All the Poor and Powerless

 I see the poverty all around me.  Kids, who should be in school getting an education, are working in the sugar cane fields all hours of the day.  Old men selling newspapers on the side of a busy road.  African markets that can only be defined as Chaos.  Women who sit on a dusty sidewalk day in and day out, selling fruits and vegetables to passerby’s.  Their young babies sleep on the ground next to them with nothing more than a sack cloth as a ‘bed’.  None of this is ‘new’ to me.  I’ve seen it before. From the streets here in Zambia, to the most southern tip of South Africa.  I saw it time and time again in the far corners of South East Asia, to the mountain tops in Nepal, the bustling streets of India and the prairies of Eastern Europe. 

Yet God still loves to humble me in the most powerful ways.
 

 Every morning on our 45 minute bus ride commute to Grace, one of the teachers leads out in a prayer and a short devotion.  Every day, the children/youth at Grace Academy are prayed for collectively by their teachers (how COOL is that!) and each day, God has spoken to me through the words He has given them.  One morning devotion stuck out to me in particular this past week.

The teacher leading it (who is a national Zambian), spoke on the physical poverty around us and about the importance of reaching out, serving what we (North America) would call ‘the least of these’. The message itself, was not new to me.   

Yet how it was ‘delivered’, was.  To hear it ‘preached from the pulpit’, over a podcast or even a discussion among close friends, is one thing.  BUT to hear it from an individual who knows what physical poverty is all too well, in a culture that is rampaged by it…I am having a hard time fully explaining the lesson God had for me, in that moment.

God did not stop there though.  He kept me ‘on my knees’.

Although the teacher talked on physical poverty, she focused more on spiritual poverty of this area, the people and of the continent of Africa as a whole.  This shocked my musungu self.  One thing, in my mind, that African culture does NOT lack, is spiritual poverty.  That is one of the things I’ve come to love (and greatly respect) about Africans who are Christian have a very personal, intimate relationship with Jesus.  To me, their spiritual lives are NOT lacking in any sense of the word.  Jesus (God) literally consumes them in everything they do. 

Hearing these words from this teacher that morning, stopped me ‘dead in my tracks’.  Her message was simply and short, but her point was crystal clear.  Our personal spiritual walks with God is a life long journey and process.  Until the day HE returns, we never will be fully complete.  Without Him consistently being our focus, hope, freedom and love of every moment of every day, we will continue to be spiritually hungry.  We will be panting for a spiritual thirst. Simply put, though our bodies may keep living, spiritually we will die from the poverty that affects us all.  Regardless of which country you live in or the colour of your skin.