Being here

In all my various training (and all were very good!) I have never come across this subject “Your heart will break daily. And how to handle it.”  Never once.  But as I read Paul’s letters I see his heart breaking, I hear his agony over the new believers turning away.  Or the prophets living with people who refused to believe at all. Why then do we ignore this part?  It is kind of unavoidable!

Living amongst very poor, illiterate people who have never heard the Gospel has to touch you in some way.  So many times we just think of our mission like this:  swoop in, learn the language (if at all!) change them for the good and swoop out again.  It doesn’t work like that.  And maybe that is part of the problem here in Africa – modern missionaries are too detached – some not even living in the country where they “work”, others coming in in big campaigns and leaving again very quickly in their planes/4x4’s.  Coming in and doing something, with the emphasis on the DO.

Here I find a different scenario – living with the people focuses not on doing but really on being.  You are with them out here.  Sure you do, do stuff, but usually you can only do so much.  In living with them you see the suffering, the sick, the dying – and as this week is turning out, living through suffering on a daily basis!  To be is so much more heart breaking, than to do.  If you are doing something then you feel at least you are getting somewhere, doing things makes you feel good about yourself and what you are doing.  Being is not that at all.  Being is….well, against our nature and most times painful!  It is taking out your heart and holding it up, it is being vulnerable.  To be with people is to not about doing things - very hard for us westerners!  We like to see change!  We want to fix things!  We cannot sit still and simply BE.  And I think partly because it takes so much more to BE……

But back to my point - nowhere have I been (?) prepared for this – how to handle the being part.  How to react when nothing can be done to save a life, only sitting there next to the bereaved, simply being.  How do I handle it when the people have this very fatalistic view on life and death – it is simply not talked about.  How do I cope with funeral after funeral?  When nothing more can be DONE? (On the other hand, I wonder if a prospective missionary with stars in his/her eyes would be able to actually take this in?  Maybe it will scare more than half of them off in any case?)  This is what I find hard. 

In saying all of this I guess I am looking for answers myself – how to handle all of this….how to cope with it right here and now?  But as I turn to The Word, I am very much encouraged by God, when asked who He is – He didn’t say “I do this and I did that”, HE simply said “I AM”.  And although I might be mixing a few things up here all of this makes total sense to me.  He who is I AM, is with me and He sees my broken heart.  He too, was really with the people.

Bella