All posts Report Out of Africa, Part 2: Kingdom moments and divine appointments
8/7/2009 8:26:53 AM
Esther smiles for a photo at the Ministry of Hope Feeding Center in Malawi.
Read Part 1 in the series by clicking here.
Esther is 16, dark skinned and prefers not to look you in the eye. Her hair is short and her body is lean. In rural Malawi, she lives 10 km (about six miles) from her school in a “borrowed” house. She is a “double orphan” and literally does not know where tomorrow’s meal will come from.
Today, we ate nzima and beans and greens with our hands from plastic plates under a tree at the Ministry of Hope Feeding Center at Kwamba. The harvest in Malawi has been good this year, so the orphan feeding centers only operate three days a week. During the “starving season” from December through March or April, the feeding center will provide a meal a day to 500-plus orphans from dozens of villages surrounding Kwamba. But for children like Esther, who have no family at all, there is not an extended family to rely on, no fields to call their own and no neighbors’ fields from which to glean. So tomorrow, when the center is not “open,” I wondered aloud, “Where will you eat tomorrow?”
“I do not know. But God knows. He will feed me,” Esther replied with unwavering faith.
A comfortable silence passed as we both considered her words. Then she asked me, “Where did you come from?”
“The United States,” I replied, planning to amplify my answer when Esther shook her head.
“No, before that. You are white so, where do you come from, before America?”
The short answer would be one of Northern European descent. The bigger answer to the deeper question was one about “home.” Do you remember where you are from? Do you recognize home when you see it?
Esther was curious and she broke the silence by asking about my family. Relationships are “everything” in Africa. When I told her that my father had died when I was a teenager, Esther literally reached out a hand to me. I too was an orphan in her eyes.
“So, you live with your mother?” Esther said with an edge of hopefulness.
“No. My mother lives in Arizona … more than 2,000 miles away from where I live. My sister lives there too with her husband and their two children,” I offered.
“And you have a husband and children and their village is where you live?” Esther probed trying to understand why I would live so far from my family.
“No, I am not married and have no children. I live by myself.”
Esther’s eyes filled with pitying tears. Compassion whelmed up from within. She took my hands in her own and for the first time, looked me directly in the eye. From her perspective, I had described an earthly fate worse than death. From her perspective, I was living as an outcast. What had I done to be banished? She wondered. Surely no one would choose such a life.
Eight thousand-seven hundred miles from my American home, I begin to see myself through the eyes of an African orphan. She sees me as a lost, lonely, bereft little child, much as I suppose the Lord sees me. And this is why I have come – to catch a glimpse of what God is doing in the world and yes, to begin to see things from God’s perspective – including me.
“Reporting Out of Africa” is a series of articles to be posted over the coming days as I share with you what I observed, experienced, and learned in Malawi this summer. I will be processing “out loud” and allowing you to overhear what in some cases will be sighs uttered in tones too deep for words. In the spirit of the people of Malawi, you are welcome here.