Lost.
Even though I am sitting on my own bed under the duvet we’ve had since Pete and I got married, I don’t quite know how to find my way back home.
Stranded – in between countries – it’s where I’ve spent most of my life. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
Soweto, Khayelitsha, District Six, and the nameless shanty towns that stretch for miles and miles alongside the hot tarmac between Pretoria and Johannesburg – these are a painful part of my South African heritage.
My parents have adopted, fostered, loved and provided for kids that crawl out of places like these. And I have seen with my own eyes how a child can metabolize love and grow back into himself from deep inside the hollow shell that looked to all extents and purposes like it was no longer inhabited.
You’d think I’d be immune by now.
But there is no immunization that will protect your heart from what it feels when you look into the swollen face of poverty. There is nothing to take to help ease the smell of homes that are little more than glorified cardboard boxes littered with yesterday’s garbage and tomorrow’s hopelessness.
Unlike the scar from the smallpox vaccination that burns white on my shoulder, on my son’s shoulder, on the shoulder of every child born in South Africa, I have no visible, physical evidence of my Guatemalan experience. My skin hasn’t been broken; but a virus incubates within nonetheless.
I have caught knowledge.
Hebrew epistemology assigns heavy weight to knowledge.
Knowledge of, requires responsibility to, and care for.
I first learned this definition when I was twenty one and studying in Washington, D.C. with all the world before me and enough gumption to think I could change it.
I spent years trying.
And after wrestling the demons of human trafficking in Ukraine and the vulnerability of orphans and children in Southern Africa I recognize now that the change we pray for must be internalized first. There are things I wish I could un-see or statistics I wish I could un-learn that have become a part of my DNA regardless.
The virus spreads and it is not benign. It is righteously contagious.
So as I walk into another garbage dump community similar to the one I visited in Egypt where mothers younger than me nursed their babes wedged on top of mounds of waste, all that old knowledge rises up in protest. I side-step rotten vegetables and smeared excrement and the familiar question heaves itself to the surface. My heart pounds out each word with each step further into a place that no one created in the image of a Holy God should have to call home.
“Are you here? Do you see this?”
And before I’m even done thinking it, I feel the powerful answer blow back into my mind,
“I am already here. Do you see this?”
The response hits me in the solar plexus and I find myself sweating for reasons that have nothing to do with the heat.
As I make breakfast, stumble over piles of laundry, and feed my boys burgers and chocolate milkshakes this question keeps unrolling itself further and further into my mind. But getting lost in a sea of hand wringing and tears will get no one anywhere. So I make myself look up to the Heavens for the only Cross worth navigating by.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3: 16-18.
He knew us. He felt responsibility to us. He cared for us. In both word and action.
So I stand before Him with open arms. I stand in my messy kitchen with the overflowing sink and the laundry that testifies to potty training and a week away. I stand barefoot on this old linoleum floor and offer back to Him what I know. I pour it all out and it is messier than my house and I know that only He can make sense of it.
I have no bold declaration; no road map for what comes next. I simply know that I need to keep following Him as the poor have been doing for centuries. And that these words need to climb off the page and into flesh and blood actions. Whether they be as simple as writing a letter to a child, sponsoring a son or daughter from Guatemala, or opening a maternity home in Kenya.
I will steer by His light and trust that the darkness – as bleak and far-reaching as it appears –
will never extinguish it.
And you? You who traveled faithfully with me. What have you caught from this trip? Might you consider sharing – because often the burden of what we have experienced is eased in the sharing. And it would bless me so to hear from you.
Oh sweet girl, you have helped me SEE. More still, you have moved me to action. It’s quite possible our Compassion children are tired of hearing from us after last week. Not really, of course, but I think we’ll keep at it and see if it’s possible. :)
Well done, good and faithful servant. SO well done.
Hi you! Welcome home. Sometimes coming home is ten times harder than leaving. Let the disparity keep driving you to love and action, not guilt and despair. Sometimes ‘action’ for me just means keepin’ on keepin’ on in this harsh in some ways desolate corner of Africa. I spent the weekend tossing my cookies with a tummy bug and as I scrubbed my handwashing in my concrete block mildewed bathroom my resentment washed away and all I could do was start tell Jesus how much I loved him. Because he loved me, I can do this for him. Because he loves me, I will take the horror and grotesque and redeem them. Because he loved us first, we cannot ignore those who need love.
