Can My Love Hold All of Africa?

I am now ending my third day in the wonderful country of South Africa.  Since being here I have felt like a tourist. We have gone on several game drives (one of which we were nearly charged by an enormous elephant!) and met several people only stopping for two minutes to shake someone's hand. I wondered whether I was on a mission's trip or a vacation--until today.

Today my heart was gripped by 70 small dirty precious hands and then laid to rest in the sick aged hands of a dying man.

Their bright smiling faces still shine in my heart.  Today, we spent the majority of the day inside a tiny old church building.  While it is no longer a church, it is now the school and safe haven of thirty-five disabled children.  As we walked in the door, their smiles and joy filled the room as living sunlight.  I have never loved so many children so instantly.  Drool covered every surface in sight and meal time was quite the adventure, but nothing could stop these kids from smiling.  Even the kids who didn't speak English or couldn't communicate at all were simply overjoyed with holding your hand or learning patty-cake for the hundredth time.  I have found that no matter where you go children are all the same--disabled, African, white or another.  They all love having their picture taken, feeling beautiful, getting their face painted, and being loved.  One little girl who stole everyone's hearts, Pretty, went back again and again to add another beautiful painting to her arm (beautiful was her new favorite word I taught her. Everything was BEAUTIFUL!!!)  These children, though they faced many hardships throughout their lives and still have many more to come, had such a beautiful outlook on life.  The smallest things gave them joy, and everything is, as Pretty would say. . . beautiful!

In the evening, I met a man named Moses sitting outside is small tin house content with watching the sun slowing creep beneath the mountains.  While he refuses to accept it, he has AIDS. It broke my heart to know that while I can give him food like we did the children, there is not much more that can be done.  I was told that soon his wife and son will be left to fend for themselves, and in about four years later the boy will be alone.  Every part of my inner being breaks with the knowledge that Moses is not the only person suffering from the sickness.  I am at a loss for words and actions.  All I know how to do right now is pray.  With God, I know that can be enough.  And with the Coca-Cola we promised to bring him tomorrow, his heart will smile.

Today it has become abundantly clear God's love spreads over every boundary--never holding back.  I see it in each animal, plant, and child.  My love for God's people stretches and expands with the knowledge of each individual child, man, and woman I am privileged to meet. As WM. Paul Young says in his book The Shack, "So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it.  Love is just the skin of knowing."