Sometimes Life isn’t all Beautiful

Blessed are the orphans? Blessed are the people mistreated and misrepresented by oppressive and corrupt governments? Blessed are the poverty stricken people that live in crammed neighborhoods full of tiny mud brick houses along dusty pothole covered roads? Yeah, I guess. According to Matthew 5:2-12 (The Beatitudes) a lot of Africans are top candidates for being blessed.

I’d like to think that the world is pretty much good and beautiful and that everyone gets along and bad things rarely happen. I’d like to think that everyone has the opportunity to live a good full life filled with happiness and joy. I wish I could believe it’s true.

If you’ve read anything about Africa in the news lately (or tried living in Africa) you quickly realize the world is full of corrupt governments, poverty, sickness, death, sadness, restlessness, rebels, and generally not good things and that there are a lot of people who live in awful circumstances. I generally like to focus on the positive but I’ve been thinking a lot about the hard realities of life for Central Africans. (I also usually like to keep my blog entries short so I apologize but this blog is going to be breaking more that one of my rules of blogging).

Why have I been thinking about this? And why did I mention the Beatitudes? I’ll get back to that but first let me introduce you to a few people in my life right now and I think maybe you’ll understand.

Petula is one of my technical training sewing class friends. She’s a beautiful 15-year-old Central African girl who always wears jeans and perfume, is very good at knitting, and who seems to be a little hard around the edges. Petula has been a huge help to me as I’ve attempted to learn how to knit and I’ve made an extra effort to get to know her. Both of Petula’s parents have died so she lives with an older brother. He never went to high school so he earns a living for the family driving taxis. Petula tried high school but for some reason quite so now she’s in the PHC technical training. Petula’s story makes me sad but the saddest part is that it is the story of so many young Central Africans. There are so many kids here that have lost their parents, are being raised by siblings, and who don’t have a whole lot of options for their future. What encourages me about Petula is that she at least has PHC and the people there to provide her with love, role models, and hope for a future. There are so many orphans without this.

Marie Claire is my Sango language instructor and my African mother. I have spent a lot of time with this woman struggling through Sango lessons, exploring the city, laughing, crying, and chatting in Sango. Marie Claire can speak Sango, English, French, her village language, and a little bit of Spanish. She has a degree from Bible school (she was the top of her class but she didn’t receive any awards because she’s a girl) and has a passion for teaching and counseling women. She is very intelligent and wise. I look up to her a lot. I went over to her house for lunch last week. It was strange. The normally bubbly Marie Claire seemed very worn out and rightfully so. Women here work hard. She didn’t eat with us because that’s not the custom in Africa. She prepared our food and served us while we just sat there and ate good African food.

Marie Claire and her family (which includes nieces and nephews that are orphans) recently moved to Bangui to look for work. Her husband doesn’t have a job right now so pretty much their income is the money Marie Claire makes teaching Sango to Caitlin, Matt, and me. Her youngest daughter, little Gigi, is an adorable 5-year-old with downs syndrome and she is quite a handful. Another one of her daughters, Leticia, has severe burns from during the war a few years ago. Marie Claire has seen pain and experienced more heartache than I can imagine. Her mom and dad separated when she was a baby. Her mom married another man who beat her to death (literally) leaving Marie Claire an orphan. Marie Claire told me the other day how much she appreciates having a husband who loves God and treats her well. Everyday Marie Claire takes care of her family preparing food for them over a fire, washing their clothes with water pulled up from a well, and making money for her family by teaching Sango. This is her life and she’s grateful for it but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Again, Marie Claire’s story is not unique.

Odette comes to my house every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning to sell fruit and vegetables. Her son, Raymond, is one of my all-time favorite PHC kids and the smallest 13-year-old high schooler I have ever met. He watches out for me like a brother, always helps me catch the right bus, makes sure I greet the right people, and teaches me all sorts of useful and random things. Odette told me because Raymond is like a brother to me she is my mother. (I’ve been pretty successful at finding African mothers!) I don’t know much about Odette because our chats are never long. I was shocked when I first found out that she is a widow and a grandmother because she looks so young. I was really sad when Ginger told me she has AIDS and a few of her children have already died from it. I’m praying that Raymond doesn’t have AIDS. You know how some people say that people with AIDS have it because of the choices they’ve made? For many people that couldn’t be farther from the truth!

It fascinates me how some people get to live awesome lives full of happiness, prosperity, and “good luck,” while other peoples’ lives seem just the opposite. My dad always tells me life is what you make it and it’s your choice whether you’re happy or not. That’s true, but there are lots of things we have absolutely no control over and no choice in. Some people have great lives and some people struggle. I wish it weren’t this way. It doesn’t seem fair.

I hate that there’s so much imbalance, tension, sadness, heartache, pain, corruption, and violence. It all leads me to the conclusion that there must be something so wrong with this once perfect world that God created and there just has to be something better out there. And there is. The world is definitely not as it should be and even the best of lives is far from gleaming and perfect. Life could be so much more but this is a fallen world. Fallen but not without hope.

There will come a day when God will set things right. There is something so much better coming that it’s hard for us to even imagine it! When I see all the sadness here it makes me long for heaven. And I think this is why Jesus says in the Beatitudes that the oppressed and sad are blessed: they live each day with a hope for something better. There’s a longing in their hearts for a day when things will be set right and God will not disappoint that longing. He will bring joy, gladness, justice, peace, and everything that is truly good. In all this I’ve been convicted of the urgent need to live with the knowledge that God is stronger and his goodness is far better than anything that we call “good” in this world. The things of this world will disappoint. God won’t. The oppressed and poor are blessed because their hearts long for what is truly good and satisfying. Their hearts long for heaven. They know better than anyone that all is not right and beautiful and they live with a real hope that God will one day turn things right again. I pray that I learn how to live each day in light of that hope.

Yesterday the sewing class had a special devotional time. During this time a lot of the students stood up and shared, with tears streaming down their faces, the struggles and problems they were facing. It broke my heart listening to all that these kids have been through and are going through and knowing that there’s very little I can do or say to make a difference in their pain. The sewing class instructor read these verses from Psalm 34 to encourage the orphans and I think it’s a good quote to end on:

“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”