It is such a comfort to me that you all went to some of the ‘least of these’, and that you will not return unchanged. Hugs from Congo,
This is so true, I love the way you captured this… there is no immunity for what happens in our heart when we look at the swollen face of poverty. I am thankful that God continues to reveal His heart to us with each passing day. I am thankful that I get to live in South Africa for this season…my heart is being opened even more to the poverty all around me and in me. Thanks for sharing your journey through all this lady!!
I love what you said, Charissa, “the poverty in me.”
One of the biggest things I’ve learned the almost two years here in SA is how poor I am as well. I’m not the big good ole American bringing love and money and education to this impoverished village. I’m the broken, needy, incomplete one needing healing on my own.
He’s the healer of us all.
Lisa Jo-o friend…. the tears I’ve shed alongside you are innumerable. The ache for these faces, to be able to do more. I’m having to remind myself that its each small tiny glass of water that matters and makes a difference. That the small impact I am making will greater a ripple affect, and that will grow, and slowly, over time, if we all do our small part well, a large wave of change will come sweeping in.
Thank you for getting up each day to take in more and more till your heart filled and hurt, thank you for staying up late at night to write and explain and show and tell us the stories. Oh, to give you a real hug soon.
You are absolutely right.. once you’ve seen and known… you can’t unsee and not know.. It’s in you. I’ve traveled quite a bit through the years and my eyes have been opened but I felt helpless to do anything until I started reading all the Compassion bloggers. Now I am anxiously awaiting my sponsor packet from Guatamela – I’ve already bought a basket of stickers to decorate my return correspondence. It’s like that starfish poem…. “made a difference to that one”.
I have followed your journey with tears and frustration. I follow the stories, see the images and my heart breaks. We do sponsor a child at the moment but my heart is crying out to have another from compassion just working on my husband to agree. he isnt being cruel just that we are out of work at the moment and struggling along.
My heart is full of desire to mother children, a lottery win for me would invole a house full of adopted children, most properbly with special needs, but until then i will continue to hold you all in my heart and my prayers. God bless you xxx
I don’t have words… just an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
Loved reading your entries while you were away! Brought it back here – to my home. Even though, my heart still beats for the poor in Africa/South America…God has called me to be here. And how to live that heart of action, while living where God wants me to be at this time? I guess to start, I can start with your call to be a Recovering Loser Letter Writer. :) Thanks for the challenges…and for sharing your heart as you struggle to know how to fit this world together with the world you just saw.
ps
SOOOO excited about the maternity clinic in Kenya! Can’t wait to hear more! :)
Hopelessness knows no borders. Even in our country, across the street from our urban church, boys are beaten by their father and their mother is immersed in a substance induced fog. There are services and interventions and police to help here, but it’s still not enough.
At times, I feel helpless and hopeless.
Extreme poverty, makes our helplessness and hopelessness undeniable. There are no anesthetizing distractions for the pain. Only need, vast, unspeakable, indescribable, breathtaking need.
Christ is the answer. He is the Hope. We cannot do it. He must. We are only tools in His hand.
I’ll never forget you asking the questions Are you here? Do you see this? on the bus that day. Never.
I’m so thankful to have heard the answer you received too. I think it was for all of us. Thanks for not keeping it – and so much more wisdom – to yourself, Lisa-Jo.
I miss you this morning. And thank God for you and your beautiful words.
-Shaun
CompassionBloggers.com
Thank you for inviting me Shaun. Thank you for trusting me to tell this story. I feel so small in the context of this narrative – and so honored to be given the chance to try.
Your words have pierced a heart ready to receive. It is so easy for us to forget that Jesus came for the WORLD not just for we who live in comfortable surroundings. I pray that, like me, people are spurred to action by your words and the truth you were not afraid to share. My husband and I are already planning to take our teen boys on a mission trip this summer so they can also see and experience and understand the great commission. God bless you for sharing your journey.
