This summer, I was worried about Elizabeth. Elizabeth was in the equivalent of her junior year of high school. Her grades were dropping. She had missed a lot of school and her head teacher had even met with me to discuss her repetitive sicknesses. She often had to go home early because she was faint or would so up to school late. Looking back, it all makes sense. But then, I was thinking HIV, TB, malaria, etc....
Then one afternoon in study hall, Elizabeth came to talk to me about her family. She told me that her younger sister and her lived with their aunt and uncle. They had no information about her parents and her aunt wouldn't give her information. Elizabeth was wrestling through doubts about her parent's being alive, too sick to care for them, too poor to care for them... or did her parent's just not want her? Elizabeth was questioning her worth... could something be wrong with her that her own mother abandoned her? The unknowing was eating her soul.
Then, less than a month after I got home I found out that Elizabeth was 6 months pregnant. How could I possibly not have known? I began struggling between the fact that it was sin and the fact that Jesus loves sinners and hung out with sinners. I didn't want to just let her disappear into Kibera as a 17 year old mom with no husband and no knowledge of a mother or father and no high school education. I knew I was supposed to help, but how? especially from half a world away?
After sending her a simple letter saying I still love you, I got this email...
"Kelsey am treading on a tortuous road,not only do i feel confused,sad or guilty but i also feel i have disappointed you people who are my benefactors,it is today that i have received your letter that i have felt that despite my present situation you are still fully and wholly behind my wellbeing....
If to tell you right now how i feel with myself, it is that when i realised i had conceived i felt like ending my life so that i dont live to see all these pregnancy humiliation...
i promise never to dissapoint you again please Kelsey, spare me aplace in your heart to forgive me and a chance too."
And while I am still full of questions, confusion and a broken heart for Elizabeth, I keep being pointed to Christ's love of the sinners and God's call to obey him. All I did was pray, send a letter of encouragement, and spent $25 on hospital bills and there's a girls still alive with a beautiful baby girl who is named after me (while that's really cool, and still a little weird, I am honored that God used me to impact a life in that way).
...beautiful.
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