God is good

In our first week here, we were one stream in a flood of reasons for hope.  Let me try to describe some of them in light of the difficulty of my last post, both because I want you to see them and because I need to remember them.

God’s timing has been amazing. The clinic we are working with received permission to do vaccinations after waiting for years, so we could immunize kids on our outreaches. That permission was granted the day before our arrival. For the local staff, this is a miracle. Villagers flock to vaccination sites, desperately trying to give their child an extra chance at life – avoiding the nightmares of TB, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and countless other fatal diseases that are very real here. In Canada, we have the luxury of doubting immunization because vaccines have saved so many of our children that outbreaks are few and far between. So long as people keep vaccinating their children, hopefully it’ll stay that way. Questioning vaccines is an embarrassing “first-world problem” that screams ignorance and lack of exposure to the rest of the world. Here, vaccines are the difference between life and death.  The vaccinated kids live. The non-vaccinated kids die. It is a reality that everyone here understands. Vaccines are heaven-sent beacons of hope for Christians and Muslims alike, and it’s a blessing to be able to bring them.

 There had previously been tensions between the government health workers and the clinic because the clinic is Christian and the gov’t workers are Muslim.  With our arrival, we have been doing outreach work together, Christian and Muslim side by side, working so much more efficiently than if we were apart.  We agree that we are working to display the love of God through compassion and health care. We disagree on whether Jesus is the Son of God or a prophet, but those are discussions we have with each other while hanging on to the back of the Land Cruiser, not our primary outreach goal. It’s God’s job to reveal the truth. It’s our job to show it. There are many differences in how we work – generosity, concern for the poorest or the most vulnerable, respect for women. We don’t need to talk Christ, we just display what we know about Him and let God do the rest. So far most of the villages encourage JO to play Old Testament Bible stories in a New Testament light, which is good because it is culturally sensitive. The stories are all about God’s love, His kindness and His mercy. They resonate strongly.  It is easy to feel forgotten in the drought, and to forget Who brings the rain.

With the arrival of the rains coinciding with our own landing in this country, the oral rehydration salts we brought stopped being needed. Water and food became more plentiful. The rain has ended the high death rates from dehydration and starvation. We were expecting to come to do emergency relief, but that hasn’t happened. What we’re providing is rural medical care instead, thanking God that people aren’t as desperate as we were expecting. The desert landscapes dotting the NY Times refugee reports have now been transformed into a green, lush, paradise. We camp out in the bush under green flowering trees, on a bed of grass under the stars when just a month ago, everything was red dust and barren thorns.  It won’t last forever, but it is a reminder that God has not forgotten this place. With medicine, the malaria is also under control.

Hope has come through the medicine. We’ve met people who have never seen a doctor their whole lives. We’ve met children with disabilities, heart murmurs, cleft palates, all of whom we are helping. We’ve set up ways for them to get treated, paid for the bills, and made sure they’re taken care of. That speaks volumes in villages where the weakest are left to die and the strongest are fed to survive.  Jesus’s actions didn’t make sense to many people in his time either because touching the lepers is illogical. The fact that we try to treat the women and children before the men (although the village elders usually make us change this) still shows that we care about the women, confusing everybody.  Our actions are having an impact far greater than just giving out ibuprofen for a backache. When people see us, they say “Alhamdulilah,” or “Praise God.” In two villages, they killed a goat for us to show their gratitude.

Despite the generosity of the villagers, there are still many tough times ahead. The war has brought instability and fear. Bombings, kidnappings, civilian deaths on both sides – these things permeate the news. It is never easy to be at war. On our part, we have been extremely blessed. We avoid main roads and have stayed in the bush. When you bring medicine to a village, they protect you, setting up watchmen at night to make sure you are not disturbed. God has been watching out for us. We are refusing to live in the culture of fear, and instead spend our time off playing games and reading. Our spirits are high, and we laugh often. We pray often, too.

I have not been known as a praying person, unfortunately. I mean I pray, but it’s rarely ever the first thing I think to do. I wish I could say that I pray in all circumstances, but I usually forget – prayer is something I struggle with a lot. However, on this trip, I’ve been brought to prayer often. With the encouragement of Awaken and the written prayers we do daily, as well as older people on the trip who have all developed the habit of praying regularly, I am learning to be the kind of person who prays. And that gives me hope. As well, many people from Awaken who struggle in similar ways have been telling me that they are praying much more too, not just about our trip but that somehow God has used the trip as a catalyst to bring our congregation to a deeper understanding of prayer. I am excited to see what happens because of it.

There are huge hopes I can’t even see, that I sometimes forget in the hard times. My biggest hope is that this whole land will blossom permanently, the soil will be restored, and the people will be full of love and truth as God comes and dwells on the earth. That may take a while, or it may happen tomorrow. I’m ready, but I’ll trust in God’s timing on that. It is the deepest hope in my heart to see God everywhere on Earth, not just in glimpses here and there. The realm of evil will end, we already know that, it’s been paid for by blood. And that hope is enough to sustain me through all the other stuff as it happens.