Our team has had the opportunity to go to Omukalere village a few times a week throughout this trip. We attend Sunday services at the church there, do door to door ministry and love on the many children who are orphans there. In one of my previous blogs I talked about Dorcus, a little girl from the village I bonded with instantly when I went the first time. Dorcus understands almost no English, but through her countless hugs and smiles, her sitting in my lap and being more than content in my arms she has shown me great love and hope. She gives me hope that there truly is joy everywhere.
I went to this village two weeks ago and was completely broken. Almost every adult there struggles with alcoholism and it is spiritually the darkest place I have ever been. And that day as soon as I walked into that place, I was overwhelmed with the darkness and felt spiritually attacked unlike anything I have ever experienced. I prayed for people and tried to tell them about Jesus but my heart wasn't in it. The whole time I was counting down until we were leaving, everyone seemed more drunk and the men seemed more aggressive than usual. My joy was completely sucked out of me and I felt so far from God.
The few of us from the team that were there decided to pray over the village and everyone in it as we were leaving. I had just finished praying when little Dorcus came running into my arms. She has been wearing the same dirty skirt every time I've seen her, she didn't have a shirt on only an unzipped hoodie, she smelled like alcohol and she probably had twenty beer bottle caps in her pocket. I picked her up and as I stared into her beautiful, joyful eyes God completely broke me. Dorcus is a daughter of God just like me but was born into an awful environment, surrounded by alcohol and abandoned by her earthly mother and father. I stood there in the middle of the main dirt road of this village completely lost, weeping with my face buried in Dorcus' shoulder because God had broken my heart for what breaks His. All I wanted to do was take all of the children there out of that place and show them love, but I felt useless.
This past Thursday I was able to go back to the village. My hope was restored and I was reminded that there is a Great God who doesn't abandon his children. God showed me that although there is brokenness in Omukalere, there is also hope, joy, peace, love and so much more. Hope is meeting a husband and wife who run a daycare in the heart of the village to make sure the children start their education at an early age. Joy is dancing, singing and having tickle fights with the children. Peace is having a baby fall asleep in your lap. Love is a three year old boy sticking by his sister to make sure she is always okay. Love is being swarmed by children wanting hugs and to hold your hand. Love is praying with my brothers and sisters for a twenty year old student who wants to rejoice in the freedom of Jesus Christ but is in chains because of alcoholism.
Our Heavenly Father has the ability to turn any brokenness into beauty and He does it daily. And that beauty shines bright, overcoming any darkness.
