Today (June 19, 2017) my heart was
broken, and it took everything inside of me not to weep in agony. It wasn’t
from the fact that I miss my friends or family, it wasn’t from abandoning the
place I call home to adopt a radically new environment, and it wasn’t from the
exhaustion caused by giving up our time that made me weep from deep in my soul.
Those things make me sad. What infected my soul with such agony was a broken
hearted mother.
Today we were visiting a house where
we had previously been invited to share the Gospel. The woman that had told us
to come back the following day invited us in once again as we walked up to the
front door. She looked young compared to most American women her age. She was
round-faced with thick hair and a joyful personality. We shared the story of
Lazarus and the rich man with her. Lazarus was the one who went to heaven and
the rich man went to hell. The rich man begged to raise Lazarus from the dead
so that the rich man’s family could be warned of the torment they would face if
they didn’t repent. We then shared the Gospel and asked if the woman was assured
of her salvation—if she would go to heaven when she died.
The once joyful woman now was embracing a child-sized, stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear, and unintentionally expressing sorrow on her face. Soon after, she handed me a sheet of school paper with a letter on it. The letter was from a woman whom had just given birth and lost the child 8 hours later. The letter described the mother’s sorrow and pain. The mother wrote that after barely surviving herself; she prayed and asked, ”God are you real?”, “Do you care?”, “Are you good?”, “How can you let this happen?”
After Roy finished translating the letter for me, the woman pointed to a picture nearby and told us that the mother who wrote that letter was herself and the baby in the picture was hers. In that instant I felt breathless, powerless, and heartbroken all at once. There was nothing I could tell her that would change anything. All I could tell her was that we live in a broken and sinful world and that God sent his Son for us so that we could spend eternity in a perfect heaven with Him. It is in Christ alone that we can find joy and relief from the pain of this world. She was excited to follow Christ and be forgiven of her sins. She looks forward to reading the Bible we gave her and finding the never-ending joy God has for her.
The once joyful woman now was embracing a child-sized, stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear, and unintentionally expressing sorrow on her face. Soon after, she handed me a sheet of school paper with a letter on it. The letter was from a woman whom had just given birth and lost the child 8 hours later. The letter described the mother’s sorrow and pain. The mother wrote that after barely surviving herself; she prayed and asked, ”God are you real?”, “Do you care?”, “Are you good?”, “How can you let this happen?”
After Roy finished translating the letter for me, the woman pointed to a picture nearby and told us that the mother who wrote that letter was herself and the baby in the picture was hers. In that instant I felt breathless, powerless, and heartbroken all at once. There was nothing I could tell her that would change anything. All I could tell her was that we live in a broken and sinful world and that God sent his Son for us so that we could spend eternity in a perfect heaven with Him. It is in Christ alone that we can find joy and relief from the pain of this world. She was excited to follow Christ and be forgiven of her sins. She looks forward to reading the Bible we gave her and finding the never-ending joy God has for her.
God is good and working in Barangay B.
-Riverboat EV team
-Riverboat EV team