Disappointment.

So I have $130 worth of water filter here, but I haven't had the need to use it until now.  The days are getting hotter, and the nights are starting to be unbearable, so water is always needed.  I finally got buckets to connect the filter to, and I'm super excited because I'm told this filter takes out giardia and amoebas, finally an endless water supply is going to be at my finger tips.  I can taste the sweetness of clean, cold water entering my parched mouth...I'm super excited!  So I had to cut some holes, and connect some stuff, but no leaks...this will be a success, I can feel it in my stomach!  So you know how in the states when people say that they have well water, everyone knows their water is good and probably super cold and, well, just nice.  Here, when someone says well water I know it's not even close.  All of the water I draw up from wells has a nice brownish tint to it, pieces of sticks floating in it, chunks of dirt in it, and once in a while I will get this nice  metal taste in the water.  Basically after I drink some of this stuff I wonder how fast I will be able to run to the hole if I get massive, explosive diarrhea during the night.  So anyways, this filter, the answer to life's problems...how beautiful.  Well, I hooked it up, poured water in, and waited.  Disappointment.  That word means different things for different people, and for some people it runs deeper than for others.  Right now, that word means I won't get an unlimited  water supply like I thought.  The water that came out the other end was yellow.  Sure it took out most of the things that I could see, at least it wasn't as brown as the water that I put in it, but still, it was dirty.  There were still little parasites swimming in there, I could tell.  Don't worry, I won't die from dehydration, there are other ways to find clean water, but still, disappointment entered into my once excited stomach.   But have you ever thought of the impurities in our own lives?  Maybe it's the things we say, what we watch, what we listen to, or what we spend our time doing.  Our impurities are natural, we're sinners, but we have a filter.  We have someone who takes away ALL our impurities, and He never leaves dirty water behind.  He wants to give us clean water, an endless supply, a supply that will never run dry, and will never give us diarrhea.  The best thing of all, is that it's free.  Want a drink?

How Heavy Is Your Load?

Each morning the women will walk to their fields to gather wood to sell
or cook with. These women will walk miles with 30-40 lbs of wood on
their heads, and then they'll walk two miles or more to the market where
they attempt to sell if for less than a dollar. Life is so hard here.
When I look at them I can't help but think of how heavy their load is.
Today I saw three little girls, probably only 8 of 9 years old, and they
were walking the two miles to the market to sell their bundles of wood.
These bundles were bigger than the little girls; how heavy the load is
for them.
I saw Pierre on the road trying to carry this branch that was probably
only 20 lbs. He's around 50 years old, but has the look of an 80 year
old. The load was a little too much for him. There are families with
young people all along the road, and not one person was about to offer
him assistance. I stopped him and offered to take this branch from him,
and with a big smile he handed it to me. I didn't realize that his
house was as far as it was, and at the speed he was walking it took even
longer, but we finally made it. The walk was a bit far, and a bit hard,
I even had to change shoulders a few time, and my body is still young.
Without help he would have struggled for a good half an hour trying to
take this branch home. The loads that these people carry...that we all
carry are too heavy. I see it everyday when women are bent over from
work, when children are carrying as much as the parents, or when mothers
hold their dying children because there's not money to take them to the
hospital. I see it when friends struggle with depression, when couples
get divorced, and when Satan attacks us and wants to separate us from God.

Today, I went to another funeral. The family built a platform about 5ft
high and placed this young man's body on it. I saw women coming and
wailing around him, grabbing his arms, crying out as if they had just
lost their own son. Sometimes I don't think that they are just crying
because someone died, although that is part of the reason. I think they
cry from all the work, all the death, all the births, all the beatings,
all the corruption, all the starvation, all the neglect, all the pain.
The only place where it is normal and excepted to cry is at a funeral,
and that's where all their suppressed emotions are able to come out, and
they are able to feel all that there is to cry about here.
After I dropped off the stick at Pierre's house, he was so grateful for
what I did. I have never seen someone so happy and thankful for
something...and I only carried his heavy load. I really didn't do very
much, but he still wished that he had something to give me. As I walked
away, I remembered that I had an old cabbage and some noodles in my bag;
they weren't the best, but I went back to his house and gave them to
him. Again he was so grateful, telling me that he wouldn't go hungry
tonight now, and again said he wished he had something to give me.
He'll never understand that his gratitude was enough. My heart was
filled with excitement and happiness, and all I did was offer to help
lighten his load. We are too weak to carry these burdens on our own, we
need help.
God does the same thing for us. No matter how heavy, or how long we've
been carrying our loads, God's arms are open to carry it for us. There
are too many people who don't know this yet, who are walking around
Tchad, who are walking around the United States of America, who don't
know that God will carry their burdens. They don't know that there is
help in the Lord, peace in His love, and water and food for the soul
that will never run dry. It's our privilege to tell them.

