when did we see You hungry?

Should you not divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house, and when you see the naked, cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? If you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones, and you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58

Hello all. Wow, time really does fly. As I write this, I will be home in 4 weeks. I leave Rehoboth in 3 ½ weeks. I can’t believe my time here is coming to an end; at times it feels like I’ve been here forever, at others like I just got here and have my whole trip ahead of me. Things have been difficult, heartbreaking, monotonous, exciting, dreary, numbing, interesting, and everything in between. If you have ever spent time on a foreign mission trip you may understand what I’ve been going through. It’s a mixture of a ton of varied experiences and emotions.

One of my teammates, Kristen, just left for a weeklong trip back to the US for her brother’s wedding. On November 8, the whole Rehoboth team (all 13 of us) will have a group Thanksgiving (I guess Canada’s Thanksgiving falls in early October, and 2 of the women on our team are Canadian, so we are compromising by celebrating in early November). Alli, a girl on my team, and me will be heading to Etosha National Park on the 15-17. This is the type of place we should get to see elephants, lions, giraffes etc. So we’re really excited! Camping out among the wildlife!

Things have settled down at the preschool. MollyBea and I feel more comfortable working with Sylvia and Linda now, and feel we are making some progress there. We have implemented a schedule of sorts; being Africa and with a different culture and language, many times the schedule doesn’t work out, or something else is going on that day, or whatever. Many times either Linda or Sylvia is sick or not there that day. It’s a bit more difficult on those days. But now I feel very comfortable with most of the kids, even though I don’t speak the same language as them. It’s a lot of body language, gesturing, and of course translation by one of the native women. The kids are just precious (though most can be quite a handful when they have their “moments”, especially the boys) and I can’t wait to post pictures of them after I get home so you can see their mischievous and cute little faces.

Please pray for these kids and this preschool. They are in such need. As I’ve talked about before, many of them only get one meal a day, and that is usually a piece of bread, or some leftover noodles on a special occasion. They drink dirty water, there’s a huge lack of sanitation across the spectrum, many have lost at least one parent or have one in hospital. I see children come to school in dirty, smelly clothes, some not bringing any food at all, many having to stay in their dirty, soiled clothes because they’ve nothing else to change into. This is a far, far cry from even the poorest school I’ve seen in Phoenix. If nobody intervenes, these children will continue to grow up in these circumstances, having little chance at an education, the remotest chance of going to college, and will probably never leave this 3-mile radius of Blok E they call home.

I have begun to look into partnering with Feed My Starving Children, an organization which sends out food packages to needy children across the world. I know that although they can provide food, they cannot provide shipping, and shipping overseas is costly. I will keep everyone updated as to how you can help and possibly donate to this effort. After I get back to the US, I would eventually like to send more supplies over, such as pencils, glue, scissors, books, and other things that are scarce in the school. Sending money can also be a great help, especially to buy food for children who aren’t eating. Pray that God does a mighty work with this school, these children, this city, this country. Even though Namibia is one of the more westernized countries, with some paved roads and modern conveniences, much of it is still very undeveloped, and poverty is still rampant, as I see firsthand every day.

I urge you to consider the lives of people outside of your own family, friends, and community. Not even just this little city in Namibia, but in the US and around the world. Children starve every day, people die from lack of access to clean water, and many other easily preventable causes. Maybe you’ll never make it to Africa, but there are impoverished, destitute people everywhere. Get involved. Find a child to sponsor. Find a soup kitchen to volunteer at. If you’re able to, consider adoption. It may take only one kind gesture or act of kindness to change a person’s life. Be someone willing to step outside of your comfort zone, willing to look for those who are suffering, whether it be emotionally, physically, spiritually.

What is the Lord calling you to do? What are you passionate about? What do you wish you cared more about? What is a cause worthy of your allegiance? If you call yourself a Christian, then no excuse is going to be good enough. If you aren’t helping, why not? And I don’t just mean paying tithing or adopting a child at Christmas or giving change to the Salvation Army. I mean if you call yourself a believer, if you follow the risen Christ, then you should be eagerly walking in His footsteps, seeking out the brokenhearted, searching for the lost, and seeing where you can be Christ to people who don’t know Him. These broken souls are our brothers and sisters. Why are we neglecting our family? This wasn’t planned. I didn’t intend to say most of this. But when you come to places like this and you get involved in people’s lives, it becomes more than just following a command or being obedient to God. You develop relationships with those in need. God’s children, who are crying out for Him. Who are seeking His face in people all around them. Will they find it in you? Or will they have to keep looking?

“Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?”

Then Jesus will answer them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did not do it to Me.”

Matthew 25

Tiptoeing Towards Death

All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don’t tiptoe.

Has it ever hit you that everything you believed was wrong, or that you were living on the wrong side of the fence, and you suddenly realized that things in your heart and life and mind were going to have to change drastically, that it wasn’t even an option, but that you felt fully compelled and drawn – and even excited – to take that risk and to turn everything upside down because you knew there was no other way to live anymore? I can’t adequately describe it to you, but that’s more or less what’s been happening in my life. I’m not even sure where to begin or how to communicate this to you in a way that will help you understand the amalgam of thoughts and ideas that have been swirling in my head.

I was given the book “Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne a few days ago by Steph, a girl who’s also an AIM missionary in Rehoboth. It had been recommended to me several times, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading it. (If you haven’t read this book, it’s an understatement to say I highly suggest you go and find it immediately. In fact, stop reading this blog. All that’s important to me is that you get your hands on it.) Let me give you a quick background on this guy Shane who wrote the book.

