Prayers from Mabatini

Yesterday we shoveled raw sewage. A week ago we met some cool guys from Mabatini Village who invited us to their monthly clean-up sponsored by Missions of Hope's CHE program. This group comes together on the last Saturday of every month and unclogs the main trench that runs through the village. Weeks of sewage and decomposing trash fill these trenches, leaving the water stagnant and toxic. Without thinking through the situation fully, we picked up old rakes and began helping to clear out the filth.

This was probably the grossest thing I have ever done. All of us girls almost got sick on multiple occasions, but thankfully didn't.
As I was showering later in the day, my heart was so heavy; I scrubbed myself furiously, still feeling sick to my stomach, almost to the point of breakdown after being exposed to such filth. I needed to distance myself, maybe watch a movie, or talk with my room mates- anything to cope and forget what I had seen.
I kept thinking about the children. The children who played in the trash near where we were working have no way of escaping. The village is their home. As a 23 year old, I could barely wrap my head around the poverty for a few hours, and they are forced to experience it every second of their lives. But God, how could this be your plan for little babies?

This weekend is the first time I have begun to understand the heavy, unmoving, dark word that is Poverty. The last few days have been a time of reluctant, painful growth. They have been a time of clinging to Christ, using his Strength as the only way to comprehend walking back into the Valley tomorrow morning, and drawing on his Hope to see a better future for the little children.
Proverbs 23:10b-11