Moses.

I was walking to church with a friend the other day and she told me that she is HIV-positive.  She told me how the only man she’s ever loved gave her the virus without even telling her his status.  She told me how she lived in denial for a year after finding out, refusing to take the medicine that would keep her healthy and help her live longer.  She told me how the only reason she finally started taking them was her faith in Jesus.  She told me how she gets splitting headaches and sores and rashes.  She told me how she goes to the hospital by herself.  She told me how she takes her medicine twice a day.  She told me how she has to forgive the man who gave her this disease because he’s dead and she’s still alive. 

She told me all this with the most beautiful grace I’d ever seen.  And then we went to church where she danced and sang; a smile never leaving her face.

Charity and her sister Brenda told me about a 14-year-old girl named Memory, from the school where Brenda teaches, who died the other day.  They told me how she was born HIV-positive.  They told me how her parents both died when she was young, and none of her older siblings would take care of her because of her status.  They told me how this girl came to school every day and gave Brenda a hug.  They told me how she worked hard and never complained.  They told me how the school had no idea she was sick or why she suddenly stopped coming to school.  They told me how this girl sat in a hospital room for the last month of her life, and not a single family member visited her.  They told me how the nurses and doctors adopted her as if she was their own.  They told me how, at the funeral, these same nurses and doctors talked of her smile and how she sang worship songs during her final hours.  They told me how her family brought her nothing but a torn school shirt to bury her in.  They told me how the teachers at the school came together and raised money for that little girl’s funeral.

They told me all this as we drove through the dusty, bumpy roads of the compound where most of my Ndola students live.  The pain and frustration of living in this country that they love so much was clear on their faces and in their words.

My precious students come from many different backgrounds, but most of them have known more pain in their short 7, 10, or 14 years than I can possibly fathom.  One student was abandoned by his mother when she remarried a man who didn’t feel like taking care of her children.  Another student stays with his uncles and grandmother because his mother has lost her mind and can no longer take care of him.  One of our older students was removed from school for months at a time so he could instead go to the city to make money for his family.  Most of them wear the same tattered clothing every day.  They have cuts and bruises all over their bodies.  Many of them only eat once a day, at school.  And I’m sure some of them are HIV-positive due to the poor decisions of their parents, who are long gone by now.

And still they come.  They come to school and laugh with their friends.  They learn Bible verses and songs about how much Jesus loves them.  They follow me around like baby chicks, clamoring to be the one to hold my hand.  They giggle when I try to speak in Bemba and every day they ask, “Please, Teacher Amy, come eat nshima with us!”

This has become my norm.  This chasm of difference.  And most days I am able to move past it.  Most days I can focus on being the change; the blessing.  Most days I can distract myself with the tasks of teaching and loving these precious humans.  But some days I am broken.  Some days the injustice catches in my chest and I can barely breathe.  Some days I fall to my knees asking God why.  Why is my story so different from theirs?  Why did I get to grow up in a loving, safe home with both of my parents?  Why was going to school never a question for me?  Why have I been spared so much pain and fear and suffering??

And then I remember Moses.

Moses, the Hebrew child who was spared.  Who miraculously avoided the death that so many others suffered.  Who lived a life of luxury in the palace of Pharaoh instead of the life of slavery he was born into.  Who woke up one day and saw the chasm.  Who could take it no longer and demanded justice.  Who met God face to face and was finally blessed with an answer to his why’s.  Not because he was special or because God loved him more than the other Hebrews.  Not so that he could simply live a life of indulgence and never look back.  But so that he could save them all.  So that he could bring justice and grace and favor to an entire people group.  So that he could perform miracles.  So that he could live a life of purpose, not pleasure. 

I am Moses.  I was spared.  I am privileged in a world of impoverished.  And I pray that I see God’s face every day.  I pray that I never settle into comfort.  I pray that I bring justice and grace and favor to every person I meet in this beautifully broken world.

I pray.