I still remember that day vividly…the beautiful sun glancing off the hills surrounding the village made everything seem crisp and clean, even though we all knew that wasn’t the case. We sat in the cool shade of a stone wall that ran across one bank of the river, giving relief from the sun that along with it’s beauty was mercilessly hot. The voices of about 80 kids chanted out their lesson as they repeated what the teacher said to them. While seated among the girls on reed mats under that stone wall, I marveled at the sight before me. It was my first time in a school in this country and it was both fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time. The small mud building that sat close by housed other classes – it had no windows or doors and the children sat on the mud floor as they recited their lessons….or had been reciting their lessons before the foreigners showed up. We now proved to be much more interesting subject matter than their reading and math. Despite the attempts by the male teachers that lined the side of the building to get the students back on task, the kids continued to abandon their studies for glimpses at us. The men didn’t seem to mind too much as they were almost as curious as the kids.
The group that we had joined outside for the health lesson were probably somewhere between 7 and 10 years old. It was obvious that they were “villagey” as A and I say now – a word we made up to describe the distinct clothes and hair and eye makeup that set people who are from deep in mountain villages apart from those accustomed to a more “civilized” way of life. They were filthy, I will just be honest, hair matted, hands hard and cracked from years of labor even though they were just children. Their feet, shod with cheap plastic shoes were dirty and had most likely already walked more miles in their short existence than most Westerners do in their entire lives – back and forth a few hours to school, following animals all over the hillsides, a once yearly trip to the city. The clothes that they wore appeared clean, but were worn and dingy. The fabric, very colorful and loud screamed village. And they couldn’t keep their eyes off of us. For some it was most likely the first time they had encountered someone with white skin.
The community development worker was in charge of the health lesson that day and he did a good job giving an introduction to the benefits of vegetables and healthy eating. He specifically talked about carrots. He then asked a boy to come up and read something about carrots.
The boy began “carrots are a vegetable. They are good for your health, they are good for your eyes, carrots help your skin, they give you vitamin C…” on and on he read a whole paragraph about carrots. After he finished and sat down the community health worked asked a few questions of the group.
“Who here knows what a carrot is?” he asked. All of the students raised their hands.
“Who here knows what a carrot looks like?” He pressed further. Most of the students raised their hands this time.
“Who here has eaten a carrot?” He asked finally.
Expecting to see a handful of hands go up, imagine my shock when not a single hand was raised. The worker asked again just to be sure, “Are you sure you haven’t eaten a carrot before?” Dirty little heads nodded…no carrots had been consumed by this group.
Three years later that instance still haunts me and I think back to it often these days. Imagine. Never eating a carrot…what implications does that have for the rest of your life? What else do you go without? What other things are missing that the rest of the world takes for granted. I realize that we are talking about the boonies so to speak…I mean, this village is about 2 hours away by vehicle from a bigger town and that is quite far removed for this part of the country, but wow!
Like I said, my mind travels back to that instance as I think about the depravity of this place these days. We continue to be amazed by the seeming education and wealth of the commercial center that we live in here in M-ville. Compared to our last location, this is far better (better shopping, electricity, running water, transportation, etc.). But in some ways we are living in a black hole.
As a team we met at New Years and spoke about our vision for the next year and how we felt that the Father was moving in this place. Several people on the team shared their desire to see ONE person come to be a seeker of Truth in the next year. ONE... Notice I didn’t say ONE a week, or a month…I said ONE in the next year. The more we talked the more it became evident that in some ways even seeing ONE person come to Faith would be amazing.
A and I got somewhat spoiled when we were in our previous location because the harvest was being reaped quite steadily in that place. A consistently met with a group of friends and we were always getting news of others that were interested. I think we kind of came to expect that and even began to pride ourselves in the small (and by small I cannot even begin to express how miniscule it was) part we had to play in that.
And here we are now asking the Father to move in ONE heart. Obviously we are asking Him to move in more than that, but ONE was the distinct sense that many people on the team felt and so we asked for that.
How humbling to be at this place…where the black hole is so deep and so wide that we would be happy with ONE. Do we believe that the Father could bring many more than that? Absolutely. Do we want to see families and tribes come to faith? More than anything! But being realistic in this place means we ask with sincerity and hope for ONE.
I can’t help but think about the school kids who had never tasted carrots when I think about this…oh how much more there is to fill their little bodies than what they are aware of now! Even more than carrots and nutella and ice cream and and and… there is hope and there is life. How desperately the people of this place and this land need that!
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