because of who He is

I'm listening to a song now by Judy Jacobs titled, "Because of Who You Are." It's been a favorite song of mine for a long time, and tonight it holds significance because of a conversation I had this evening.

John and Cindy Norton (my host family) arranged an interview for me and Andrew with their friend who directs Hope Alive, a Christian organization that works with at-risk children in Uganda. Catherine, the director, is a calm, patient and well-spoken woman who has spent nearly twenty years working in Africa under World Venture. The Nortons invited her over to dinner so John, Cindy, Andrew and I could interview her and get to know her and her work more fully. She gave us incredible insight into starting and running a non-profit corporation and was able to give advice on both logistical, management as well as emotional and spiritual issues.

One things she advised us to do was evaluate our motivations--something that I've done time and time again. She made us aware that, worldwide, there is a 50% success rate for projects started for at-risk children and that the average project lasts around 3 years. Not encouraging statistics for eager social activists. The problem she attributed this to was the misguided motivation of founders, directors, staff and volunteers--namely, compassion.

As she explained, the more an individuals' social activism efforts are motivated by their compassion, the more likely their project is to fail. Destroyed emotionally by their own helplessness in the face of immense suffering, workers are quick to burn out.

I spent the first half of my morning listening to workers from another local child project governed by FOCUS: Uganda. The workers mentioned a mother with AIDS who is very close to death and her three children. The oldest daughter is in the equivalent of third grade and is terrified of her mother's imminent death. She is inable to watch her mother sleep for fear that she has died in her sleep, so she constantly wakes up her mother, day or night. The mother, who cares immensely for her children, promises the children she will stay awake during the night so her children can sleep peacefully. If she happens to fall asleep, the children fall into hysterics, wake her up and the cycle continues. There is no peace in their household and the tragedy is nearly breaking the hearts and spirit of the staff workers reaching out to the exhausted, impoverished family. I found myself wondering today not only how these families are surviving, but how these staff workers are able to surround themselves with suffering so often.

As I met Catherine this evening, I realized that I am becoming more sensitive to those working in the social justice field. By that, I mean that it is becoming easier and easier to identify someone who has worked among the poor and suffering for a long period of time. There is something in their voice, their spirit, that allows me to detect that they are a veteran of the field. There is a tiredness, a sadness, a brokenness about them that is very distinct. It's as though they've given up. And yet, they continue to work. I wonder to myself--from where do they draw their motivation? Their hope?

I am by no means a veteran, and yet there are days when I'm tired of hearing stories of human suffering. There are days, even here, when my helplessness and discouragement feels close to despair and I'm ready to turn my back, forget about the sick and the hungry and the poor and give up because their hopelessness feels too overwhelming. There are days when I wonder if there is any hope for this lost world.

Catherine was an encouragement tonight, in that she is one of these veteran social workers who continues fighting for justice in the darkest areas of this country. She stressed the importance that we, as Christians working with at-risk children, ground ourselves spiritually and draw our motivations from the nature of God. She reminded us that if we are motivated by compassion, which at times I am, our strength will fail and our streams will run dry. But if we tell each other constantly that we work because of God's redeeming nature we will derive our strength from an eternal source. In God, there is hope that creation will be restored and renewed. That the evil that has taken over this world will soon be defeated by God's victory. That the suffering we see so clearly here and work so hard to end will soon be turned into fathomless joy. In God, hope is like a stream in the desert of a dry, parched, thirsty world.

Still, I wondered why it is that those workers like Catherine seem so burdened by suffering. Why does it seem like these veterans of social justice work have given up? After thinking about it for a while, I think it's because they have given something up--by that I mean they've given themselves up. They've surrendered their entire lives to a God who demands, but offered, radical sacrifice. And all because of who He is.