Suffering

As I continue my life here in Kenya I keep running into the same question, what should the effect of suffering be? I am not talking about suffering in my own life, but visualizing and experiencing someone else’s suffering. On any given day here I am made aware of more suffering in the lives of others then I could have imagined. So my question is what do I do with that?

I can think of a couple options:
-I can feel pity and leave it at that.
-I can go home being more grateful
-I can take action
-I can love the individual with all that I am

Of course none of these are mutually exclusive, and combining them all is probably the most effective action step, but which of these do I cling to? The question keeps coming to me like this, “OK I see all of this struggle, I see all of this pain, I love these people, I care about their lives, but what do I do next?” There are so many needs, that when you fill one hole, the others become even larger.

I have this burning in me, as I am sure many people do, to start the ultimate orphanage, or water program, or community center that will just close the door on suffering, while at the same time I know that at no point in time will that “fix-all” organization exist. However the burning for this type of program, as well as the conflict of knowing its impossibility becomes a sort of blow to ones ego. It is almost as if your shattered heart that causes you to want to do everything for these people, also pushes you to stumble.

I feel like we are so engrained by everything around us to bee the ONE, to make THE thing, that our conception of how God works through us becomes misconstrued. That may be the reason why there are so many churches, and those churches continue to splinter into other churches. This desire to have the ONE idea causes us to split from others who also have ideas, even if their ideas are fighting for the same purposes.

I don’t pretend to have any of the answers, actually I am admitting that I don’t have one, but for now all that seems to be evident is my need to love. I have to be able to push away my desire to solve the world’s problems, and just be content with the “I love you” of a child living with little love in their life.

It is so cliché, but, like usual, the times that I go out into the world and get involved in peoples lives expecting to teach them how to have better lives and how to grow closer to God, they teach me more then I could ever teach them.

For now I look at this face,



and pray; “what do I do next?”