Before I even start with my reflections, I know that this is a formidable topic. Volumes are written about God’s sovereignty in the midst of suffering by theologians much more learned, eloquent, and methodical than me. Yet, I cannot let my youth or my inadequacies silence the reality of what I am experiencing and feeling. I have been entrusted with this time in Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa. It is purposeful. It’s not an accident that I’m here—there is weight and responsibility that I cannot shirk.
I have been walking into kibera daily for around a month.
Maybe the reality is just catching up to me, maybe it’s the relationships I’m
building, or maybe it’s all the car exhaust ;-). Regardless, I can’t ignore the
tears that come to my eyes as I think of conditions my students live in- no
running water, pathways piled high with human waste, trash, and streams of
liquid waste. The intellectual knowledge of poverty, the statistics, the
numbers, are so impersonal. This time in Kibera has changed that for me. Those
statistics are paired with faces, names, and real stories of lost parents and
broken homes. It’s one thing to know that hourly children die of hunger or
preventable diseases, but its quite another when you send kids home from school
hungry or a child you’re used to greeting with a hug misses several days of
school because they’re sick.
Where does this collision of impersonal statistics and real
children leave me? How do I reconcile the reality that my home country has an
obesity epidemic while children around me go hungry? The materialism of the
western world is sickening in light of the poverty I see. The selfishness and
hoarding compared with the joyful generosity of those here who eagerly invite
me to their homes that are the size of one room in my home.
Do I despair, hate my home country, shake my fists at God?
Or do I trust his word is true. Sovereign in all circumstances.
That He is good and sufficient in wealth and in poverty.
Truthfully, he admits this disparity, says we will have trouble
in this world. But that’s not all His word promises.
His word promises that he is faithful. That he sees the poor
and needy and provides for them (psalm 34). He delivers them. He sends people
to them.
He sent me. I am humbled that I am here..by the sacrifice
and prayers of many back home and ultimately by his grace. The same sovereignty
that sees the suffering around me chose to send me here. There is GOOD in this.
It is good because He is here. He is present in poverty. His
power is made perfect in weakness. He hears the cries for food, healing,
shelter, security.
He sends and equips. I don’t have the resources to heal the
suffering here, to feed every hungry belly. But I do have His word. I have his
hope.
I have his hope that this world is not my home and that the
hope of heaven is real—especially in light of suffering. The other day in class
one of the boys who is around 11 years old asked me why we have to die and
leave this world, why we couldn’t live forever in this world because he thought
it was a pretty nice place to be…because his grandma died and he really wished
she could have stayed. Around me kids sat up straighter and nodded in agreement—thinking
of the people in their life that they’ve lost and want to come back.
I had to pause and pray, how do I begin to answer this?
Father, how do I relate your hope to these precious kids—who have joy and
contentment in this broken world?
I turned to Revelation and read the description of heaven,
remarking that while this world has a lot of good things, wouldn’t death, as
hard as it is, be a gain if it meant that by trusting in Jesus’ death on the
cross in our place, that we could have the good of this world at its best,
perfection. Wouldn’t the pain of losing
someone like a grandma in this imperfect world and the pain here be worth it if
you knew the hope and perfect joy that awaits you? The boy responded “I guess I
can live with that. It is worth it”.
And that, in light of the poverty that pains me is my
answer. This world, the poverty, is not my home. The hope of heaven becomes
real in light of the pain I see. It is purposeful because it points to Him and
to heaven.
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