Living Hope

Romans 15:13-May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

That word, hope, has been a challenging one for me lately. During my almost 3 week break, I was really trying to encourage myself to be positive and hopeful this year. I've been praying that God would bring hope to me. But, I must say, I'm struggling a bit. Yes, these last 3.5 months have been incredible. I can tell that I am growing greatly in my faith and as a nurse. And I am grateful for this opportunity and the people I have met. But, I must also acknowledge that I have never been so spiritually, mentally, and emotionally challenged before. As I told my friend Rebecca, This place messes with your mind. And it is definitely messing with mine. There are a lot of reasons for this and I won't go into all of them now. I'd love to talk with those who are interested when I return, but I am constantly confronted with issues of injustice, mistrust, racial tension, disease, and spiritual oppresion. I realize I came here with a very Western way of thinking and doing things and I'm being humbled more and more that my ways will not work here. That only God can provide hope and healing. Rather than strategies, I need to build relationships and show people I care about them and that they are loved by the God who created them. Only then, do I believe people will have hope and make positive changes and build out of poverty, anger, and disease.

John 15:5-I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

This verse has been speaking to me because I am learning more and more that I must be abiding in Christ in order to bear fruit. Believe me, there is too much suffering and pain in the world for us to do it by setting up organizations and giving money and opening health clinics and..... It won't work because the reality is people need more than that. They need more than money and clinics and schools. They need to know that their life is worthy and meaningful. Otherwise, people will continue to not protect their life against HIV or drink alcohol when they are pregnant knowing the consequences or... because they don't consider their life to have any worth. But it does. God cares about every detail of our lives and created us with purpose.

Thanks for letting me verbally processing or I guess journaling my thoughts. Its been a confusing week and it helps to write it out. I'll share a quick story that does give me great hope and shows me that my faith is only a small amount of what it could be.

On Christmas Eve, I went with others from the church to a government hospital in a township where we send most of our patients. I have heard horror stories about the government hospitals here so wasn't too surprised by the conditions I saw. We visited the pediatric wards and gave out presents and prayed for people. Most of the patients are in a big ward with 10-20 beds and no privacy, but there are a few small rooms off to the side that are private. I went into one of those rooms and there was a crying mother and her incredibly sick baby. The baby was 3 months old and severely sick. In medical terms, the baby was malnourished and was grunting and retracting with every breath. It's entire tiny body was working in order to take each breath. I thought to myself that they are in the private room because the nurses are expecting this baby to die and want the family to have privacy. The mother expressed she would like prayer so I called a few other women into the room that spoke the mother's language and we prayed over the baby and mother. I honestly thought as we prayed that we may witness her last breaths. I was praying more for the mother to be comforted and no pain for the baby than for any type of miracle because it seemed beyond that point. It turned out that the mother was from the township that we are working into and so one of the women (Sophy a health care worker in home based care) got her phone number to keep in touch with them. Last Sunday, Sophy came running up to me all excited and told me that she had called them mom and that the baby was doing well and had been discharged home. I couldn't believe it. And I realized that God is much greater than I give Him credit for. We need to expect the miraculous and I am learning that here.

I hope that story gives you encouragement and I hope you have a blessed week.