Today we have a guest post from Graham Baird, lead pastor of Highlands Church in Paso Robles, California. Take the time to read it all the way through and pray with Graham for this little girl and the many others just like her throughout our world.
Very few images from my
life will remain with me until the day I die. The image of my wife
standing in a field in Princeton, New Jersey, hearing my proposal of marriage,
and with a tear in her eye saying, "Oh my God, yes," and then,
"Holy Shit, I'm engaged," will stay with me. The image of
my daughter just being born, her brand new bluish colored body, being thrust
into my arms will stick in my mind. And this image will also remain; a
three year old African girl, on school yard playground, in remote Mozambique,
who had a bucket full of holes and a snot green bubble on the end of her nose.
It was about the fourth day
of my Lifewater mission trip to Mozambique, Africa. Already a kind of
immunity and inuredness to all things poor and broken had begun to set in for
me. There is only so much true pain a heart can take in before it raises the
drawbridge on the proverbial doors of the castle and says, "No more
visitors." It was the last stop of the day, to visit a well that
Lifewater had installed three years before in the playground of a remote
village.
And then there was the
girl. I did not notice her at first, since there were literally hundreds
of other kids who were cowering and clambering around her to get water.
And then, alone, with her single bucket in hand, I remember seeing this
little girl, dressed only in a dirty white tee-shirt reach her bucket forward
to have it filled. There was only one problem. Her bucket had about
as many holes in it as a kitchen colander. Every time she would fill her
bucket, the bucket would leak. Her bucket held no water. But she
kept trying, like it was some kind of childhood game. Only it wasn't a
game. She needed water to survive.
I leaned down to put my arm
around her, and to find another more suitable water bucket lying around the
ground somewhere. When I got to her level, I noticed that a lack
of water was not her only problem. She also had a massive green snot
bubble on the end of her nose. Without hesitating I took out hanky from
my back pocket (mostly used over the past day to keep the dust out of my lungs)
and I grabbed the snot bubble and squeezed it off. Her face remained
expressionless, even if a little bit happier.
But then this little girl's
true problem presented itself. It wasn't the water can, it wasn't her
snot bubble flu; it was her aloneness. This little girl seemed completely
alone. I cannot begin to describe the loneliness and the desperateness of
this little human being. She reminded me of the little girl from the
movie, "Schindler's List" who was highlighted in light pink, amidst
the terror's of Auschwitz concentration camp. Only instead of having a
pink hue, this little girl's dripping white jerry can and dirty white tee shirt
stood in stark contrast to the brown African landscape. "Where is
this girl's parents?" I yelled. "Who is taking care of this
little girl?" "Who has responsibility for her?"
There was no reply. I tried it again, only this time louder,
"Who does this girl belong to, she needs help?"
Then came the voice of one
of our tour guides: "She belongs to no one. She has no parents.
Her parents are both dead. They have both died of AIDS. Just
leave her. The village will try to care for her." "But
the village isn't taking care of her," I said. "She is sick.
She has holes in her water bucket," I pointed out. "It's
just the way it is here, we must go, the sun is going down," said the
guide. A thousand thoughts about international adoption possibilities
rushed through my head, until I remembered what my wife who is an international
adoptions expert had told me before the trip - Mozambique is a closed country,
there are no adoptions from there. There were hundreds of little girls
just like her with just as many holes and snot bubbles throughout the entire
country.
"Come, we must go, it
is not safe here," said the guide. And with that I found myself
stooping my head to get back into the van that had brought me to this place.
As I sat down, I felt a squishy, slimy feeling in my back pocket.
It was the green snot bubble still on my hanky. And that snot green
bubble will become a part of the colliapy of images that remain with me until I
die. A little, lost girl, in a remote place, with a drip in her bucket
and a case of the flu, parentless, but also loved by God.
And so I pray for her.
All for Now,
Graham Baird
Lead Pastor
- Highlands Church
Paso Robles, CA
No comments:
Post a Comment