I have a mammoth task in front of me. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m up for it. It would be so much easier to jump back on a plane, pick up my bag that was left in Nairobi, and move permanently to Central Africa. It would be easier for me to do this.
Easier, but not better.
It is no longer time for me to sit on the football (soccer) field and pray with teenage boys who live on the streets. It’s not time to drink Chai with a 12-year old whose mom went away for an extended visit, leaving him in charge of his two younger brothers. It’s not time to wonder if the mosquito biting my arm is carrying malaria. It’s not time to pick up the random toddler who’s wandered over to my chair in the middle of the church service.
Instead it’s time for me to stare at this blank computer screen, trying to find words that will let your eyes see what my eyes saw, let your ears hear what my ears heard, let your heart break the way my heart broke.
Not out of obligation or a plea for funds or the sake of a good story. I want to share because that’s the door God’s given me to walk through right now. That’s what time it is.
And the church in Lira, Uganda, is praying for me. As a man named Christopher Odongo said, they are praying that my journey to northern Uganda is like when Joshua and Caleb spied out the Promised Land. That the report I bring back to you will be an encouragement that the giants in the land are not as scary as we thought they were. They are praying that we see the milk and honey. They are praying that my story will not be in vain.
It is a big prayer.
It feels even bigger now that I’m back in the States, and I can’t actually physically set one of the orphans in your lap. You can’t shake the hand of Solomon, a street boy for the last six years because both his parents abandoned him. You can’t ride down the road with David, who asked that I use a different name when I write about him so the Ugandan government doesn’t read that he fought for the LRA. You can’t hear Sarah’s voice break when she tried to tell me what happened to her parents. You can’t see the tears roll down her cheeks.
But I’ll do my best to share with you. To introduce you to the pastors, the orphans, the former child soldiers, the street boys who have captured my heart. And I’m praying. For the kids who didn’t eat breakfast this morning, for the ones who cried last night, for the ones who wished they could go to school today. And I’m praying for you. I’m praying that God breaks our hearts for the same things that break His.
