On Mission

"I screamed at God for the starving child until I saw the starving child was God screaming at me". -Tony Agnesi.

A few years ago, during the height of Covid-19 when I was working remotely and after my wife had returned home from working as a nurse at hospitals in New York City and Phoenix, we were invited to volunteer for a few months as a family at an orphanage (Genesis Diez) in Ensenada, Mexico. We did a variety of things to include construction work, caretaking of children with severe disabilities, and more. It was a wonderful experience and we felt like we were able to make a  meaningful contribution.

A memory from that experience remains imprinted on my mind and now I know that it helped lead us to our current mission work in Tanzania. I had just walked out of a corner store in a small town South of Ensenada when I saw an indigenous woman (likely from Central America) coming into the store with her two small children. Their faces, bodies, and clothes were caked with dirt and filthy. It was apparent that the woman had been working in the nearby fields while her young children played in the mile long rows where she picked strawberries under the hot Baja sun. They were the poorest people I had seen in Mexico.

Walking back to the orphanage, I was acutely aware of the wad of Pesos in my pocket. I’ve observed extreme poverty before, but for some reason this time was different. I felt physical pain in my chest. Suddenly, I felt compelled to turn around and go back. I needed to know their story. I needed to buy them some food. I needed to do something. But it was too late. They were nowhere to be found.

I heard once that if you know, then you must do. If you don’t do, then you don’t really know. For me, this woman and her children who I walked by and then couldn’t find represented a crossroads. It’s resultant direction ended up with our family coming to Africa. In retrospect, however, I don’t think that that was a pre-requisite for a life change. It just happened to be the modus operandi at the time. So, what really changed?

I’ve seen terrible poverty in South America and Asia and I’ve seen firsthand grave injustices perpetrated in Afghanistan and Iraq. In my life, I’ve been the perpetrator of some injustices, but for some I’ve been the victim as well. Always, I have been at least an arm’s reach from my feelings about such things, especially as poverty is concerned. I know that the world is not fair. It is like the metaphor of the fat cats and starving dogs. It is pre-ordained. It is the way things have always been. We accept this reality with the uncomfortable conclusion that poverty has and always will exist. And if we have a choice, then obviously we should keep ourselves and our family as far away from it as possible.

Nelson Mandela once said in a speech:

 “As long as poverty, injustice, and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.”

I’m not so naïve to think that what I do in Africa or anywhere else in my life will solve poverty, violence, or injustice. That would be like trying to throw water on a raging fire. That being said, I lost something when I walked away from the indigenous woman in that little Mexican town. I lost the opportunity to be kind and to recognize the humanity of someone who matters just as much as I do under God’s great universe. We are the same and I lost the opportunity to show kindness, no matter what form that may have taken at the time.

It is easy to objectify situations and people. We do it to protect ourselves. When we let our guard down and we truly see the pain of the other, we don’t just see it, we feel it as well. And once we do, we are faced with a choice. What that choice is, I believe is different for every human being. Not all of us are destined to be saints. If you know me, then you know with certainty that I’ll be lucky to even escape some lower-level form of purgatory. I’m not sure what that even means, but I thought it sounded funny. In any case, I realize that growth for me has been and continues to be learning how to be vulnerable with others. To risk “feeling” and to avoid the self-protective nature of objectification. Africa is a good teacher that way. Every day affords one the opportunity to have an open and vulnerable heart or have one that is closed. I promise you, mine is not as open as it might appear on social media or in the pictures we post on blogs, letters, etc. Everyday is an exercise of surrender and of letting go so that my guard can come down and so that I can open myself to the feelings of others. Sometimes I can do it (and it hurts) and sometimes I come out swinging (and it causes hurt).

These 1.5 years in Africa have made a strong impression on my life, but they have flown by with uncanny speed. For our children, who have lived much less life, the time has been even more impactful. The main lesson learned so far? You don’t have to come to East Africa to find mission in life. We can show kindness and help others anywhere. That being said, I feel a certain responsibility to help others abroad. The wealth gap is just too massive. For that reason, I’m thankful we have been affored the opportunity in our life to do interntaional work and I am especially grateful for those who make an entire life of service out of it. I can definitely see why so much of our support has come from people who have lived or traveled abroad. They know and so they must do.