Feel the Pain

Living on the mission field, you get used to certain things. You have to, or you may go crazy.  You learn to ignore the street kids trying to sell things on the side of the road.  The woman with scars all over her face, most likely from an abusive husband, selling from her basket of candies, gum. When I first moved down, I thought I would never get used to this stuff. It’s everywhere, though, and there is really nothing I can do about it. 

Every once in a while I will buy some things I don’t need from the kids or a couple of candy bars from the lady with the basket and not take any change.  It is hard to figure out the level to be involved.  Do I stop and talk to the lady with the basket? But, I am from the wrong culture and have the wrong skin color to do much.  Me trying to help in my broken Spanish may seem like a threat. There are still people here in Guatemala who have misconceptions of gringos, one of which is that we will eat their children. And, since many Guatemalans have a big belief in dispensing immediate justice, sometimes by lighting people on fire, it is best not to make too many waves.

It is even harder to not help with the kids. On the main street of town, kids are always begging or selling products or cleaning windshields.  These days, I almost never give to these children. This may sound heartless, but I do so for two reasons: 1. You could go broke giving to all the kids begging (this is minor compared to the second reason).  2. Many international aid groups have documented what happens to kids who beg. If they get money, the likelihood of them going to school goes down because their parents see them as a potential way to make money instead of focusing on their education.  Many of the kids are also forced and abused into working/begging. Giving to them reinforces that. (See here, here, here, here,and  here for a few articles about this.) 

So, I have gotten used to seeing but not processing. How to give here and there but not do more. This is one of the reason I love the Bible School.  Since the people are coming to us, it gives us an opportunity to help them more substantially and removes many of the risks and uncertainties of helping people on the streets.

But, every once in awhile something gets through the shell I have created. Today it was a girl, most likely in her early twenties, who was passed out on the sidewalk.  She had no pants on and was wearing only a dirty, stained pair of underwear, combat boots with no laces hanging off her feet, a ripped shirt, and a dirt-caked sweater.  Her face and hair were filthy and around her mouth there were stains, most likely from huffing to get high.  She was not there when I went into the store, but there she laid when I came out.  As I waited for my passenger, I watched person after person just walk around or step over her, like a crack in the sidewalk.

I wanted to pick her up (she couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds) and take her home.  Help her get cleaned up. Tell her how she has a Father who loves her and wants her to have a better life.

But I can’t. It's not that easy. A foreigner placing a young girl in his van is going to raise suspicion at best, imprisonment at worst.  The police don’t care about things like this, so I can’t call them.  There is nowhere I know of where I could even take her to get her help. 

So, I looked out the window, shedding a tear and saying a prayer for a woman I couldn't help.  When my passenger got in, we headed back to the Bible School.  Six hours later, in my warm house, I wondered where she is at. Is she selling her body to get enough money to buy more glue?  Did she head to her home where she is getting something to eat before huffing again?  Is she dead?  I’ll never know. All I do know is her life on earth is hell and I do not seem to have the tools or skills to help her.

One of the worst things is that this young girl's situation isn’t even unique. Here in Guatemala, it is just more visible than the United States, but there are women and men and girls and boys like this in every country in the entire world.

Sometimes it is good to have your heart broken, though.  It is a reminder of the need, and especially how people really need Jesus and to be reconciled to the Father.  If that young woman knew the love of her Father, she most likely would not do those things to herself or let other people do those things to her.  So, we train people at the Bible School to know Jesus and be reconciled to the Father and to teach others to do the same. Hopefully, one of them will get something in their heart to do something, and they know the systems of their country so they could be effective in ways I cannot.

Tonight, though, the only thing I can do is be willing to feel the pain, and pray earnestly for her and that she can know her Father and His comfort.

Memories

I'm pushing 40. I don't know if that makes a difference, but lately I have found myself  really missing the things that I have loved in the past. Sometimes I will get flashes of memories - poignant but brief impressions, really, rather like those left in the sand after a retreating wave - that warm my bones and make me happy on a sort of primal level. Of course, that happiness quickly evaporates at the realization that its inspiration was from a time gone by. In the past. Not going to happen again.

Sometimes the memories are impossible to recreate because the ones who made them happen have died. I suppose it should bring me a great degree of comfort to have loved and been loved so well and deeply that the passing of those close to me - even many years later - brings a twinge of pain. I have experienced loss as a child, a teenager, and an adult, and was even privileged to feel the last heart beat under my hand of someone whom I dearly adored. But, the ceasing of that heart, like the ceasing of all the others, signaled the end of life and all the experiences we had shared together. That is sobering, yet it makes the memories all the more precious.

Sometimes the happy memories that drop into my conscience and then slip away again are impossible to recreate because of choices or circumstances of the others who were involved. People move. They change. They get healthy or regress into sickness. They draw closer or retreat from relationships. Their tastes and habits evolve (or maybe digress!). Some of these are positive on the whole, and the net benefits overshadow the loss of activities we used to enjoy together. I am thrilled for the people whose lives are moving in a positive direction. Some changes or circumstances, however, are not positive, which only adds to the heaviness of the loss of our shared endeavors. It is, in a way, even more sad than a death to know the shadow of possibility or engagement still exists, but not its fulfillment.

And then, of course, there is the loss of things that I have loved that is solely and completely of my own creation. This one hurts the most, because I know it is a deprivation I am inflicting on myself and others. The vast majority of these losses are because of our decision to move to Guatemala. Every holiday I miss, milestone I'm not there for, family health issue I can't help with causes a flood of... of... of something I'm not sure how to name. It isn't doubt exactly, because we believe so strongly in our call to be here. It isn't regret, or uncertainty, or even something as simple as sadness, but a strange amalgam. It is a heavy feeling, and easy to get wrapped up in but hard to wear.

Truth be told, though, the losses are hardly ever the simple result of one person's death or decision - neither someone else's nor my own. That helps with the unburdening a bit. Even if we hadn't made the ridiculous choice to move to a far-flung locale, many (most, if I'm honest) of my treasured memories would still be just that. And, if I'm being totally honest, the treasured memories might not have been totally and completely treasured experiences when I was in the midst of them. Time does have a way of fuzzing things up.

I'm banking on that - the sort of felting of the strands of life that makes things tangled but cozy upon retrospection. It is what causes my memories to be so brief, fleeting, and transient. But, it's also what causes the hard edges that make life rough, like pebbles tossed in the surf, to get smoothed and softened over time; the intensity of life's problems, like the power of mighty waves, to fade over time; the ugly pits and chasms of day-to-day self doubt, like footprints on the beach, to fade over time. It allows growth and regression - for ourselves and others - to happen without entirely blotting out the memory of what came before. That is a comfort to me because I know the people who are gone or different will never fully be gone or different to me as long as the impressions and memories remain. It also means that our decision to be here has moved us, but not fully removed us from the hearts and minds of our loved ones, either. I like that.

(For what it's worth - it's not just nearing 40 or being on the mission field that has caused me to suddenly be introspective about such things. As I was nearing 30, I did the same thing, even blogging about my impressions and musings then, too.)