the special ward

You're in a for a treat: you get to read an extended excerpt from my journal. I find sometimes I don't actually need new words to tell you about Kenya, that they've already been written and all I have to do is to show you. So, lucky you, you get to be a voyeur into a bit of my soul.

"Today we went to the disabled children's ward. We just sat and played with them for the first hour and a half or so. Didn't feel like I could make much use of myself. That just made me think of Peter during the transfiguration--trying to make himself useful ("Can I set up some tents, Jesus?") when He just wanted Peter to know He was Christ. And ultimately, it's not about being useful, but finding Jesus in every person at the orphanage and Huruma. To find the image of God stamped in them. This morning when I was sitting with Evaline, Maureen, Johnny, and Michael I was just...sitting, singing songs to them. Every time I started singing, though, I could feel tears fill my eyes. ... Seeing those broken, twisted bodies...I saw more of myself than Jesus in those children. I am broken and crippled with and by sin. I wonder what our physical forms would like if they were reflective of our spiritual depravity."