Faces

Standing in a pit of dirty laundry at the Mother Teresa house this morning my mind drifted away to the many faces that I had just walked by in some kind of haste like I was late for some sort of meeting. Truth is I wasn't late at all but there is something deathly terrifying about looking into the face of a people so broken and poor. The Question is, "what is better, to ignore them or to look and in so doing risk the breaking of your heart" Walking to the home there wasn't a direction I could look without seeing heart breaking poverty. Naked children sitting crying on the curbs, blind, lame, dirty and poor, they were all there; In every direction. The slightest glance with gain you a rubbing hand for at least a block and if you give any money at all, you all of a sudden become an ATM. So with arms tied behind my back I walked those streets in complete awe of a world so broken and hurting. Stepping into the Mother Teresa home is not much better; for the place we are serving is labeled "A home for the Dying" Here I can look long and deep and hard into the faces of men from every age with every kind of disease and infection you can think of. Holding their hand or rubbing their frail bodies. Mother Teresa's heart was to show love and give some kind of dignity to the dying and I am so unworthy of carrying on this dream. As I changed soiled pants and fed the lame I couldn't help but pray a selfish prayer "God let me die young before I ever end up this way" In a place where I feel that they have lost all dignity and pride having young white kids change their pants it occurs to me that this is more dignity than most were ever shown in their life time.

I stamp the laundry until I think its clean and then proceed to wring it out to be rinsed and my mind drifts again. Who decided that I be born in Canada and these children to be born on these streets. In India the hindu faith makes a lame attempt to provide this answer by saying it is a punishment from their last life and they deserve to live there. I say Bull! what if it was me or you born in that little frail body, what if I was raised on the streets of Calcutta with only a begging hand to make my living. We live in a world where most things don't seem fair. Some like to blame this on God, I see their point but the fact of the matter is it didn't start with God, it started with man and an evil serpent. Satan came to this world to steal, kill and destroy. Wherever people give him reign he doesn't mess around. Every street corner has a different idol or a different picture of some god or goddess. 30 million gods in total in this country and if that isn't a reign of Satan then you obviously don't believe in Satan. Justice seems far from the people on the streets of Calcutta, but justice isn't what they need. They need freedom, they need grace, they need mercy....They need Jesus!

-Daniel