I don’t know what God’s doing in my heart just yet…but it’s something. I know to much, I’ve seen too much to just sit by the wayside.
Lisa-Jo,
I’ve caught a recommitment. Sometimes I feel like the little actions that I do, don’t matter much. Although I sponsor two girls in Tanzania, it just feels like such a small drop in the bucket to the overwhelming problems in the world. My husband and I sat down over the weekend and recommitted to our budget and refocusing on “the dave ramsey way”- not because we want to own a bigger house or fancy things one day, but because we have both been broken and want to do more. I’ll start with writing more…(I’m a lame sponsor writer too..) Thanks for going and being a voice.
Thank YOU for hearing and more importantly for responding. YOU are the true heros of this journey and this story. I am honored to share the words with you. Let’s build a bridge together!
I read this and the word I think of is “Kavod” – it means “heaviness” or “Glory” in Hebrew… You have so beautifully captured the weightiness of God stewarding you with knowledge of poverty… and in that place, are reflecting His beautiful Glory by wanting to do something – by wanting to allow yourself to be changed – for Him, for the children who need it, for the world… THAT brings Him such amazing glory friend.
Read this on the heels of Anne Jackson’s post about Haiti (www.flowerdust.net) and your posts are both SO well timed for preparing my heart to return to Burundi.
There is a call deep in all of our hearts to not leave the world as it is… but to be compelled by Christ’s love to make it better. I see that in you… and am continually inspired :)
Amen, my friend, Amen.
THIS is the very post I was waiting for. The post where you tried to pull it all together – past, present and future. The post where you talk of where you have been that mixed so explosively, like a chemical reaction, with what you are living right now; then you add the unknown element of what is to become of this lab experiement called life. Yes. This is the post I have been waiting for.
You have done well. I am more than satisfied by what I have read here, seen here, heard oozing from your heart here. You have done well.
So, you ask us to help ease the burden by sharing what we have caught from this experience.
Hope.
Inspiration.
Ideas.
Some of our projects here in Bolivia are done is close partnership with Compassion. We meet sponsors who come to meet the children just as you have done in Guatemala. Our contact is more directly with the recipients of the care Compassion extends to this region. We are blessed to have their central offices in our city. We are buddies with the decision makers. We love Compassion. All that to say that through reading your posts I was made to be reminded how much goodness God has graced us with by allowing us to work so closely with such an upstanding organization. And it spurned ideas on how we can continue to help eachother out.
That is on a professional level. On a more personal level I was interacting with your posts asking myself if these are the kind of posts that people are expecting from me on my blog: emotive, experiencial, calling for a response. Challenge is good. I felt challenged to come up a level as a writer, an influencer.
I could go on… gotta do baths with my babies.
God bless you Lisa-Jo!!!
I look forward to reading those posts, Angie. Seeing Bolivia through your unique eyes and filtered through your faith.
Many blessings on you as you live the work we only visited for a week. You are the true heroes!
This is such a heartbreaking post, Lisa-Jo. This virus worth catching leaves us broken-hearted doesn’t it?
I’m so glad the dumps of the world don’t catch Him off-guard. He is there in the middle of the trash.
The one ringing truth I’ve gained from this amazing trip is that once we have learned of this devastating poverty, we will respond. One way or another.
Thank you for giving me a way to make a tangible difference, Kristen. Thank you, friend, for showing us how.
I’ve just rejoined the blogging world after a summer hiatus and so I missed your whole trip (I’ll go back and read every post).
But what I got from your post was a spiritual confirmation, clear and pure and full of peace that your words are true.
His light will never be extinguished and we are responsible to lift and bless and serve and shine his light on all that we touch.
I have adored reading your overflowing joy at mothering. This post knocked me back and spoke to me in a very personal way — straight from God.
Don’t ever stop blogging! We need more goodness and joy and sorrow for suffering like yours on the internet. It spurs me to be a little better!
You touch and bless me with your words, Happy Mom :) And yes, I LOVE that username – and thank you for seeing my “overflowing joy at mothering” even in the midst of my daily grind and crazy posts about puke and potty training. Filtered through His eyes, it’s all beautiful – isn’t it? :)
We followed the journey again… as we did the Africa trip earlier this year. And God broke our hearts again.
http://nhwolfe.blogspot.com/2010/09/our-newest-addition.html
Thank you for saying “yes” and going… so that others could see through you… and be touched to make changes.
