God’s Forgotten Children

I am sitting in my office for the first time in two weeks and trying hard to hold on to Africa.  But my life is quickly filling up with the old stuff – work, grocery lists, car repairs, what’s for dinner.  It is already obvious, one day back, that it won’t be easy to maintain an intimacy with Kenya.  But I am conflicted about what to do with all that I have experienced on this pilgrimage.

I remain stunned by the degree of poverty and suffering I saw in Africa. There is no justice in the fact that I throw away good food every day while I personally now know people who are starving to death.  But “stunned” is a temporary state that gives me permission to remain immobile for only so long.  It’s what happens next that frightens me.  What if nothing happens? What if I forget the faces of the hungry people I met last week?  I pray God will help me to remember all the things I would rather forget.

I miss James.  He is 15, a gifted artist.  While in Kenya, James hung out on our porch every night until we insisted he go home, always after dark.  Nobody at James’ house cares where he goes or what time he comes home.  I don’t know what God would have me do about James, the Kenyan artist with a gentle spirit but no hope, but his burdens are heavy on my heart.  I don’t want to let my to-do list crowd James out.  God, I pray you will stalk me like a thief in the night until I step up to the plate for James in a way pleasing to you.

Alice and I were an “item” while I was in Kenya.  I love Alice and I hope she loves me too.  Alice is 14 but says she is 12.  She lies about her age because disease has kept her small and she is ashamed of her size.  Alice told me that she had never had a birthday party or a birthday cake her entire life.  On our last night in Kenya, our team gave her both.  It was such an easy wish to fill.  It required no sacrifice.  Please, Lord, give me the courage to make sacrifices, huge Holy sacrifices, in Your name and for the glory of Your kingdom.

God loaned me His eyes and His ears and His heart to encounter His forgotten children in Kenya.  I wore God’s heart as my own for 14 days.  I pray I never forget how it feels to walk around with a heart broken by the suffering of others.  If I forget, the loan was a waste of His time and my life.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”  Matthew 25:35-36

by Becky Lyle Pinkard, a member of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.