What can never be

 Wake up.

Too early to a room that is too cold.

Read my bible for two hours.

Thankful that I can cuddle under a soft electric heated blanket.

The taste of bile reminds me that it’s time to eat. Something.

Get out of bed.

Put on the clothing that is closest to me and head out the door…

Pick something up off the floor or pick something off the top of my neatly folded, organized and stacked piles of clothing in my dresser.

I don’t care enough to spend time analyzing what to wear.

There are more important things than me.

Whatever I see first goes.

Maybe I should actually look in the mirror before I leave.

My hair doesn’t look half bad after not shampooing for a couple weeks.

Stick in a headband to look presentable.

Grab some pro-biotics as I leave the house, a last attempt to discover if I still have intestinal worms or if Africa trashed my digestive tract.

My new boots hit the ground.

There is mud. And it is brown. And sticky.

Strange.

Strange that the ground absorbs the water and goes back to looking normal instead of looking like dry red clay with cracks going through it as if there were an earthquake.

Strange that as I go to my car there isn’t a night guard who greets me, or children who jump on my legs to say goodbye. No one.

Strange that I am even driving at all.

That I can get in a car whenever I want and go wherever I want. That I don’t need to walk a couple kilometers around a lake to hitch hike to my destination.

As I drive and listen to the radio, I can’t help but think if I knew this song last year I would have some sweet dance moves for the kiddos.

Or envision young children from other nations dancing along.

Arrive at church.

Strange that it is held in a building.

Not under a leaky tent, not in a hut made of rocks and mud. Not next to a bar.

Sit in the first row for the service. Alone.

Worship…but no rejoiceful dancing.

This day I spend a lot of time alone. With No distractions.

God has full access to my mind.

And more importantly, my heart.

He shows me snapshots of my future.

Gives me more information from the dreams He has given me.

The people He will bring me to.

The places He will bring me to.

The ministries He will bring me to.

So many countries, people, sins, lies, needs, etc.

He shows me a reality.

The reality that every single person He guided my steps to and put a deep love in my hear for was diagnosed with the all-too-common life sentence: HIV.

The pain that everyone I met, loved, interceded for, invested in, and cared for may be dead at this moment, or will be in a few short years.

The pain of realizing that HIV has violently swept through villages I have visited and has killed a large majority of the parents, leaving an impossible amount of orphans.

The pain of knowing the government of an African country is sitting by while thousands of babies are dying of AIDS and malnutrition because they are “afraid.”

The pain of knowing that country doesn’t count those same babies as citizens until they are 1-yr old.

Knowing that the infant mortality rate there is 13%- the highest in the world.

Seeing with my eyes the trauma that rape can cause a young girl’s body. But also seeing hope in that she still managed to maintain innocence and her childhood.

The pain of seeing babies hours before they would die of malnutrition. And knowing the hopelessness of all those who were to follow.

The pain of seeing an infant with AIDS that had progressed so quickly that his hair and skin were not black anymore and flies were taking residence in his mouth.

And then seeing that same infant’s newborn baby brother begin to be breastfed by his mother who is dying of AIDS.

The pain of seeing young girls I cherish walking with a limp because of how violently they were raped and tortured growing up.

Seeing the look of a toddler grow to ice- just because he was naked- as I bathed him.

The pain of praying for go-go’s with literally no money, who were forced to eat leaves, insects and rats.

Smelling the alcohol brew as I walk down the red dirt paths. And knowing that alcohol was being made with the profit of the only food they would have had to eat that week.

The pain of actually having to have a conversation over who we think has AIDS and who does not.

The pain of praying for girls who barely survived their mother attempting to burn them to death.

The pain of living in a nation where these things are considered normal.

Where I am expected to live like them.

What can never be?

Where is the balance between being HERE and having my heart THERE? I can’t seem to find it.

…

At night, I lay in bed.

Still uncomfortable with the blessing I have to sleep in a bed.

Somehow a popped sleeping mat on a tent floor appeals more to me.

As I began to pray to Jesus a whole array of emotions pass through me.

The strongest is excitement.

As I pray, my heart beats fast and faster and faster.

I can hear the quickened pulse in my ear against my comforter.

That pulse moves my comforter back and forth.

A PULSE!

Just the excitement to even talk to Jesus has the power to ignite a pulse strong enough to move a comforter.

Amazing?

Strange?

Odd?

Different?

Hopeful?

Yes.