One Step Closer to Nowhere

The following post is from one of my journal entries that I wrote on one of our last nights on our Nigeria trip.  These thoughts were scribbled in a notebook after spending 3 hours trying to collect them after a visits to "Bad Boys" and The Mission Hospital

There are no adjectives that could accurately describe the living hell hole of filth and humanity that we went to today.  People . . . old, young, men, women, children with no hope.  All of them gathered in little dark, filthy rooms drinking and smoking as if tomorrow they may wake up to a better life, only to be duped by their foolish dream and have to start all over again in the same place.

I have seen this up close.  The faces I will never forget.  The smells will linger long in my memory and yet I seem unable to conjure up much emotion,  Why?  Am I guarding something?  Will I be afraid to be so vulnerable to weep over these people and their plight?  I do not know why but my emotions are locked, numb by what I have seen and are either unable or unwilling to move.  

This is the first I have been unable to write much of anything for several days and this after sitting in this chair for 3 hours.  I have a lot to unpack mentally and emotionally and I am not quite sure how it will manifest itself.  I think most of all I feel guilty  Why am I so blessed?  Why has God granted me all all that He has and does He regret giving it to me due to poor stewardship?

I go home Monday, back to my beautiful wife and amazing children.  Back to my air conditioned home, my 2 cars, gas grill and all we cherish in America.  This while all of these people get one step closer to nowhere.  Why we share with them spiritually, what about physically, economically, socially? Where does it stop?  Maybe the better question is where does it start and how can it stop sooner, before hell comes to earth.

After seeing all of this, I am more and more convinced that our role is to bring a little of heaven to earth.  To take what we know of God, His goodness, grace, mercy & love and share it and in doing so bring a taste of heaven to them; to their desolate waste and provide a hope amidst the lament, a light among the dark rooms of the slums and a reassurance to a desperate mother who does not know if her new born will live or die.  This is our missional work that we are here to fulfill.  It is this that I have to believe that God used me for today.  If I do not believe this sleep would not come.  God make it so.