broken world.

This past week I received bad news from home concerning those I loved. A family member's marriage is ending, along with a high school teacher that I admired.

A dear friend back home is still fighting a custody battle for her foster daughter.

Another friend's former husband just remarried.

We live in a broken and fallen world. In a world where the sacred bond of marriage is defiled and families are broken; where the foster system and orphanages exist because we have such thing as orphans. It's here and back home. My twin sis and bestie back home both have little students who go to bed hungry.

Its ugly. Its messy. Its uncomfortable.

One of the hardest and most uncomfortable things here, compared to the other West African countries that we've served, is the beggars.

Men, women, and children. Children who beg with their blind parent for money and food. Who aren't in school because they escort their relative around pleading for money.

I saw them in Benin and Togo. But not in these numbers. They are everywhere. Here, because of the war, there are so many war victims in wheel chairs or without a limb(s).

The hard part is that they come up to your window when it stops in traffic. Different ones. All the time. And especially because of my white skin (which signifies wealth here).

I struggle with this. The need is so great, how do you know which ones to give? I can't give to them all. Where do you draw the line when the need is everywhere? Some of them I assume (right or wrong) are doing it because they can, even though they are able-bodied to work. Consequently, because of the overwhelming need, I tend to swing to the extreme and rarely give at all; I smile, turn my head and look away until they leave, moving to the car behind me.

When Jesus said to feed the hungry and clothe the needy, what does that mean here? What does it look like?

Just some of my heart ponderings...


...but, I do know THIS!...