A Vulture and a Child: Becoming a Window

I had an interesting 9th grade class today. Very interesting. For the past few lessons, we have been talking about a "Foster Program in Nepal." It's a made-up scenario in the book in order to teach a grammar point, but since the English teacher I work with is very good at bringing real-life scenarios into the classroom, I got to share about the foster child that I adopted from Uganda and about some of my experiences in Africa. (I don't think she had any idea how close this all is to my heart.) During class today, she passed pictures out for the students, and they had to describe them to their friends. The picture above is one of the pictures that was passed out. The picture was taken in 1993 by Kevin Carter, a South African photographer, in the Southern Sudan. He won a Pulitzer Prize for it in 1994, and shortly after, due to depression, he committed suicide.

I had a hard time with the activity at first. The students in Japan are extremely sheltered. (Not that I'm not, I know). But, as they looked at the pictures, they were giggling and laughing, trying to find the English words for them. Afterward, however, just before class finished, my head teacher asked me to share about my experiences in Africa and "what they need." I shared a little about Mozambique and how I saw so many poor people. All I could explain in simple English was that many people are hungry, don't have enough clothes, and are badly injured. What I wanted to share was that I saw children starving, a girl with one mud-formed doll as her toy, babies barely clothed, city leaders with mangled limbs and down-trodden spirits, mothers dying of AIDS, and with little hope. And how on earth could I answer the question, "What do they need?" How does a 13-year-old, in an esoteric nation, one of the wealthiest nations of the world, understand the poverty and devastation of a war-torn nation, a child without basic necessities. They need food. They need clothes. They need medicine. And, overall, just as all people in all parts of the world, they need hope. Hope that there is a God who loves them. Hope for another day. Hope that there is an end to the pain. Hope that all is not loss.

And what part do I play in this giving of hope? This I am working through. I want to fix it all. But, just as it did with Kevin Carter, I fear it would consume me. I cannot carry the burden by myself, but lift it to Christ, and follow His path for sharing hope with the world. Today I was a window. Simply a window. I pray that some of the students that heard today would dare to look through and begin to understand the need. The need for hope. Their own need for hope. And to seek it out for all they're worth, only to be satisfied in the Hope of the World. Jesus Christ, who is their (our) Advocate, Defender, Man of Sorrows, Friend, Living Water, Bread of Life...Deliverer. May we never forget to pray for our brothers and sisters in Sudan, Mozambique, Japan, all over the world, and do what we can to give hope.

One way to pray: Mr. Tajima, a friend and pastor of a church in Koriyama, is losing eyesight in one of his eyes. He is somewhat of a scholar, and invaluable to the Christian body in Koriyama. To lose his eyesight would be an extremely difficult thing. He will have a very risky surgery on July 17th to try to take care of the problem. Please pray for his complete recovery, and peace for his family. Also, his daughter was just married one month ago (I attended the wedding), and her husband was in a car accident shortly after. He is off of work now, and struggling with severe pain in his neck and shoulders. Please pray for Shigeru and the family as a whole. They are strong followers of Christ, and faithful witnesses in a dry and weary land. Please remember them in your prayers.

Going Crazy Adriane and I just finished watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I must agree with the guys who decided on its 8 Academy Awards, I was impressed. It's interesting to realize how an environment can affect you, or how people in an environment can perceive you, especially when it is isolated and/or esoteric. I was talking with Adriane with how sometimes we feel like this in our specific situations in Japan. Not that I'm comparing Japan to a mental institution, mind you, but the way we perceive our situations here. This week has been pretty crazy. 9 hours on Monday, 12 hours on Tuesday 9 hours today, 12 tomorrow, Saturday morning tutoring...the list goes on. And that doesn't include the evening planning that goes into these lessons. Anyway, I don't say this to complain, but to give the background for how easy it is to forget that a whole other world exists outside of this place. I feel like those at home and residing in other parts of the world right now are like ghosts, or, as is much joked about, "phantoms." Do these people really exist? Am I making them up in my head? Will I go back to America to something I don't really know? Believe it or not, these kinds of things plague my dreams at night. It doesn't help that since being in Japan, my parents sold their house and moved to one that they built, my dad's parents sold their farm and moved to a condo, and my grandmother died, which required that my family sell my mom's parents' double, which they just did last Friday. Every time I think of "home" I have to evaluate whether or not what I'm imagining actually exists. The three places in which I grew up are now gone. How will I pick up life when I get back? Who will remain my friend? Who will not? There is much to be seen, and I know I can't figure it out by imagining it. It will just be. Eventually, time will tell, and it will all just be.