My dog was the first to notice that I was up way earlier than usual, and eagerly hopped out of her bed with her tail wagging, begging for an early morning stroll in the damp grass. When we returned, I snuggled back into my warm bed and entertained myself with a few quick games of Candy Crush Saga, half-way determined to fall back asleep soon. When my husband suddenly stopped snoring and turned over beside me, I worried about waking him and quickly put the iPad away. I laid back down for a while.
I tossed and turned for about forty minutes before finally admitting that I wasn't going to fall back asleep anytime soon, and would likely end up in the Starbucks line sometime this afternoon, with sore eyes and a deeper irritation than usual that they never seem to get my drink right. I grabbed my phone and got ready to start deleting a ton of junk e-mail...but then, one of my inbox messages instantly caught my attention. It was an e-mail from the contact person at the orphanage in Uganda that I'm involved with! I don't hear from him that often because the Internet reception is pretty iffy out there.
I love to hear from this man, for so many reasons! He greets me "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," which is much more charming than the simple "hellos" that we Americans have conditioned ourselves to type without any real meaning, just for the sake of good manners. There is genuine warmth in the way that people in Uganda embrace us, even through e-mail. I also love to hear about how the orphanage is doing...there isn't a better reminder for me of what a real difference our mission's time and money is making in the lives of its orphans! I usually spend all day, if not week, reflecting on some of the news that he sends from across the world.
I know that when most of us decide to sponsor an orphan in a third-world country, we really do have the best intentions at heart. We hear about all these sweet little kids that wear rags, and walk around dirt floors without any shoes, and if it's not enough that both of their parents were tragically killed, they're also starving, gosh dangit! It tugs on our heartstrings, and we can't say "no" to helping them, once we've imagined that kind of sadness. After all, what kind of person would refuse to help a child that's suffering like that? Especially if it's only thirty bucks a year? We love to guilt ourselves into good deeds, we Americans.
We sign up to "sponsor" these poor children, and feel those warm fuzzies while we're ripping a check from our wallet, and feel a little guiltier than usual while we're at the pizza joint with our own well-fed offspring, and feel like we're really making a difference when we tape their photographs to our refrigerators. We might think about them for a few days, or even a week, and brainstorm some ideas about how we can move Heaven and Earth to find a better way to feed them. All the while, our own kitchen counters are piling up with bills and dirty dishes, and we're running late to another soccer game...and...gradually...we stop looking at that picture on our fridge. It somehow gets lost in the shuffle of the wedding announcements and party invitations that compete for magnet space.
And something else happens, somewhere along the way: the initial desire that drove us to commit to sponsoring this child begins to fade. We stop praying for them every night, and we procrastinate on writing their letters, and it becomes just another item on our to-do list. We definitely didn't mean for it to happen that way...we care about these kids, we really do. Our American culture is driven almost purely by feeling. So, naturally, when our original feelings of desire to help these children started to fade, our commitment did, too.
So, I read the brief and jovial update from the orphanage with a big smile on my face...because I, too, need frequent reminders of the fact that, despite how busy my schedule is, my real passion is to help these orphans. Our contact person asked if we found "friends" for the two new orphans yet, and I instantly responded and told him the good news: we had! He wrote back almost immediately and told me that these two new orphans constantly approached him to ask about their new friends, and were very eager to receive their letters and shoes from them, which they did not have the benefit of receiving last time (since they were new).
It blessed me so much to hear how much our letters and small monetary donations really mean to these children. To us, shoes are a necessity...to them, they are a true gift that they eagerly await. These orphans are genuinely grateful for all that they receive, and we all have a lot to learn from them!
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