Open My Eyes to Things Unseen

The dichotomy of this city riddles me. As we are driving to film some of the most impoverished parts of the city I am struck by all of the people busily going about their day, seemingly unaware of what is around them. These people seem much like us in the states- nicely dressed, clean, hustling in and out of stores... then we turn down a street. I think I literally sucked in air.. we were going to one of the places in the city called the garbage dumps. Looking ahead, I see houses and houses and houses made out of tin, stacked on top of each other. The stench of trash and rotting waste fills our nostrils. We park. My soul is screaming at this point- I look around at the people cluttered everywhere and as my feet hit the pavement littered with trash, this strange sensation came over me. I felt almost like an intruder. Like here I am, my nice jeans, my nice shirt, my nice jacket, and I want to see how they live. I almost felt dirty. Like who am I. The entire team began to look around and explore. I stood almost frozen. I had never seen anything even remotely comparable to this. The feeling of nausea came from the pit of my being- not because of the poverty, more so because of the vulnerability. There were children everywhere, no shoes, and again I was easily able to insert one of my children at any moment. They smiled grinning behind rotten teeth almost begging for our attention. I was still frozen. The people that we came with were obviously very comfortable there- they laughed and joked amongst each other and to some of the men that lived there. It all sounded like buzzing to me. The sounds were drowned out by the screaming in my head. Why do these children have to live in these conditions? Again, not because they have nothing but because I felt the presence of darkness so thick. Maybe it's because I had heard the stories previously of how children are stolen everywhere in this country. These children seem like sitting targets to me. I wanted to load them all up in the van and take them to a safe place. But where? There is no place safe here. That hits me like a ton of bricks. Even if I could get every child out of this situation, then what? I wanted to run- again the burden of what God has given MAG to do rushed over me. In my desperation He spoke. Break my heart for what breaks yours, I had prayed. Open my eyes to things unseen. Show me how to love like you. This is what I had begged. And this is what He has begun to do.

In Him,
Kris