautiful love of God that frees you – that changes the way you not only see the world, but offers a whole new way to live in it.  Fearlessly.

dzeleka-camp-kids-malawi


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Madonna and Malawi

April 4, 2009

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I feel sad today – for a millionairess and her kids, an orphan, and a nation.

I’m talking about Madonna, of course. I’m talking about the disappointed children who will leave Africa without the little girl they have come to regard as their new sister. I’m talking about an orphan named Chifundo, and the nation of Malawi – a place  I have traveled to and  grown to love for over a decade.

I’m not a Madonna fan. I don’t think I’ve ever purposefully listened to one of her songs. I never even saw Evita.  And when she swept into Malawi back in October of 2006 and flew out just days later with new son David Banda tucked under her arm, I was more than irritated – I was furious. As far as I was concerned, she was buying the little boy, pure and simple. The Malawian courts were so blinded by the light of her celebrity and wealth that they couldn’t read their own adoption laws.

I knew about Malawi’s laws because I had an adoption agency lawyer investigate them for me. Two of our three children came into our hearts and family via Korea and China, and my husband and I would have loved to adopt a Malawian son or daughter. Unfortunately, the lawyer came back a few days later with three words: forget about it. She said there was no adoption infrastructure in place and that she could only find records of about 6 successful adoptions in the last 15 years – and those were to westerners living in Malawi.

Ok, so maybe my furor wasn’t entirely righteous. It seemed wrong that Madonna could accomplish what none of the rest of us could, because she was rich and famous. But when I recently heard that Madonna planned to adopt a little Malawian girl named Chifundo, I was glad to hear it. Yes, I know about the divorce, the baseball player, the 22-year-old Brazilian model named Jesus, the erotic stage shows, strange macro-biotic diet and even stranger religion. I know her children spend alot of time with nannies, that she spends alot of time on treadmills and airplanes.

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But I also know what happens to girls in Malawi – especially orphaned girls. I’ve seen and learned things since 2006 that have  broken my heart and changed my mind.  I don’t know anything about Chifundo’s extended family, so I can’t judge them. And hopefully they are the loving family the news makes them out to be. But when I see the awkward picture of the little girl sitting on her uncle’s lap, with a stern  grandmother staring at the camera,  a knot forms in my stomach and other stories come to mind.

2-girls-torn-clothesI know a grandmother who locked her orphaned grandchildren in the mud house for days on end without food because she was angry with them. The villagers say that once she cooked a goat outside the door, allowing the smell to torture the starving children who rarely ever see meat. One day her grandson literally fainted from hunger almost as soon as he entered our gate. A friend and I drove to their  village another day to discover whether the granddaughter was attending school. We found the gaunt 10 year old girl dressed in torn rags, hauling water and washing the grandmother’s clothes in a bucket – while the old woman lounged in the shade, visiting friends.

Another little girl who sleeps on a beer-soaked mat at her grandmother’s mud house, was badly beaten  for accidentally spilling maize kernels on the ground as she was trying to pound them. It wasn’t the first time and won’t be the last. Her grandmother brews homemade beer for a living and this young girl is exposed to her drunken clientele ,day after day – and night after night.

One of the worst things I’ve ever seen was a 5 year old girl who couldn’t walk right after being raped by a village “uncle”.  I’m told her mind has never been right since, either; when I met her she was babbling to herself.  We talked to the mother about filing a police report, but since the offender – a married neighbor and father of three -  had already paid 50 kwacha for her silence, she chose to let it go. (Fifty kwacha is about 30 cents.)

Of course, these stories do not represent Malawi. There are millions of hard-working, compassionate men and women who not only go to extreme lengths in hard circumstances to care for their children – they care for the children of their dead sisters and brothers and neighbors, as well. There are thousands of school-children who press through  impossible circumstances to survive and make a life for themselves. Our board treasurer at Ancient Path, Martin M’Tambo, is a brilliant Malawian man of sterling character. He has been through so much in his life – yet hung on to his principles and integrity in the face of grinding poverty. He also stayed committed to his education against all odds – and today he teaches master’s level courses at an American university.  He continually makes sacrifices here to provide for his family at home. I respect Martin as much as any man I’ve ever known.

Still, the hard, heart-breaking stories are also there – and go on, seemingly forever. One teenage girl I know and love is regularly raped by her father  – and has been since she was very young. Everyone has tried to help her – her aunt even took her by the hand right into the police station. But the girl simply could not find the courage to stand against her father. Another 14-year-old girl, one of our brightest and best, told me a couple of summers ago that there were two things she feared: witchcraft and forced early marriage.  Within months after that conversation, she was forced into early marriage. Her husband left her within days and rumor has it she now works as a prostitute.

I can’t count the number of stories the children have told about witchcraft, beatings, and work far too hard for their young backs.

This is hard for us to grasp. When little Chifundo’s grandmother insists that the orphanage must return Chifundo to her at age six – our western minds picture story-time by the fire or making gingerbread houses at the kitchen table. But the truth is, in Malawi,  at age six, little Chifundo can haul water on her head, carry maize to the maize mill and wash clothes by the river.

The larger truth is, many Malawian children are in trouble.  And the 1.5 million Malawian orphans are in real trouble.

The stories, the reports, the statistics are overwhelming. Just a read-through of the daily news can leave one feeling hopeless – and powerless to do anything about it.  I remember reading a story on my last trip about a local man who was caught sexually trafficking 12 young girls. He said he didn’t realize it was wrong – and he walked away with a $120 fine. No jail time. Sexual abuse by teachers in the schools is also a prevailing problem. Even if girls can get to school – if they have extended family that allows them to go, will pay for the necessary school uniform, and buy the pen and copy book they need – the girls are often afraid to attend.

The good news is that the government knows all of this  and is sincerely trying to tackle the problem.  Massive billboards  dot the landscape, carrying the message STOP CHILD LABOR!  STOP SEXUAL EXPLOITATION! Whether the perpetrators can actually read the message is another story altogether.

Malawi is not alone in these problems. Children are exploited in every country – including my own. But it’s the very scale and scope of the problem in Malawi that makes it extraordinary. Nothing makes me feel quite so powerless and angry as the stories that I’ve heard from the women and girls of Malawi.

Of course, international adoption is not the wide-scale answer. The problems are Malawian and have to be solved by Malawians. Ultimately, it’s going to take a miracle. But I say thank God for Madonna’s millions. Thank God that she’s pouring her money into this nation. Thank God for her orphanages and schools.  I may not much care for her way of life, or her brand of faith, but I actually think she’s trying to make a dent in the problem – at least she’s trying. And more than a few Malawians share that view.

I also know how heartbroken she is at this turn of events – and I feel deeply, deeply saddened for her and her children.

But I’m especially heartbroken for the child, Chifundo. If the court doesn’t reverse its decision on appeal, this little innocent has an extremely difficult life ahead as an orphan. I can only pray that God protects and provides for her.

But I also hope the international press continues to tell her story – and the stories of so many others like herself, until the world starts to pay attention.

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