New Eyes: Praying for Ones that REALLY SEE!

A few weeks ago when Bethany and I were walking across the garbage filled field that we always pass through on our way to work, I stumbled across a dead cat. It caught me completely off guard. Bethany asked if I was going to start crying, but I managed to hold back the tears. Now some of you ((those who obviously are NOT cat lovers)) are probably thinking, “Jenny, really…it’s only a cat; there are hundreds more and after all it’s only an animal- no emotions, no feelings, and no human spirit.” Well what I have to tell you is it wasn’t so much that it was cat that was so upsetting, but the whole dead part. The death is what got me. I guess though I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Death isn’t exactly what you would call a foreign concept here in Kenya.
With the cycles of poverty, hunger, and AIDS, the funeral processions come weekly; every Thursday and Friday morning brings the sound of drums and tambourines as the bodies are carried from the mortuary, through the town, and to the burial sites. Even more, garbage, muck, and mess litter the streets and fields. Homeless street boys roam the town with disintegrating clothes, scavenging among the trash searching for something to sustain them for the day. These same street kids grow up to be the street men and women, who are penniless, homeless, dirty, sick, and hungry, with nothing to do all day but sit and wait. They’ve tried to get an education and have gone looking for work, but without the money to pay for school fees, education is impossible. And without an education, a job is unfathomable ((even with an education, employment is hard to come by)). So they sit and wait, and it looks as if they are waiting for death. With the lack of environmental awareness coupled with the drought Kenya has experienced of late, even the vegetation seems to be withering away. No green grass or smell of fresh air; luscious trees and blooming flowers are few and far between. On top of all of this, there is a heaviness felt- a burdened load. I think we could label it as the powers and principalities at work. That presence you can’t quite put your finger on, but you feel it day-in and day-out, as real as anything you’ve ever felt. I could go on with descriptions from all my senses- sights, smells, tastes, and sounds. But the point is they’ve processed the same observation. Through my eyes- the selfish, prideful, limited, flakey, greedy, uncompassionate, unloving, and deceitful eyes that I have- seeing that dead cat “crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s” on the question that had been toiling around in my mind: “Is Kenya dying? Where is life here in Kisumu?” The sufferings, the diseases, the burials, the reports, the surrounding environment, the history records, the newscasts, the frame of mind people live in, the corrupted government, and the deception people live with all kept my mind busy with, “Lord where are you? What are you doing here in Kenya? Can you hear the cries of your people?” And the answer I got was, “Jenny, I’m right here all around!”
At first I didn’t really get it, and I kept praying. I knew He was here, and I knew he was doing something, but I was still overwhelmed with the fatalism Kenya seemed to be caught in. But slowly I started to see glimpses here and there, and I have started to have eyes that really see. God really has been here all along. He was in the smile of the old woman who was missing her teeth; He was in the enthusiastic greetings and thumbs up of the kids; He was in every heartache planting a seed of restoration; He was in the little moments of laughter the suffering people enjoyed; He was in my embraces with the sick; He was comforting me every time Cathis ran up with arms wide open for a hug; He was in the grass and trees pushing through the garbage; He was in the little baby who realized mzungu’s weren’t dangerous; He was in the hope he restores in people through organizations like LCW; He was in the prayer of the street boy George during Sunday school; He is in Chris’ crazy prayers over our food every night; He is in the friendships He orchestrated with everyone in the office; He was in the starving woman scavenging for vegetables yet still welcoming us in her home with prayer and thanksgiving; He was the only foundation holding up the crumbling house; He really was EVERYWHERE!
And I started to have new eyes. Where I had looked with my eyes and could only see hopelessness, dejection, and death, God was seeing something entirely different. It is exactly at this moment of fatalism and desperation that God sees His greatest opportunity for intersection. He sees the seeds He rooted from the beginning of time, being watered and nurtured to fruition. He sees the glorious harvest to come. He sees his Kenyan children gathered around him, and he knows why his son was given as a ransom for all.
I think when God looks down and sees suffering, when he looks down and sees the epitome of his creation- the ones he made in his image- hurting themselves and hurting each other, he weeps. He sees the wounds, and it hurts him more deeply than we could ever imagine. But instead of only seeing destruction, He sees redemption. Where we throw up our hands in disgust and helplessness, he loves more deeply and gets his hands dirtier, holding the brokenness in his outstretched arms. Instead of seeing all the pieces, He sees the redeemed whole.
I recently found myself reading in Habakkuk, and I couldn’t help but notice some similarities. In chapter one, Habakkuk makes this plea,
“Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and conflict abounds.”
He continues to have dialogue with God about these things that he is witnessing. He can’t understand why God is allowing them. God replies with an interesting plan to rectify. Habakkuk can’t understand why or how God is going to use the people he is planning to use, nor can he really see God’s goodness through it all. But Habakkuk ends by saying this,
“Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”
I find myself here in Kenya, and I was looking through eyes like those that Habakkuk were first looking through. Every morning on my way to work, I am greeted by injustice. All my senses take in destruction and violence; strife and conflict are abounding. But like Habakkuk who went into dialogue with God, I have started to have new eyes. Eyes that even though sometimes I can only see the withering trees of the field and the empty stomachs of the kids I meet, I rejoice because I know that God sees something more glorious. I continue to pray for new eyes; I know it is only through a daily re-visioning that I will truly be able to see. And as I prepare to return to the states, I pray that my vision only becomes clearer. I invite you to join me in this prayer, praying that we will really have eyes that see.