Hello everyone!
I’ve made it to Togo. I’ve been here a week now and I am absolutely loving it! It’s so good to be back in Africa and already I feel right at home. This month, ministry is preaching and teaching at a Bible school. Each day we have a few hours where some of us go to either a church or the school to share a message. This leaves us with a lot of free time, which means I have a lot of time to spend with the Lord and also build relationships with the hosts and with my squad mates. I think it’s just what I needed this month.
We are living in a small house with 3 bedrooms and 15 people (we have 3 teams together this month) there’s 1 large bed in each room and enough space in the living room for quite a few people to spread out sleeping pads. The living room and dining room area is a great space for us to all hang out together when we’re not exploring the neighborhood.
Every night we spray the whole inside of the house down with the bug spray that’s supposed to kill mosquitoes and help protect us against malaria. After we spray it, we have to leave the house for 15 mins to let it settle in so we’re not breathing it. One night, while walking toward an ice cream shop with the squad, a few of us stopped to dance and play with some kids.
While my friends were dancing with them, I started picking up the kids and either spinning them, tossing them in the air, or simply hugging them. They all were eager to be picked up and would gather in front of me with their little hands stretched up toward me. Sometimes they would even tug the legs of the kid I was holding in attempt to pull them down with hopes it would be their turn next. I had just set down a child and was getting ready to pick up another one when a couple young boys looked at me and spoke in English.
While it was a little shocking to hear English from a young boy (French is the official language spoken here), what was more shocking to hear was what he said. He pointed to the boy I had just put down and said “he’s not good he’s not good” and was saying more that I didn’t really understand, but guessed to mean for me not to pick him up again. I looked at them confused as I picked up a little girl reaching to me and they said “yeah, she’s good! He’s not good.” My response was to tell them “he’s good too” and pick him up once again.
My heart broke that such young children already were defining each other by good and bad for reasons I’m not even sure of, but I think the kids also told me to clean myself so I can only think they might believe the boy is dirty.
I have no idea why they would believe this, but it didn’t matter to me. As they continued to tell me he wasn’t good, I just wanted to love that boy even more and pick him up once again in the biggest hug. I’ve never really been worried about germs or been afraid to get dirty so I just kept on playing with the kids and made it a point to pick up each and every child no matter what the other children said about them.
When I got back to the house that night I was pondering what had just happened and I instantly thought of Jesus with the bleeding woman in the crowd. This story is found in Mathew 9:20-22, Mark 5:24-34, and Luke 8:42-48. In each of these stories we read about a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years and could not be healed. While Jesus was on His way to raise a synagogue leaders daughter back to life, he was walking through a crowd and the bleeding woman was there. She thought that if she could just touch Jesus’ cloak she would be healed, and she was! Jesus noticed that power had gone out from him and so He asked who touched Him. The woman admitted it was her, but she did so with much fear because she knew that she was considered unclean by everyone around her and according to the Jewish law, anything she touched would also become unclean.
However, Jesus did not become unclean. He was not angry with her for touching His cloak. He did not push her away because He had a more important issue to take care of. Instead, he looked her in the eyes and told her “your faith has healed you, go in peace.” He extended grace and mercy and made her clean.
We can learn from Jesus in this story by not turning away from people we think are unclean. We shouldn’t let what the world says about people determine how we interact with them and love them.
In Argentina we talked about this same thing a little bit too. They have a drink there called Mate; it’s a tea that they drink while in fellowship with each other, they share the same cup and the same straw. Some people asked if there was a way they could use their own straw because you never know if someone you’re sharing with might be sick. Our leader told us that’s just one way we can love the people in Argentina; set aside our worries about getting sick and just drink the mate anyway.
You see, God doesn’t let those kinds of things stop Him from loving. He doesn’t care if you’re clean or dirty, sick or healthy, rich or poor: He created you and He loves you immensely. He stepped into our world in order to love us and save us, so we can step into others’ worlds as well in order to extend the love of Christ to them also.
Blessings!
~Kaci