Blessings on the journey~
Powerful post, my friend.
I miss you and Ann and Lindsey so much today. Would give a lot to be able to sit around over milkshakes and Pappasitos to try and process it further together.
How can I convey what your words have meant to me, Lisa-Jo? Your spark touched my spark and ignite a brighter flame.
God is moving in my life. It didn’t start with the CBGuatemala trip, but God used it to move me farther down the path. My family is poised for some big changes this coming year. I don’t know what it will mean or what it will look like. But to see God moving, be it in a slum in Guatemala or in the life of a friend, is inspiring and encouraging beyond expression.
I don’t think we ever be one immune to the feelings that rise when see need because the Spirit stirs them up in out hearts.
Your trip has inspired me to give of my heart not just our funds. I am pledging to write more letters and be conscious of writing more than once a year. We are to share our resources and our lives. Both. Not just one. Both.
Glad you are home safely and sharing more with us.
I went to the dump in Guatemala in July and am going back in December. Words really can’t describe the sights, sounds and smells you experience there. WOW!
Baby doll, these are not your final thoughts…they’ll keep coming (but you know that :) ).
How beautifully expressed; oh, how I hear your heart, how these ideas resonate from the inside out.
Lisa-Jo…there was something different-special about this Compassion bloggers team, even I sense it from a distance. Something lovely. That makes me smile. Oh! So does the scripture you included here–it’s the very one I included in my DaySpring catalog piece! THAT made me smile, too.
Mountains have been moved through words this week; God must be smiling, too.
xo
I sat in an orphanage in Jamaica at 16, still lost and unknowing myself, and held a precious baby boy no one wanted. I have seen an infirmary where a child’s broken arm was set with cardboard and gauze. Flying into Jamaica’s tourist side and then on to where we would be staying for a week at 16 opened my eyes to a kind of poverty I’d never seen or heard of. 15 years later it was the best and worst trip of my life. But where I live has provided me a security blanket that makes viewing from a distance more…sugarcoated.
But these photos from Guatemala and those from Africa and from Katie and other blogs that I sometimes have to force myself to read, despite their inspiration and true evidence of God’s hand at work, refuse to let me forget it. I’ve cried. My heart hurts for them. I try to find ways to push our budget further when I know I can’t right now. And knowing that I can’t…that makes me think about every single thing I buy or consider again because I SHOULD be able to do more.
And for that, I am grateful. Getting out of that comfort zone and doing more with what I DO have is something I can do until I can do more. After all, it’s all about doing more. Every little bit of more is better than nothing I think.
I’m crying at the words “I AM here.” How easy it is to hide in my house, behind my computer, in my car, at the mall and in my plush church. Thank you for reminding me that altho’ God is HERE with me, He is equally HERE with those in poverty. And how can I ignore what He sees?
Yea. Even though I know it in theory, it kind of knocked the wind out of me to hear it in reality. He is. Everywhere. I think of that Psalm about “where can I go to flea from your presence” and for the first time I realized it didn’t just include beautiful places (mountain tops and the sunrise) but slums and dumps and heartbreaking homes. I pray I never forget it.
Hi, Lisa-Jo, and thanks for sharing those realities. I, too, (as you know) struggle with so many injustices in the world. Twice I recently blogged about, “Now that I KNOW, am I not responsible to DO something?” The knowing results in the necessity of a response. While I hope my responses are many, I want to let you know I had never heard about being a letter-writer with Compassion International, so I’m going to call and sign up to do that! Thanks for letting me know.
(By the way, I think you’ll remember Elizabeth from “Grandma’s Letters….” Well, I’ve re-established contact with her and life has been very hard for her and her girls, but she has not given up on hoping in God’s provision.)
Thanks, Lilsa-Jo!
” I recognize now that the change we pray for must be internalized first”
This is what I’ve come away with from all of the Compassion Bloggers’ posts. You all have presented the need, you’ve brought it before my eyes, and I can now choose to let it fade away or let it sink in.