God is Good, and God is here.

Last night I went out visiting some of my neighbors, just to say hello and get to know the people that I've been living around for the past six months.  The first stop was Esther's house, where she stays in one hut with 3 out of the 7 children.  Her husband died some years ago, and now she works hard trying to put food in the mouths of her children.  I talked with her, but with the language barrier, I had to have my little sister translate from French into Nanjere, and throwing in the little Nanjere that I know, that's how we got to be friends.  I looked around their hut, and didn't see very much.  We were sitting on the grass mat where they sleep, the only nice thing they had was the chair that the oldest daughter sat on, but who knows, the father could have bought that when he was still alive.  it was nice getting out and visiting this family.  They didn't have anything to offer me, but they had opens hearts, and a space on the mat for me to sit...that's all I needed.   Next I went to Florin's house.  As I walked up they were all excited that I came, and they brought out their broken grass mats for us to sit on.  We sat down and talked about their health, the heat, the cold nights,  and the work.  I asked where her husband was, and she said that he's around, but switches between the houses of his wives.  He's drinks and smokes a lot, and doesn't provide the family with money.  The nice clothes that the children own are from missionaries, and they had to work for each piece of clothing.  The family asked me to come inside their wall to eat some food, which I wanted to say no, please, I'm really not hungry, but it was too late, they had a bowl out for me and we were already walking over.  It was a sauce made with mangoes, which I thought couldn't be too bad, mangoes are amazing!  I was expecting a yellow sauce type thing, since mangoes are yellow, but instead of a yellow sauce, it was gray.  Don't ask me what was in it,because I can't tell you, but I didn't enjoy it at all. But this was all they had, this was all they could give me.  I realized that this is what they eat everyday during mango season, and many days without rice because there is no money to buy it.  But what happens when the mangoes are finished, what will they eat then?  A few months back, Matthew gave a toothbrush to Florin, but since there was no toothpaste to give with it,  he told her to brush anyways.  I found out this week that she faithfully brushes everyday...with soap.  I realized how hard their lives are, how far God must seem for them.  Do they ever feel forgotten by God?  They don't have blankets to keep them warm, they don't have running water, or even clean water.  They are sick a lot, don't have money for the things they need, much less the things they want.  They have to eat nasty food everyday of their lives, do they ever feel forgotten?  I kept thinking this while we talked, but the longer we talked I realized it wasn't like that at all.  Every time we would talk about something hard, something that they struggle with, hunger, or the pain they go through, she would always say that God is good, and God is here.  God is good, and God is here.  What faith.  What trust.  I sit here and complain about the food, but the food I eat is pasta, and rice, and goodish sauce, I have so much!  I realized last night that they have everything that they need.  They have faith in a God who provides for their needs, and never leaves them.  God is good, and God is here.

I'm So Tired of This Life

I'm so tired of this life.  I'm tired of the pain, the hunger, the work, the struggle, I can't wait till it all ends and we can go home.  Ela went into the hospital again after a week of being home.  She is a 14 month old little girl, who used to have chubby cheeks, who laughed, and brought joy to her parents, and now she lays in the hospital close to death.  She is the youngest child in the family that Matthew lives with.  She was in the hospital for a week, where she was treated for malaria, giardia, and some other stuff, but after a week of being home, and suffering from constant fever, diarrhea, and throwing up, she was taken back to the hospital.  Clarise, the mom was tested for HIV, which, praise the Lord came back negative, and Ela was tested for lots of different problems as well.  We went to find out what Ela's tests said, but the lab workers said that the tests wouldn't be finished till the morning.  The only problem is that the lab workers get upset if they have to work past 12pm, and so they won't rush for tests for anyone, even if it means their death.  What else could we do but walk away and pray that whatever is wrong with her won't kill her before the morning. 

Throughout her time in the hospital she has had multiple IVs, many medications, and has suffered from a seizure.  She's so little, and has been through so much, but because of where we are, I'm not sure there's more than faith that can save her.  Every day the family asks when they can take her home, because she has enough energy to drink breast milk now, so she's better and can go home right?  I wish the family could understand why they're at the hospital, and why they need to stay.

