He was an odd child (notes from Africa)

This week my husband is in Uganda. This past April John began work with Team World Vision. Team World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization (under the umbrella of World Vision) whose mission is to provide clean water to people in Africa and around the world. They work with runners across the world, helping them form marathon running teams to train and help fundraise for this important cause. We are based in Los Angeles, and so my husband is in his element: driving all over Southern California talking to people about Africa, the needs there, and how they can help.

And then there's the running. He runs miles and miles and miles and I have the destroyed running shoes in our garage to prove it.

{photo of my beloved via Laurel Isle Photography}

To help you truly appreciate how perfect this job is for my husband, you must know that at age ten, he read the book Malcolm X. As you might guess, he was an odd child. :) His family moved around a lot because his dad is a pastor, and he spent a lot of time as the awkward new kid and the kid that everyone was always looking at because well, his dad was The Pastor. One afternoon he was ten years old and sitting on the lawn of a church where his dad was working and no one was really taking notice of him ... passing by with maybe a nod or a wave. But one person took notice of him, and this man - who happened to be from Africa - befriended my John. He sat beside him on the grass and spoke kindly to him. And thus? My husband read Malcolm X at age ten, and fell in love with all things Africa.

It amazes and humbles me how relationships can impact someone and change the course of their life. It reminds me again how God is not a ghost who walks silently and invisibly among us. He is very real, and he is alive in the people who allow him to use them. He hitches up his church pants at the knees and gets down on the grass beside us, because he wants us to know him. He wants us to be known. Awesome.

Fast forward fifteen years and John is twenty-five years old, the youngest teacher in a college English department, searching for his life's calling. He has finally decided to move to Africa after minoring in African studies in college and taking Kiswahili as his foreign language. A school in Kenya awaits a teacher. He all but has his bags packed and standing by the door.

And then he meets me.

And then airplanes crash into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 and international travel comes to a standstill.

His plans - well - they were interrupted.

When I married John in 2004 he was still an English professor. I always knew that one day I'd end up married to a missionary. But honestly? I thought that day would come long after our children were grown. I thought that one day he'd retire from teaching and say "Well! It's time!" and we'd see where that led.

But then California called. And we dove into missionary life and the hardest, most-challenging years we've ever experienced. It didn't look like Africa, but the waters were still wild and uncharted. We figured that God had given us a new Africa: Los Angeles. And my husband has poured himself out serving the people in our community. And we still know that we are called to serve people here with our lives, and we do.

It took four more years, but Africa (through a series of events that could not have been coincidence) finally did call ... and that is a long story for another day. The story for today is that my husband this week has finally put his feet down on the continent he has loved and and been heartbroken over and longed for since he was a boy.

We are communicating sporadically via text message and Skype and Facebook, and so his updates are few and far between, but this is the story he told me the other day. The team of people on the trip are all runners who have raised significant amounts of support for clean water projects and child sponsorship ... they are superstars! And so while they are there they ran a half marathon and marathon in Uganda. Along the route somewhere (perhaps at the end? this detail is fuzzy for me) the runners were provided with sponges soaked in water to wash off their hot heads, faces, and bodies. Along these stations, John noticed that children were gathered around and yelling at the runners. Noting their emaciation, but not understanding what was happening, John wept and ran on. At each station, the same thing: the sponges, the children gathered around and jostling one another, yelling and calling to the runners.

He finally asked someone what was happening, and it was explained to him that the children wanted the discarded sponges. When he pressed, he was told that it was because they were eating the sponges. Because they had nothing else to eat. Because the water the sponges was soaked in was cleaner than anything else available to them, despite the fact that someone had just rubbed it on their dirty, sweaty head, face and body and thrown it to the dusty ground.

Can you imagine? I mean, seriously. Can you even imagine what that must be like? To be so hungry and so thirsty that you would eat that? And be glad for it? And fight someone over it?

I can't.

Do you know what I packed in Sydney's lunch for school today? I packed a few Wheat Thins, an individual-sized portion of hummus (her favorite!), a small container full of fresh broccoli, baby carrots, snap peas and a rolled up piece of turkey, another small container of cut up strawberries, and then another of cubed colby jack cheese, and a 24-ounce Camelbak bottle of ice water. While she was at preschool I wandered around IKEA and pushed Elijah in the stroller. He and I shared a cinnamon roll and a 12-ounce bottle of perfectly chilled water.

I just can't imagine.

Please pray for my husband, who has a tender and broken heart and who is working so hard to do something to help these people. You can read his blog entries about his trip here. Please click over and leave him an encouraging comment! Please pray for Africa, for those children who went to bed on Sunday night with bellies full of sponge. Search yourself and ask if you're ready to help people who have great need ... whether it be in your community or a community across the world. I don't understand why some people are born and have what they need and others don't. I don't know why I was so blessed while others have so much need. What I do know is that if I don't use my blessings to help others then I am accountable for their suffering.

Please hold your children and loved ones close and be thankful for all your many blessings today.

That is what I plan to do.

Comments

[Dana]

I was moved to tears by the story of the sponges... Even at our worst my family has never experienced such poverty. My daughters and I are trying to give back this year... We are serving at a homeless shelter on Christmas... I wish we could give back on a global scale... My prayers are with your husband.

[Holly]

First of all, your husband is adorable. But you know this already! What a big heart and so courageous. So much love to you guys!

[Erica]

Aw...I came to comment to help combat your loneliness and then I got distracted by the Blathering 2012 announcement and now I'm having emotional whiplash. But the good kind.

[bessie.viola]

OH my heart. Your husband is doing amazing things, and you are serving too just by keeping everything running at home. I cannot imagine either, but maybe in even trying to imagine we can be pushed to do more. I know that reading this post pushed me.

[John]

Manda, listen to Bissie.viola. You are an amazing partner and NOTHING I am doing is possible without your leadership in our family. I love you so much! Not wasting a single minute!! :)

Dana, you cannot imagine how simple it is to do something global right where you are. Not kidding! If you ever want to chat about it, message Manda!

Whew, what an amazing post - has me totally fired up.

[Jesabes]

I thought this post had me emotional before, but then I read your husband's comment and now I'm really in tears. You're such an inspiring family.