Reality...

The window was open wide letting in the fresh Philippine air, dirt stained the once white floor, but what caught my eye the most was his little brown body that lay on the hard bamboo bed. Other men were in the same room sitting on the same kind of bamboo beds. One had TB, another man had a heart problem, and still the other two men were sick as well. Most of them were sitting on their beds and as I looked into the eyes of one I could see he was very sick.

Whimpering noises came from the little brown body from time to time though his eyes were closed shut. Hooked up to oxygen made it easier for the baby, who was not even three years old, to breath. His little chest would heave and his breathed very fast. He was a chubby baby but worms and malnutrition most likely attributed to his chubby appearance. This baby was in the hospital.

The stark reality of the situation hit me as I saw his burned body. The side of his stomach was burned as well as his little arm and hand. Where his baby brown flesh should have been was only red and exposed. It had so happened that he was not attended to fast enough after he burned himself trying to get some rice. His mother and father were not in the house when the incidence happened, only siblings.

There he lay on what I wouldn't even consider a decent hospital bed, his father close by his side. The older man had worked hard all of his life trying to support the his family. People start out so young here having children and they have very large families. It's not uncommon for families to have 7-10 children. Consequently those children don't get cared for properly as in this case.

Today I went back to the hospital to have a lab test done as I haven't been feeling too well. I went back to the room where the little baby had been. It was empty except for one man who was getting ready to go home. The baby had died. In the U.S. a baby with the burns this baby had would not have died due to 911, clean hospitals, and good doctors. Here, it is another story. The reality was too much and as I went back out to the truck I started to cry. He didn't need to die......Reality is that the need is so great here. The need for education, the need for better medical facilities (and this hospital is new if you can believe that one), the need for someone to show them a better way. That better way can only be found in Christ Jesus. All of my feelings of homesickness, loneliness, stress, can not even be compared to the suffering of these people. The need is great and to be honest this need is reality. What I see every day is reality. In the U.S. we may have it hard but please let me be honest, we have it so good. Most of the world is hurting, is starving, and has hardly anything. Most of the world doesn't get enough clean water, enough nutrition to keep their hair from getting a reddish tint to it from a lack of protein, or enough care. Most of the world doesn't know what real love is, peace, happiness, and pure joy. How can I be selfish and hide my Jesus from a world that needs me to be His hands, His feet, His eyes. His heart must hurt as He looks down and sees the need and the condition of our hearts. His heart must ache as no one answers the call to give up lives of ease to work for the good of their fellow men.

My eyes are being continually opened to the reality of life, the reality that Jesus needs me to be His hands and feet and that He will take care of me in the process. Will you let Jesus be His hands and feet through you?