No one told me that each week working on the streets would increasingly become more difficult. Something about seeing the same people week after week makes them oddly more human. Its so easy to file away the faces I see on the streets as mere statistics. Its so easy to build walls by labelling them as victims of someone elses crimes. But it is so difficult to realize that many of these women are just like me. Many of these women once had hopes and dreams only to be crushed by the harsh realities of their circumstances. Many of these children want to play with the popular action figures they see through the store windows. It is so easy to believe that just because someone has been raised in a different culture, they are some how less human.
A few nights ago I was sitting in a food court reading a book about world hunger. Page after page, I read tragic stories of the lives of children cut short because of starvation followed by charts and statics of these children's impoverished countries.Suddenly, I looked up and noticed a little thai girl sit across from me. Sometimes this girl drops by our house to play when she is not begging on the streets. I looked up and smiled at her with my world hunger book in one hand and a big cup of ice cream in the other. I tried communicating with her using my limited thai, but eventually we just ended up staring at each other across the table. Her eyes moved from me to my ice cream. I wondered how long it had been since she had eaten ice cream. I wondered how long it had been since she had eaten anything at all. Honestly, at first I was a little annoyed. I wanted to eat and read in peace. But then I was quickly convicted. My heart broke as I thought to myself, "Here I am reading about world hunger and stuffing myself with ice cream across the table from a child who actually is hungry. I pointed to the bakery and bought her a snack. How ironic. And then it the question hit me: In some small way, Am I somehow responsible for world hunger? What a beautiful analogy for americans in relation to world hunger. Sitting across an ocean from a world of starving children, we ignorantly turn our heads and eat our sweets. But it starts with me. Almost every day I pass by a man whose body has been badly burned. His only source of income is the generousity of strangers. I have never given this man any money. Why not? Because I rather eat donuts and coffee. Oh God, forgive me.
The CEO of Word Made FLesh, Chris Heuertz tells a story about a little girl named Deepa he met in India. "Deepa is twelve years old. I can't even begin to imagine the life she and her sister have been forced to endure. Today, she is orphaned. Her entire immediate family has died from AIDS. When she was younger, Deepa's mother died from AIDS. A couple years ago when Phileena and I were in India visiting Deepa, her little sister, Charu, was still alive but very sick and dying from AIDS herself. We found out on that trip to the WMF children's home in Chennai that at that time Deepa's father was also dying from AIDS.
It was a hot South Indian summer afternoon. Deepa and Charu's father came to visit his daughters. He looked terrible. In the weeks leading up to the visit, his health had gotten progressively worse. He would frequently be found passed out in the communal toilet in his slum- sometimes lying in his own diarrhea. The man was obviously in the final stages of the disease. I thought his two little girls were going to splinter his frail bones when they jumped up onto his lap that afternoon. A couple days after his visit, I got a call. Deepa's father had comitteed suicide. The humiliation, the pain and the decay of his body pushed him over the edge. He took his life to bring an end to his suffering. As you can imagine, his daughters were heartbroken. Phileena and I rushed to the home to find Deepa and Charu weeping. We held these little ones close, prayed with them, tried to encourage them with Scripture and promised we'd be there for them when they needed us. Our hearts were broken. In the sad series of goodbyes that our lives seem to offer us, it came time for Phileena and me to once again pack up and leave Chennai. We spent our last day with the children at the home. Deepa and Charu stayed close to us the entire day. When everyone had hugged and exchanged goodbyes, tears streamed down all of our faces. We walked past the gates of the home, turned around one last time to wave, and noticed Deepa and run inside. Before we could close the gate, she came running out of the home with a single yellow rose bud in hand. We couldnt hold back the tears. After her father had died, they cleaned our his slum and discovered that his only possession was a dismal potted rose bush with a solitary bud. Deepa stood there, her face soaked in tears, holding out the flower to Phileena. How could we take it? It was her inheritance, the last reminder of her deceased parents. Today, I take that flower with me everywhere, showing it as often as I can to illustrate this little, tender, revoluntary heart. How do we follow Deepa to God's heart? Where do we find the courage to let a little orphaned girl's tragedy compel us to name the complexities in our faith that keep us from generosity and obedience?"
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