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