The time I spent in Kenya was filled with wonderful experiences through which God radically challenged my concept of what it truly meant to be a disciple of Christ.
One such experience occurred while we accompanied a Food for the Hungry team on home visits to families affected by HIV/AIDS. One of the families we visited consisted of ten people living in a space not much larger than an average-size tool shed. I could tell stories of the mother’s suffering from HIV/AIDS, or the grandfather’s injury due to a medical malpractice, or the brother’s farming accident that impaired his ability to work and left the grandmother as the sole provider for the entire family.
Hearing about any one of these tragic circumstances is enough to leave one in tears, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus on them as my gaze was captured by the two youngest members of this family. The two children were both boys, neither of whom looked to be older than 3 or 4. The signs of malnutrition were apparent in them: emaciated cheeks, swollen abdomens and dry, wrinkled skin. But the image that continues to haunt me was the sadness in their eyes. Throughout our entire time with the family, not once did the children laugh or smile. Never in my life have I ever been with a child who did not smile or laugh in that length of time. As I stood there, a sense of sorrow overwhelmed me. Over the next few weeks, this sorrow transformed to shame. What I had witnessed mocked me as a Christian and a human being. The stories of their suffering stood as a tribute to my ignorance and indifference. As I wrestled with this revelation, a question lingered, begging an answer. “Will you follow Me?”
In Kenya, God opened my eyes to what breaks His heart, and He confronted me about what it really means to be His follower. Honestly, I am still trying to figure out what following Him will look like for me, but I know that God has a heart that breaks for those who suffer from poverty and oppression. If I am truly to identify myself with Him then I must pray for the courage to cast aside ignorance, indifference and all else that comprises my stony heart and ask God to replace it with a heart that breaks and compels me to follow.
Jason Lee is a law and business graduate student at the University of Maryland. He loves sports and tries to find as much time as possible to play his guitar.
