posts

If we weren’t here
would anyone really notice?

If our city set on a hill became overgrown with trees and vines, would it change the way people thought in the valley?

Is the measure of our effectiveness
bodies in pews
successful programs
comfortable budgets?

Or do we measure success
one person at a time?

If we weren’t here,
would anyone really notice?

Would they feel a bit less condemned
a little more respected?

If we weren’t here
would people miss
our television preachers?
our moral majority?

Is it possible that people be able to see God a little more clearly
if it weren’t for his followers?

Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

It was wonderful to watch them put aside the suspicions and fears they carry with them so often and just have fun being kids. It was a good reminder that there is at least a little bit of human in every one of us, and sometimes the conditions just have to be right before it comes out. As I look at these guys, I see lives that have been dehumanized so much – forced into situations where the good that is inside of them is repressed and forced into some dark corner, only to be let out at rare intervals. But as I’ve told so many people on the outside who ask, I think that these kids desperately wantnothing more than to be kids. – to be accepted, to be human.

In ways, it’s nothing more than any of us want. We all want to be accepted ant to be able to be ourselves. We all, I think, find joy in service, and in having fun. I think that a lot of us enjoy casting aside the cares of the world for a while. I think that the difference between them and us is that we are able to do it so much more often. These guys have such a deep desire to be accepted and appreciated that I think they would give up anything for it, if indeed they had anything to give.

eastleigh
nairobi, kenya
28 July 2001