There are those rare moments in our lives, and every Christian has them, when God gives us a glimpse of something that nobody else sees. The thin veil of this world is pulled back and for a moment, we see the Kingdom of God on earth, the heartache of this world and His heart for people in need. To be honest, if we learn to look for these moments, they aren’t so few and far between, but none the less, it was only my second day in Malawi when I had such a moment.
We were driving down to the Lilwonde National Park in southern Malawi to go on our Safari. This was our first really good look at the lives of the villagers, and as we drove through the country, I was mesmerized. It seemed like something out of National Geographic.
Once we turned down the little dirt road that would lead to the park, we passed by numerous villages, each with children out front playing or doing chores. Every time our bus passed by them all the children would run towards the bus cheering and waving at us. After a couple of villages we noticed they kept saying the same thing over and over, “bottle-o, bottle-o, bottle-o,” and we realized they were asking for our empty water bottles. They fill them with water to take to school with them.
As we drove by one small village several children came running out, laughing and waving as usual. I was looking past them at the hut, and that is when I saw her. A little girl, probably eight or nine, hobbling on makeshift wooden crutches and trying to catch up with the other kids near the bus. As I looked closer I realized she was missing her right foot and at that moment, my heart broke.
Here she was, limping along, while having absolutely no chance of catching up to the other kids and no chance of fighting to the front of the crowd to get a bottle if we had any to hand out. However, she was still laughing, smiling and waving, excited to see us none the less.
If this had been America, she may have never even lost her foot, and if she did, she would have a prosthetic by now and a relatively normal life. However, this wasn’t America. It was Malawi, and this served as a stark reminder of where we were.
I wanted to reach out to her. I wanted to pick her up, put her in our bus, take her back to America and get her a prosthetic foot to make her life easier. I wanted to help her, but of course I couldn’t, and in a blink she was gone. I asked around and nobody else had even seen her. In the five seconds it took to drive by her, God used that brief instant to show me the nature of His Kingdom and the realities of this world. On the way back through I looked for her. We had some water bottles, and I had hoped to give her one. Unfortunately, I did not see her, and while I know I will never see her again, I will never forget her…how could I?
-Written by Jeff, Y-Malawi Trip Alumni
*Jeff Jordan is a free lance writer, you can follow him @czarjefferson
