When you come here and see the desperate need of the people (and
the country as a whole) it is extremely overwhelming and it makes you either
want to a) run away because the need
is so deep and you don’t even know where to start or b) jump in head first, get your hands dirty and serve.
I have to be completely honest and admit that I usually felt
like doing A. I was so overwhelmed with the extreme need that surrounded me that
it made me want to run the other direction. I would look around at the poverty,
brokenness and corruptness and I didn’t even know how to respond or what to do.
I had no idea where to start helping and I didn’t even know if I could even make
a slight difference on the people around me. It honestly just made me want to
get on a plane and fly home. Thankfully, I didn’t choose A like I often wanted to.
I don’t regret choosing option B one bit but the thing is when you jump right
in you have to be prepared for what you’re going to see and encounter and how
it can change you forever…
When you see things like the slums and the hospitals in a
third world country it rocks your world. It makes you want to turn around and
pretend that you’ve never seen it and convince yourself that it doesn’t exist. As
I write this I’m ashamed to admit that I can’t wait to go home and be safe and
comfortable again but the question is…will I actually be able to return to my
life of comfort in the US? The answer is I can if I choose to live unchanged. I
probably could block everything I saw from my memory and pretend that the last
month didn’t happen but I don’t want to. I want to live radically changed by
what I saw and experienced.
I feel like God was constantly telling me “Please observe,
please listen. Please open your eyes.” So much of our lives are lived with our
eyes closed to the world around us. We don’t look the homeless man in the eyes when
we walk past him on the streets because we don’t want to see the depth of his
brokenness. We don’t drive through the rough parts of the cities because we don’t
want to see the poverty that exists in those neighborhoods. I personally didn’t
want to walk into the hospital every day because of the overwhelming smell and
sights that hit you like a brick wall every time you set a foot in the door.
But here’s the thing- we’re not supposed to live with our
eyes closed. Sometimes I wish we could. Honestly, I wish I could unsee the
poverty and the severe need at Joy town (school for the disabled kids) and at
Kijabe hospital. Now that I’ve seen it I feel this overwhelming sense of
obligation to get my hands dirty, jump right in and help. What I’ve been
reminded of during my time here is that we’re not supposed to live with our
hands clean. I wish we could because it’s easier, it’s more sanitary. (Maybe if
I would have stayed a little bit more “clean/sanitary”
I wouldn’t have gotten a bad virus in Kenya and I wouldn’t have brought a
little parasite friend back in my intestines to the US.) But standing back and keeping our hands clean
is not how Jesus lived and that’s not how he called us to live either. What
would Jesus do in this situation? He’d jump in and get his hands dirty. What
did Jesus do during his life here on earth? He washed the dirtiest of feet. He
hungout with the sickest of sick and the poorest of poor.
Here are some examples of what living with my eyes open to
the need in Kenya looked like…
1)
I didn’t want to keep my “eyes wide open” when I
saw the way that the villagers in Kenya poison their children with disabilities
because they’re not wanted in those communities. I didn’t want to know that and
I didn’t want to see the effect that has on their culture.
2)
I didn’t want to see how so many Kenyan families
were starving because the parents had very basic orthopedic injuries, that in
the US would be treated very easily, but there they’re not able to be treated, which
means they’re not able to work and not able to provide for their families. I
didn’t want to see how common this scenario was or how preventable it could
be.
3)
I didn’t want to see the kids that have cerebral
palsy and can’t come in for any therapy because they don’t have the $5 that is
costs for an hour treatment. I saw this on almost a daily basis and it broke my
heart every time.
Examples of jumping right in, serving, and getting your
hands dirty…
1)
It was hard to “jump right in” when I would have
a Kenyan patient that had severe chronic lower back pain and I was the only PT
there who could teach her how to do proper core exercises (they don’t learn
those in physio school) but she only spoke Swahili. The language barrier was
extremely frustrating but I would just jump up on the dirty table with her and
show her what to do. (Side note: it was REALLY funny to see the variations of exercises they came up with while trying them for the first time)
2)
It was
hard to serve at the orphanage when literally you have kids pulling on each of
your extremities and jumping on the front and back of you at the same time and
you kinda just want to have your “bubble” again…Don’t get me wrong this was
AWESOME because I loved those kiddos to pieces but there’s a point that you
just need some personal space.3) It was hard to choose to “get my hands dirty” when I had patients who came in both smelling and looking like they hadn’t showered for months and having to treat their broken foot that they had been walking on the red dirt clay barefoot on every day. I wish I could say that it was easy to ignore the smell and begin treatment with no problem but it wasn’t. It was very difficult. (but so worth it!)
Here’s my challenge: go get
outside of your comfortable life and see/do something challenging and let it radically change you. Go to a
homeless shelter and serve food. Go to a house of residents with physical and
mental disabilities and play games with them. The first step to meeting needs this
world has is to go see the needs of this world. Open your eyes to the world around you. You never see the need if
you never get out of the daily routine that you live your life in. We were not
meant to live small and comfortable lives. Even though home in the US is where
I want to be more than anything else right now, if I just remain in my nice
house then I will be ignoring the need around me and refusing the change that
God is trying to take part in my heart.
I feel partly like a hypocrite because as I write this I’m
on a plane going back to the US. And honestly I don’t know if I’m going back to
Kenya. I would like to but I don’t know what God has it store for my future.
But wherever it is and whatever I will be doing I can’t turn a blind eye to the
needs of this world any longer. I’ve seen the desperate need that exists. I saw it at Joy town, I saw it at Kijabe
hospital, and I saw it all over Kenya. But it doesn’t need to be Kenya.
Although there is much need in this country of Kenya there is also so much need
beyond it as well. Look outside your backyard fence. Where is the need? Who is
in need? What is the need? And what are we going to do about it?
Open your eyes and see the need. And then jump right in and
get your hands dirty.
(Comment: This is a message God has written on my heart and
I am the first to humbly admit that I need to have it spoken to my heart more
than anyone else because I fail at this and constantly need God’s grace and
forgiveness and I need his reminders to live this out on a daily basis.)
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