Last Friday I was holding Ela while Clarise took a 5 minute nap, and in those 5 minutes I fell in love with her.  This little 14 month girl who seemed to be dying in my arms, her somewhat chubby cheeks that now sag because of malnutrition is the only thing left that shows that she used to be a healthy little girl.  The rest of her body, overcome by malnutrition, vomiting, and diarrhea, I couldn't help but hurt for her.  She breathes heavy, working hard for every breath.  She would open her eyes for a second, and then they would roll to the back of her head and she'd sleep some more.  Her mother Clarise hadn't eaten in 5 days, and it's not because she's not hungry, but because she has been holding her dying baby for months, and she's overwhelmed with depression, that she can't eat what's in front of her.  I finally understood a small portion of the pain that the people go through here on a day to day basis.  After holding Ela for 5 minutes and praying for her, I started to cry thinking that she is probably going to die, and I can't do anything about it.  But her mother who has loved Ela her whole life, has to sit and watch her daughter die, and can't do anything about it. How much pain she is going through.  As I sat there with her in my arms, I saw three other mothers who were there with their babies, and I saw how tired they looked, and how broken they were, and this is probably the 2nd or 3rd time they've gone through this with one of their children.  They have to be so tired of this life.

As I worked in Pediatrics this week, I would sit with them for hours, giving her liquids, watching her sleep, and praying for her life.  "Why can't I have the faith the same of the disciples?  Why can't my prayer heal her when medicine can't?  I've seen Jesus, right?  I've been with Jesus right?  Why can't my prayer save her?"  I couldn't get these thoughts out of my head, when after every prayer I would sit there and watch her struggle for every breath, when she would cough all day, and when her eyes would roll to the back of her head...God just save her!!  Yesterday she seemed to be getting better; at least she was eating, and she would look around, concentrating for minutes on different things.  Finally, a glimmer of hope.  Maybe these new medications that she got are helping.  But a while later Matthew went over and said that her head would go back and forth like she was struggling for something...struggling for life.  After prayers again last night we left for home, praying that she would make it through the night, and she did, maybe the medications really are helping! 

Today Dr. Olen did say that this was the last thing we could try, and sure she's not looking better, but just maybe.  As I watched her today, she would pull away from drinking milk, and just look at her Clarise with a somewhat pained look in her face, almost as if she was scared.  She is in so much pain.  My Great Physician, please take away her pain, heal her in Your time, and show Yourself to this family.  After Olen did rounds he told the family which medications to give when, and since she wasn't on IV fluids anymore it was okay for them to go home.  They finally got their wish to take her home, so that everyone could get some good rest.  We prayed again, knowing that if the new medications don't work, only prayer will save her.  After Matthew found a motorcycle I drove them home.

Each day brings new emotions, new surprises, and new faith.  I returned to work after taking Clarise and Ela home, and continued with work, while malaria filled Matthew slept in the SM hut.  At 11:30 am he said he wanted to go home to be with the family, and to be there for Ela, but since he wasn't feeling good, and since he's dizzy from the quinine, he asked me to drive him home.  We arrived to a mat filled with women crying.  We arrived to a little, cold body that is finally resting in peace.  God's time to heal her wasn't today, and He will come home again to take her home, but that doesn't take the hurt away... it doesn't stop the tears.  As I sat there and cried with them, I saw all the sisters wailing over her, and Clarise singing and crying by her little body.  God, come comfort this family.  God, come comfort us.  As I sat, the singing continued, and the uncle to Ela came from the market with a little white cloth, something that signifies that she's really gone.  It finally hit, this little girl that I've seen struggle for the past few months, this girl who used to smile at me, who used to hide her face from me, who just this week would stare at me while holding my hand, will never be able to do any of this again on this earth.  But God is good, He is here, and He will never leave.

Germs...

I will never look at germs the same. Shaking hands back in the states
is so beautiful, because I know that hands are clean. I mean most
people have washed their hands after using the bathroom, and they use
toilet paper, they basically don't even need to wash their hands! The
culture here requires that every time you see someone that you know you
must shake their hand, and I know they did not wash their hands with
soap, and that they wiped...with their hand! I'm just gonna explain
germ transfer here really quickly for you.

