la la lee la dum dee da

I don’t know what to write.

I wish I did.

It’s 4 am… I’m awake again… but this time I went to bed early.

I slept on the balcony under my mosqueeto net. I woke up to the sound of African music being played by somewhere close by… lots of drums and kids singing in unison. I laid there smiling.

So much has happened in the last few days… I don’t know where to start.

I feel helpless.

There is so much need... so much going on... so much happening... I don't even know how to talk about it. I feel helpless in even trying to describe it because you won't get it. I'm not being rude, you just won't get it. I didn't... before coming here.

I have spent most of my time playing with children. I sometimes find myself unable to let go of them. As I hold them they stroke my skin to see if I am real. We can’t understand each other at all, but that doesn’t stop us from communicating. Our conversation is silent, but we smile… a lot.

I wipe their sticky hands with my skirt; I share my sunglasses with them. I bounce them up and down on my knee and pretend I am singing an African song… “la la lee la dum dee da.” They repeat after me word for word. They smile, they clap, they ask me to sing more… in a language that I don’t understand.

Maybe that’s why I am making up words instead of singing real songs... it puts us on the same level. There is no advantage. I don’t understand what I am saying anymore than they do. We’re all just singing about “la lee la’s” and “dee da dum’s,” not really knowing what the other one is saying, but laughing because we all sound the same.

They feel my skin again… yes, I am the same. We are the same. And to prove it we sing in unison about our la lee la’s and our dee da dum’s. For a brief moment we understand each other. We understand that we might not really know what the other one is saying, but we know it involves “I love you,” and that’s about all there really is that needs to be understood.

I love these children. I love loving them.

Today I held a little toddler whose parents died of HIV. It’s possible that the toddler carries the same disease. I did not want to let him go. He sat in my lap and I kissed his head. I rocked him back and forth and little tears streamed down his face. I think he was scared, but he didn’t move. He just stayed there in my lap.

I handed his sisters each a penny and told them what it was. “Penny,” they would say and hold it up and smile… “Penny.” They actually said it a lot better than most southerners’ do who call it a “pinny.” We covered them with stickers, but more so with love. We un-wrapped candy to give to them… the candy that I was afraid was going to blow out of my window during the tornado the day before I left for Africa.

I realize it’s just a bag of candy… but God had special hands for that candy to be in, which is why He left it right there on my floor, safe from the storm outside.

My candy bags are running low and my time is running short. What happens when the bags are empty and the time has come to board the plane? The reality is… I’m going back home.

While I’m here I get to see these kids smile for a day and laugh out loud... then I get to go back to our house, pat myself on the back for my good deed, eat my supper, throw away my leftovers, crawl in bed, under my covers, only to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow… for the next two weeks. And when the two weeks is up, I’ll pretty much do all of the above, minus the back patting for making African children smile because when I go back home my good deed will involve not giving some rude customer at Starbucks decaf when they ask for regular.

I could compare Naperville, IL and Kampala, Uganda and give all the cliché explanations of how spoiled we are in America and how much the people here in Africa need to be loved. But that wouldn’t help anybody. How much someone has does not determine how much they need to be loved. It is easy for me to love the people here… they have nothing, and so they openly accept my love.

But back home, it is so hard for me to love people. It is so hard to love the spoiled child who has everything… the business man who wants more money… the million dollar families in their million dollar homes. It’s hard for me to love them because they don’t seem like they need it. They have everything they need, right?

Wrong. That rich woman in her mansion needs Jesus just as much as that homeless child out on the street. Hard to swallow, I know, but true. Jesus said to care for the orphans and widows, yes, but he didn’t say to do so instead of loving those who are spiritually poor. The truth is, we all need to be loved. The children in Africa, the children in Naperville, we all need to be loved. And I think one of the hardest things about this is trip is going to be taking the love that I have learned over here and applying it to those back at home… to those who have everything, to those who don’t “need” anything, to those who don’t as openly accept my love, and to those who don’t even love me back. It is hard for me to love those people… but I know that that is what is going to have to happen when the candy bags have run out and the time has come to board the plane.