Not sure what to think

I finished the first package of malaria pills. That means I’ve been gone for two weeks. The first one dragged by, but the second one was lightening speed in comparison. It’s nice to be in more of a routine and know kind of what to expect out of each day.

This week we went on home visits to the houses of the Lahash sponsored kids. Lahash, the organization based in Portland that I came with, has a child sponsorship program that people donate money to support about 70 children in the area. The money goes to pay for schooling, uniforms, books as well as some food and other supplies. I’m not sure how often the home visits happen, but we went tow days this week and I think the same will happen next week. We went on foot and in two days we probably visited 10-12 kids at maybe 10 different homes. The visits are to make sure that the money is going to the right things and they are getting food and have a bed. We would talk with the parents and the kids. Really really hard. There are just so many awful stories to hear of people’s lives. And they just keep coming, one horrible story after another. I’m not sure what to think about it. I’m not even sure how to process it. I’m not sure I can…or really want to. I just feel numb. I my heart should be breaking over the poverty, but I’m not. It should cause have the desire to help or create change, that it should make me want to change the way I live my life, but I don’t really feel at all. I think it’s just too much. I don’t even really want to try to process it. I feel helpless. What can I do to REALLY help? It’s so complicated…so complicated.

I guess that’s what I’m here for is to figure out how programs like this work. So far I’ve been impressed with the services that they provide, and mostly the way that they go about providing them. I think the westerner in me would want things to be more organized and consistent, but that doesn’t seem to be the way things work here. I don’t even know where to start but it has to be better to do something rather than nothing right? I just don’t know how to feel about it. The existence of poverty, and trying to change it. The standard response is that through the broken world can we best see God’s love and grace and mercy poured out. But why are there some people like me that have the job to go out and show the love by helping and by being there, while there are others that have to live the life of pain and brokenness. My worries are so little, yet they are my worries. Why do I get to live the life I do when there are millions of people who can’t even comprehend what I have. How should that impact me? How will that change the way I live. I don’t really want to give up everything. I’m weak. I feel like it should change me or inspire something in me but I just feel numb. I almost don’t want to feel it. I don’t know that I could handle it.

Just trying to think that through is so exhausting. It just goes in circles. I don’t know even really want to address it ever. I just want to be in my own world. I just want to curl up and read and be in a different world. But that’s what I’m here for. I just don’t know how to do it.