He’s is in his early 30’s, and he calls himself an “ordinary radical”. He grew up in eastern Tennessee, smack dab in the middle of the Bible belt, raised Methodist. Sometime in college he had a breakthrough where his faith became real and he realized he wasn’t living out the gospels that way Jesus had outlined. He ended up spending a month in Calcutta with Mother Theresa, chillin’ with some lepers, hanging out with the homeless in downtown Philadelphia, and eventually moving into one of the poorest areas in Philly to start a community called The Simple Way. His whole book (and the community he and his friends started) is basically a call back to the basics of the Christian faith, when people gave up everything for Jesus, were radical, went against the grain, and it was all about community and growing and loving together and sharing everything and that nobody was left needy or destitute.

So this guy Shane has been to prison more times than he can count because he does stuff like go to rallies and marches and just stands alongside the marginalized, the oppressed, the people who are badly in need of some love and friendship and just someone who cares. He went to Iraq not too long after the war started just to show Iraqis that Americans still cared and that Jesus didn’t take sides, and basically apologizing for all their people who are being wounded and killed. I mean this is some intense stuff. And it just got me thinking even more about what God’s purpose for my life is, and where He wants me, and what I should be doing. Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed at all the possibilities and all the different directions I could see myself going and wondering if I want to do things because they’re easy or convenient or whatever else. I just want to passionately pursue God and love people. And I don’t know what that’s going to look like in my life. I feel like I need SO much more compassion and love for people; there’s no way I could ever do it without massive amounts of mercy and strength from the Lord. I want to feel what they feel; to rejoice with those that rejoice and mourn with those that mourn and really feel connected to more people. I really want to seek out people that society has cast aside and essentially thrown away, and I don’t even know where to begin. And it also scares the daylights out of me! All of these are wonderful ideas and concepts, and believers throughout time have beautifully demonstrated these things in their lives, but what about me? I’m selfish and sinful and hypocritical and weak and broken. But my God transforms people, and I’ve experienced that power firsthand. I know He performs miracles and He’s in the business of showing His strength through our weakness.

I had thought about a lot of these things before, and obviously a lot of it was the reason I came to Africa; I wanted to live and work among the poor and the people that the world seems to have forgotten, and I really felt my heart was here. I’ve just been reminded (both by this book and by living down here) that there is such inequality in society, such injustice; such a gap between the well-off and the incredibly poor. It’s really stark in Namibia. I can walk from a nice 4-bedroom house with electricity and running water with plenty of food, to a tin shack with no light, no water, no plumbing, and people rummaging through garbages for food in less than twenty minutes. And I think we get numb to it, and don’t even think about it anymore, and don’t let the enormity hit us, the fact that so little of the world owns so much of the stuff, and isn’t sharing it. That they don’t even want to share it, or see why they should have to. Many of us never even drive through a neighborhood where people are living without basic needs being met. We have, for the most part, largely separated ourselves from those in a different social class than ourselves. We might not even think about it, but most of us could probably drive twenty, thirty minutes and find people in these situations. And maybe not even just those who are financially poor, but those who are spiritually dead, depressed, hopeless, discouraged, and who feel utterly alone.

My trip is not even a third over and I’ve already been inundated with so much; sometimes I wonder why God thinks I can handle all of it! Getting fired up and righteously angry can be exhausting and overwhelming at times, but I feel so connected to God then, and really believe that He can redeem any situation; can rescue any person from their tumultuous past; can heal any wound that anyone has ever or will ever have. And He can and will use His servants, but His servants must have the same heart and mind as He does. He doesn’t need us, but He chooses to use us. He’s shouting to us; begging that we come follow Him; that we be His body, that we be invested in the lives of the broken, the meek, the afflicted, the lowly. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to tiptoe through life, hoping to arrive at death with as much caution as possible. Life is complicated. Serving God is messy. It doesn’t usually make sense; in fact, it has been known to make people outcasts, to get them thrown in prison, to be harassed, and to be martyred. The most amazing things done for God have been done by people getting their hands dirty, by not marching to the same drum as the rest of the world, by acknowledging God over men, by pursuing His glory instead of their own. I want to run through life full force, eyes on the prize of heaven, knowing that I have served Jesus and shared Him with as many people as I possibly could.

Other than that, things around here have been pretty normal! Here are some things I’d appreciate your prayers for:

- My teammates here; please pray for their homesickness, for effectiveness in ministry; against discouragement and apathy; and for God to empower us in His strength to do His work here

- To be focused not on frustrations, difficulties, or barriers, but rather on sharing God’s love and mercy with others and building relationships with them

- For MollyBea and I to be passionate and excited about working with our kids; to help them get organized and get on some kind of a schedule so there isn’t so much chaos; for us to have enormous amounts of love and compassion for them

- That I would simply focus on being Jesus and let Him do the rest


Thank you for reading, and thank you as well for all your support and encouragement. Oh, and if by chance you want to send me anything while I’m here (flowers, chocolates, promises you don’t intend to keep…) here is my address:

Cathi Geisler c/o Lenie Van Wyk
P.O. Box 4067
Rehoboth 9000
Namibia

Just shoot me an email if you send something so I can be on the lookout.

In His reckless love,
Cathi

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to think, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.