After the kids get really dirty the mom will wash them in a big bowl of
water. She'll wash the poop off the baby's butt, and the poop off the
older child's feet, then she'll take the rice and rinse it in the same
bowl, which she didn't wash out with soap. After wiping baby butt with
her hand, she'll grab the spoon that I'm about to eat with and rinse it
off in the water that she used to clean the rice, in the bowl she used
to clean the kids...super sanitary right? Whenever they make a salad
for me, my family is super awesome and lets the salad stand in bleach
water, and then after that they will rinse it in giardia infested
water. `There will be times when I am walking to the market and a kid
will run up to me and pull his hand out of his pants to shake mine.
Just yesterday these two super cute little girls followed me home and
watched me while I was trying to clean my hut. After a while they asked
if I could wash them, and seeing their completely unclean state, I
simply couldn't resist. I took my liquid body soap (which they had
never seen before) and a bucket of water, and by the time I turned
around they were nakedly ready for their wash. While I was cleaning the
first girl, the second one took a squat right beside the bucket, right
beside me, and took a pee...come on girl, you could have walked 5 feet
away! Talking about showers, my shower has pools all through it, and
these are pools of urine. Everyone in Tchad uses the shower area as a
urinal as well, but when I first got here I didn't really notice the
smell, but now I can be walking 10 feet away and can smell the pee.
It's even worse when I go in to take a shower, because the smell
overwhelms me and I feel like I'm being covered in little particles of
pee. I've been trying to work on my balance because there have been
times when I'm cleaning my feet and lose my balance, only to step in a
puddle of pee...no longer clean feet. But no worries, if I manage to
stay clean in the shower, I will come out to goat poop or something that
I step in...it really doesn't gross me out anymore. Just this last
Sabbath at church I was holding a baby who peed all the way down the
front of me, which was not the first time, but it's okay, because that
stuff dries. The worst though is when there's a really sick baby and
you can hear the rumbles coming, and then the squirts! The mom will
wipe it off with leaves, her hand, her clothes, or whatever is closest,
and then after church she'll walk over and shake my hand. It seems like
no matter what I do, I can't get away from germs. If a fruit, bread, or
vegetables falls on the ground, no worries, they will pick it up and
bring it to me to eat. The same ground that has been walked on by pigs,
chickens, cows, people, poop...there's just no escaping it. Every time
I go to eat, it is the culture to have a bowl and water to rinse hands
in, and every time, without fail, the water in the bowl after I rinse my
hands is brown. There's so much to be grateful for back home. Cheap
soap, running water, clean water, clean hands, just clean stuff.
Everything here is dusty, I don't even remember what shiny looks like.
The meat in the market sits there all day in the hot sun, and people buy
it and eat it for the next couple of days. The fish in the market smell
horrible, almost like they were already eaten and then pooped out, and
are now sitting on a tray in front of me. It's different here, the
money is dirty looking, and straight up dirty, the food isn't always
safe, the hands are never clean, but this is Tchad, and I love it. I
love almost every part of it, I mean I could live without pooping
babies, but it's really not that bad. Today when you go to town, just
take a look at how blessed you are, and how clean things really are back
home. God wants to do this with our lives. He wants to take it and
make us clean, as white as snow, beautiful. We have a choice today, to
either walk around with poopy hands, or to walk around with clean
hearts. What will you choose today?

Goodbye Boaz...

I heard wailing louder than I have ever heard before, everywhere I
turned there was crying. Boaz, 24 years old, studying in Ndjamena, died
last Sunday. All the people here say that he was different than most,
always visiting everyone in the village when he was home, providing for
his family, and kind to everyone; not your typical Tchadian. He seemed
fine Sunday morning, going to church as usual, but no one knows for sure
what happened, maybe poison, maybe witchcraft, but two hours after
throwing up Sunday afternoon he died. While his body was being
retrieved by his older brother Franco, the 14 days of mourning began.
Wailing every night. Drumming every night. Singing every night.
Praying every night. The people of this village said goodbye to Boaz
on Wednesday, the 8th of February. I watched as hundreds of people were
coming from all different directions to lay their brother, friend, and
son into the ground. As his coffin was put into the grave, the wailing
began again. The sound of such pain was enough to give me the chills,
and to break my heart all at the same time. I took my eyes, for a
moment, off the faces of the people, and looked to the ground. I saw
feet that were dirty, cracked, broken, lame, and I thought of all the
roads that these people have walked. Roads to happiness, roads to pain,
roads to starvation, or roads to sin. I wished that the feet could
speak English to me and tell all that they have seen, all the roads that
they have traveled, but on that day, all these feet were at the same
place, to look pain in the eyes once more. After the grave was filled a
group of women with small sticks in hand, sang and danced around the
grave. One woman had the equivalent of almost $20 on a stick as she
danced. After that everyone went back to the house to continue the 14
days of mourning. Aaron, one of the older brothers who comes to church
with us asked a group of us to stay for a few songs and a prayer around
the grave. The last song that Aaron started was "It is finished my
brother, it is finished little brother, it is finished my friend." I
couldn't help but cry as he continued singing the song. The pain that
this brother was feeling, I couldn't comprehend, but I still hurt. I
thought of the people that came that day, all thinking of their past
losses, knowing that there will be another next week, and the week after
that, how much can these people take? They go to funerals almost every
week for a family member or friend, God how can you comfort so many?
But as I thought of the words to the song, I found joy, because it is
not finished, Jesus is coming again! He will wipe every tear from our
eyes, he will take away death forever, He will give us new feet, and
gold paths to walk to the market on! Oh wow, how amazing that day will
be, how amazing eternity will be! There are many people who have yet to
hear the song "it is not finished my brother, my friend, my sister, it
has just begun". Many ears have not yet heard, many lives have not been
changed, but that is why he has sent us. We must tell the world of the
Good News, we must tell the world of His love. He wants us to be
ready...He wants us. Even now I can still hear the drumming, the
singing, the wailing, I know they will continually have pain here in
this place, but Jesus is coming soon, tell the world.