I loved Lindsay’s post about praying that her trip was life-changing. We all expect that experiences like the one you had will instantly make a change for the better in us. I know I thought my trip to Venezuela in high school would make me different. It did…for a few months.
I’ve been longing for God to uproot our family to some place that will shake us to our core and change our perspective. But the truth of the matter is that if we don’t respond to the signs already before us nothing will really have an impact. Didn’t Jesus say that when the Pharisees asked Him for a sign?
So I’m praying that here, in the OC, God can show me the things I can do to make a difference and that He will impact my life right where I’m currently planted.
Thank you for sharing this experience with us…and sorry for the blog post. :)
Your words and pictures touched my heart so deeply Lisa-Jo. The need is just overwhelming. I don’t want to just see and know and then settle back into the routine. For one thing, I will write more often. I have been a very poor corespondent to the two children we sponsor.
I have a tendency to think that if I can’t do something BIG, then there is no point in doing anything. I know that is not true. If I am open to do the things He calls me to do, however great or small, they have great value in the kingdom.
You, and the rest of the team, have faithfully done what He asked you to do.
Reading your blog, and everyone else’s blog, my heart kept beating violently. The tears kept flooding forward. It wasn’t because it was the first time I had ever encountered stories of poverty. Children running barefoot among trash and filth.
I knew about it. I felt powerless to do anything about it. I still do.
But I just want to do something. So I sponsor a beautiful little girl in India. I write her letters. And after reading about the ipact of our letters…I will write more.
And I will sponsor another child soon.
Because I want to do something. Anything.
Thank you for investing your time and talent to go to Guatemala with Compassion and blog your experience. I enjoyed reading the different perspectives from the 4 of you on the same experience and sharing what you learned from them. I encouraged others to follow your blogs and compiled a short list of what I learned from you on my blog today.
Blessings!
Lisa-Jo,
You have seen so much and know so much about poverty and the world’s problems. I am amazed that you are not hardened and calloused to its grim effects. I am thankful that you are not and thankful that you took us on your journey.
I sometimes feel like an explorer rounding a bend to see some new piece of undiscovered terrain. The only problem for me is that the exploration is poverty and the terrain is my heart. I have cocooned myself with such a limited world view for far too long. Now that the scales are off my eyes through Kristen’s trip and yours, it is overwhelming. Maybe I am catching the virus.
Thank you.
I’m blessed and thankful to have “shared” your experience with you. And I know more than ever that the Lord’s heart is for the poor and needy. Thanks for sharing His heart with us.
Thank you for talking about the letter writing. That’s always been a huge hold up for me. Thank you for sharing your whole experience. It’s been hard to read at times. I don’t know what God is doing for sure in me but I know that I know much more about Compassion than I did before and it’s gotten me thinking. Thank you. Kelly
p.s. I’ve watched the song so many times with my little boy who hasn’t even yet heard that song in English and just tried to sing along through tears and a choked up voice. Kelly
Oh that song just bubbles JOY doesn’t it?!!
I ran across an old email from my mother while cleaning out my inbox tonight with your blog address in it…and I thought to myself, I’d better go check it out before I delete it, since my mom only forwards “the good stuff”. So here I am tonight, stuck to my chair like glue, while my 3 children sleep peacefully in their beds and my hubby works long and hard at his job for us. I am speechless. My husband came over to the U.S. 6 years ago from South Africa and so many things I read from you are so much a part of him also. When he took me back to his home country with him for 2 months back in 2005, I saw REAL poverty for the first time in my life. Your photos bring those memories back to me so clearly and I feel my gut wrenching inside of me for the millions of children and families that live like this and yet they still love our Saviour with everything they are. How very spoiled we are and ignorant. We took a mission trip to Honduras 2 years ago and plan to return this coming summer with our oldest but to sit here, in my comfortable little chair, waiting another year to do something….I feel so…wrong. We sponsor 2 children from Compassion and I have always written them a letter now and then and sent them a family photo but, there is so much more I should be doing and saying. Thank you for opening my eyes and for writing what I only think and for letting Christ live through you!
Celanie
and greater love hath no man than this… that he lay down his life for his friends…
I count them, the least of these… my friends