Hope is what I live by here...

I feel like most of the time my blog turns into a place I can vent and process all the crapy stuff that happens on a regular basis living in this place, but today I want to tell you a story of joy, and of hope.  A story to warm your hearts and reminds you of the goodness of God in all the mess.  A story that makes my job worth every second of power cuts and cold showers and beatings from the kids and heart breaking situations.

This is Sharifa…

She is one of my most favourites.

Sharifa has hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain) and without an operation her head will gradually swell and she will die from brain damage.

A few months ago Mama brought Sharifa to our mobile medical unit to be seen by our doctor.  We met her and immediately fell in love.  Sharifa is one of the happiest babies I’ve seen here.  She is always smiling and making these crazy happy screams (one of the best sounds in the whole world in my opinion…yes I love babies!!), she is hands down beautiful.  As I sat and talked to mama about their situation and she explained how she was watching Sharifa die as she didn’t have the 200,000 USH to pay for her treatment (that’s £50) I knew we had to do something.  After chatting to my bosses here we decided we would pay the £50 to save Sharifa's life (it was a pretty easy decision).  

The day we went to tell mama was by far one of the top 5 experiences I've had here.  I cant really explain to you the feeling of watching a mothers face as you tell her her daughter is going to live.  Very few times have I actually seen mamas here cry.  They tend to hide all emotion, even happiness, but this day was not a day to hold back.  As she thanked us again and again and the tears rolled down her face (and maybe a few down mine too) everything seemed so simple again.  This all happened the day after I found out another mama in one of the other slums we work in had died leaving her 4 children without a mother and all alone.

Mama Sharifa continued to tell us of how she had thought many times about throwing Sharifa away as she couldn’t bear the thought of slowly watching her die…imagine being that hopeless.  Every time she would get close she would feel Jesus speaking to her…so she would hang on…and she would pray.  Pray for hope.  Hope for her baby’s life.  She would pray that God would make a way for her daughter to be saved…which is funny because God has already done that…His name is Jesus.  Today we just got to be His hands and feet.

There is always hope.  And hope carries power.  Its not a wishy washy word.  It carries weight, and has the authority to break though darkness, pain and even death.  Hope is the air in the situations where you cant catch your breath.  It’s the memory of what the sky looks like in the places where you look up and all you see is darkness.  Hope is what I live by here.  And on this particular day I had the honour of being the manifestation of the dream for Mama Sharifa.

Since this happened Sharifa has had her operation and it all went really well.  She is still the happiest little baby ever and now has hope for a beautiful future.  Every time we visit Mama she is always the first to welcome us into her home as she repeats again and again the same “thank you” s she once said, and continues to tell Sharifa how much Jesus loves her (and how much we do too!!)

I hope this small glimpse into my life here has brightened your day even just a little.  And has helped reminded you that no matter how dark it gets there is always still the memory of the sky to help you breathe again.

Faithfulness

I don’t really know where to begin with this blog. God has been speaking to me a lot about faithfulness over the last few months…and yet I still don’t really know how to put it into words. Even as I'm writing this I don’t really know what’s going to go down on paper next. The words “thank you” don’t even begin to cover is, so I'm left speechless.

There are so many times in the bible that the Lord reveals His faithfulness. It is like his signature move. He cant get enough of it. And its not just written in the book, it’s a reality for me too. In everything He does in my life, His faithfulness is there. Where I am today is because of Him.

Psalm 78 is one of those psalms that talks about Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. Again and again His people effectively stab Him in the back, they are quick to turn to their old ways, and are consistently bad at loving the one who saved them…yet he never leaves. He is faithful to the end.

I don’t know if I have ever thanked God for being so faithful to mankind, not just me but to all of us…Its this beautiful sacrifice that he made and continues to make. He is almost limited by it. For Him faithfulness isn’t a choice anymore, its his very nature.

The idea that I can ask something of Him, and if he says yes to that request, it becomes almost a reality before its breathed into life…Even though I don’t necessarily see it yet, God is so faithful to His promises, and can even see the results of them, that it is truth even before its time.

In Psalm 91 it says Gods faithfulness is a shield to me. So when I'm afraid and I ask Him to draw close to me I don’t need to worry what its going to look like, or if I can even feel it, His faithfulness to me is what makes it a reality. And His faithfulness to my life is the protection part, the shield part. He is so faithful that He becomes my safety.

We have been working in Banda slum for the last year and a half now, and in the last few months we have seen nearly 20 people saved and delivered. Those salvations are a result of the faithfulness we have shown to the people of Banda slum who have been written off by the world and by their own countries leaders.

Regularly as a ministry we ask ourselves what love looks like. What does love look like to a people who have been forgotten and abandoned and broken and treated like the very least? It looks like faithfulness. Faithfulness beyond the beatings from the kids, the lies we receive from the mamas and the remarks from people who don’t like Muzungu’s (white people). A faithfulness that we could never carry without the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us. We learn from the one who sent us here, and I'm my fathers daughter. So slowly my papa God is teaching me a little what its like to look like Him. And He knows the best way to teach is by example. So here I am, living in one of the poorest countries in the world, serving the broken and basking in the sunlight of the faithfulness of a God who was faithful to the end of himself. Thank you Daddy.