This World Is Not My Home

Some days, three months seems like forever, and other days, three months
seems like it's gonna pass by so fast! Well, Friday was one of those
days that three months felt like forever away. I went to the market in
the afternoon, and visited a friend, but for some reason wanted to be
alone. After the market, I got home to my 14 year old brother crying.
My brother's name is Koustoge, and a few years back his dad had been
married to three women, but after he became a Christian and realized
that it was wrong, he only kept his first wife, who is the lady I live
with now. But Koustoge is from the second wife, and isn't treated the
same as all the other kids. He works more, and gets less. He told me
that he never goes hungry, so that is good, but he also feels like a
stranger in this family. A couple weeks ago, Monique hit him because
the water for my shower wasn't warm yet, and he told me later that his
heart hurts him every time he gets hit, and that he doesn't want to live
here anymore. Friday night he was also crying because he got hit. The
older sister hit him because he didn't get water from the well fast
enough...or something like that. I was angry that she would do that,
but no one else seemed to care. They went on eating and talking, as of
nothing happened. I was so angry, so I went off by myself and watched a
small bush fire that was burning nearby. Three kids from my family and
the mom all came over to see if I was ok...why can't you do this for
your own children? I am a stranger and you treat me more like family
than Koustoge! He has been living there for over 10 years, can't you
just love him like he's your son! Well, after my tears, praying, and
frustration, I went back to the compound to Monique crying. Her brother
had just died a few minutes earlier in another village. She had just
come back from a funeral of one of our neighbors who died during child
birth, and she's gone to two or three for her family. They see so much
pain here, why would they care about the child who was just beaten, he's
still alive isn't he? Well, I was overwhelmed and tired, so after my
shower under heaven I went to bed.

Sabbath brought it's own challenges. One of the ladies at a Sabbath
school branch that just started a few months ago said that she didn't
want people coming to her house anymore to tell these stories. The
white people weren't helping her with food and money, and local people
were giving her a hard time about it, so she just wanted it to stop.
Well, some people went and talked to her, and straightened things out a
bit, but it was a little discouraging. Later in the afternoon one of
the SMs here finally broke down because her family isn't feeding her
good, and she's always hungry, and they lie about why they don't have
food for her when she pays them some good money. She's been working
hard trying to help them keep Sabbath, and this was just the last little
thing that broke her. Some of this stuff really isn't a big deal, but
when you struggle with language, you work hard all day, and have to eat
weird food all the time, the smallest things can get to you. It was at
lunch that I realized that Satan was working to discourage us. So often
I just look at things and think that it's just life, so we should go
with the flow. But it's not just life, it's a battle over souls.
Through most of the weekend I wanted to be home with my family. I
longed for the day that I arrive at the airport and finally get to hug
them and see them in person. But I realized that I should be longing
for heaven in the same way. This world is not my home, I'm just passing
through, so I better not get too comfortable, because that's just where
the devil wants me. He wants me to be comfortable where I am, so that I
don't long for where I could be. The Great Controversy is real, and it
doesn't always come out in demon possession, or witchcraft, but in
subtle things that discourage us, or things that keep us from looking to
God. In those times, it's important to remember that this world isn't
our home, but before we can all go home, we have to tell everyone about
how amazing God is.