Miraculous

It has been said that before we judge someone, we should walk a mile in their shoes. To really understand who they are and how they came to be where they are in life. 

Often times that is more easily said than done because our life experience is usually so different than theirs. But, if you would, I would like you to imagine that what follows is your life experience:

You are a young woman in Kenya. You were born to a mother but never knew your father. He was a lost soul, who lost his life via infidelity that became HIV and AIDS. Poverty is all you have ever known. You have depended on the kindness of others for your daily needs, begging and even stealing, but it has never been enough. 

Your childhood was one filled with endless days of hunger. Your days consisted of waking when the sunlight shined through the opening in the small mud hut where you lived with your brothers and sisters. It ended when the sun no longer shined through the same opening. A tiny space in a circle of dirt is the bed you share with them. You wished you could just keep sleeping rather than face what you knew the day would bring.

First, a long walk to fetch water in the sweltering sun. You walked past some children who were on their way to school, dressed in their neat, crisp uniforms. Families who had a bit of money. There åwere a few of them, but not many. Most of the children from your village were on the same daily journey as you. They too would fill their water jug and return to their family and prepare for a day filled with nothing. 

No school. Too hot and hungry to play. Your sister is sick and your mother has no money to take her to the clinic. Next week it will be your brother, your mother, or you. You return home with your water and your mother leaves you in charge of your siblings and wanders off in search of food.

And the years go by. Every day, every week, a miserable replay of the one before. Until one day, you find yourself to be 16 years old and a young boy from the neighborhood is now your husband. A brief time of happiness and hope!

Not a year later, you have your first child. She is born just three weeks after your mother dies from the disease that your father gave her. Your brothers and sisters are not there to meet their niece either, scattered to the four winds, living with 3 different uncles.

And so, the years pass by. You are older and still hungry. You now have 3 children, but their father is gone. Last you heard, he was in a clinic dying of AIDS. Just like your father. You have no education and no skills. You are living in a small mud hut with a thatched grass roof, much like the one you grew up in, only smaller. There are no windows, just an opening without a door. It used to be a place for pigs. Now it is your home.

You cry yourself to sleep every night because you have become your mother and your children have become you. It is an endless cycle that would take a miracle to be broken. 

Then one day, on a day like every other, something happens. A man comes to your village. You see him talking to one of your neighbors. A neighbor who is also a widow with children and a life very much like your own. A miserable and sad life without hope. The man spends quite a long time talking to your neighbor and then, quite to your surprise, he comes and asks to speak to you. 

He tells you that he is a preacher at a local church and he is there to help. He wants to know the story of your life. At first you are suspicious. A strange man who must want something. But he doesn’t. He only wants to know how you came to be where you are and so finally, reluctantly, you tell him. You see the tears in his eyes and suddenly you know this is a good man. He tells you he is there because there are people who want to help you. Christians from afar who want to help you. 

You don’t understand how this could be. You don’t know them. They don’t know you. Why would they help? Why would they care about a stranger suffering in a strange land? It is this thought that plants the seeds of doubt in your mind when the preacher leaves, promising to return. You know in your heart he will never return.

But then, one day he does. 

He is riding in a truck with two other men. A truck filled with food! He stops first at your neighbor’s house and you watch as two young men unload food from the truck and set it at the feet of your neighbor. Your neighbor, whose eyes are wide and filled with tears of disbelief. The young preacher is talking to her and hands her a book of some kind, then turns and walks your way as the other young men start the truck and back it up next to the front of your home.

Already you can feel the tears welling up in your eyes. Already you find yourself short of breath, even faint. This can’t be true. This can’t be happening. But it is. 

Now the truck is unloaded and the food is placed at your feet. More food than you have ever seen! The young preacher is talking to you, but at first you don’t even hear what he is saying. Then the ringing in your ears subsides and his words become clear. He tells you that he will be bringing you food every month and that it is a gift from Christians in the name of Jesus. And he hands you a book. It is the Bible.

Two more months pass. Both months, on the same day, the preacher and the two young men arrive with food and the preacher spends time talking to you about God and Jesus and reads to you from the Bible he has given you. He tells you about the Love of Jesus and the compassion He had for those who were poor and suffering. He tells you that Jesus died for your sins and tells you about heaven. It is because of Him, he tells you, that Christians want to help strangers like you.

Then he tells you something else. He tells you that these same Christians want to build you a house. Again, your ears are ringing as you turn and look into the dark opening of the tiny, mud hut you call home. But this time you don’t feel the doubt you felt before. You trust this man. You trust these people who are helping you and now more than ever you want to know more about this Jesus whom they follow.

Just three weeks have gone by. You are standing at the entrance to your new home. It’s nothing fancy. In fact, it is truly humble. But to you, it is a castle. A castle with windows and doors. Windows that let in light. Doors that lock and keep you safe. Space for a bedroom for you and your children. Space for a dining area. Clean concrete floors. No more worms, snakes and chiggers. 

You thank the young preacher, then you close your eyes and thank God. Thank Him for this home. Thank Him for His son whose example of compassion and love made this possible. Made this miracle possible.

I sit in front of a computer and watch miracles like this every day. A little black rectangle with images and words. Images and words of suffering that I pass on to followers of Jesus like you, using nothing more than a keyboard. It’s not long though, before those images and words of suffering have become images of joy and an end to suffering. All of it happens amongst strangers with only one thing that binds them together. The one miracle that lives on through acts of unconditional love more than 2000 years after it occurred. That in and of itself… is miraculous.