Playing in the Puddles

When it’s pouring with rain, the kind of rain that saturates the soil in mere moments resulting in small dams as opposed to puddles, and which clears the streets of life for the duration of the storm; does the speed at which you move through the rain affect how wet you get? A question we pondered as we were caught in yet another storm a few weeks in Congo… The answer to the question is really not important. I’m all about getting out of the rain as quickly as possible to reduce the fizziness of my hair quite honestly, but all this running through the rain and hopping over puddles (not always easy in a skirt) got me thinking…

I arrived back in Mtwapa, Kenya at the beginning of April, our intention as a team was to rest for two weeks before heading back to the war zones of the Heart of Africa. That’s right, we refuse to see Congo as the deepest and darkest country on this continent, we refuse to believe that it will take 80 years, as pronounced by a government official recently, to rebuild this nation, we partner with the truth - Congo has resources enough not only to sustain herself, but nations way beyond her borders. Congo is a fertile and mineral rich country in which coltan and cassiterite, among other minerals are mined. Rather than resulting in increased wealth, these resources and mineral spoils have resulted in the bloodiest war since WWII. If you own a cellphone, mining (often illegal) in Congo made that happen… And so, as you can imagine, a break from active war, horrific war stories and the effects of war within entire communities is essential to staying healthy and ‘full’… full enough to pour out… full enough to love with reckless abandon and full enough to run into darkness and find the treasure, people who believe that they have been forgotten…

 

What a privilege to rest and be refreshed in Mtwapa. A place where we, as Justice Rising Congo, were loved, both much and well, by JR Kenya and the visiting team from BSSM (Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry). A place of family and friends. A place where the young girls of Bella House, children we’ve rescued from sex slavery, are able to be children who play and laugh and eat cookies before dinner. A place in which we are currently seeing young women trapped in the sex industry being encountered by the One who loved them first as He shows Himself to them in dreams and visions right in the very brothels they’re working in. Jesus is completely unafraid of going into the darkness of these seedy rooms to find His beloved.

 

As we spent time one evening, hanging out in our Nevaeh Drop-In Centre on the first floor of an office block right in the centre of Mtwapa’s largest, dirtiest brothel and a stone’s throw away from the strip clubs and shadiest joints, I looked out over the city and saw it. I saw Him. I saw Him, in all his splendour and all His glory walking along the ‘strip’, walking through the mess of it all, walking into the clubs known for selling really little girls, walking into the strip clubs where some of the most beautiful and broken people bide time until something else… until they’ve made enough to feed their families, until they find something to replace the hurt and fill the emptiness… Men and women desperate for more… And not once did Jesus lift His robe out of the muck on the ground. Not once, as I watched Him walk through the mess did He stop people from grabbing at Him. Not once did He look away. Not once did He hide His face from the reality of Mtwapa’s ‘nightlife’. Not once did He run to prevent Himself from getting dirty. Not once.

 

It’s moments like these that cause me to fall in love with my Jesus all over again. It’s in moments like these where the reality of the mess He loved me out of, makes it so easy to cry, “Yes!” His love drives me into these clubs and bars to sit with his beloved, to hear their stories, to buy them a soda, to remind them that they’re worthy, that they’re beautiful. As I listened to Rachel’s story one night, a story like many others, one of abuse and poverty, my perspective was radically challenged… “This is my first night back in the club after 3 months… I’ve just had a baby… I don’t want to be here… My baby needs to eat” Many may call her a whore. The truth: she’s simply a good mama who currently can’t see beyond the cloud of poverty in her present. The clubs are filled with many really good mothers! There IS something more. There IS life beyond the dark cloud of poverty and prostitution. Love, through relationship, dissipates this cloud. Love is willing to go on a journey of healing and restoration. Love unlocks doors of opportunity. Love is going see this brothel shut down!

 

We’re currently planning for micro-business and have plans to build a training spa. That’s right… soon… people from all over the world will be flocking to Kenya’s coast simply for the beaches, the brothels they once came for are going to have disappeared. All these lovelies employed elsewhere!

 

And so… I have decided that lifting my skirt as I trudge through the puddles on a muddy road is over-rated. I have decided that perhaps frizzy hair is not the worst thing to have to deal with. I have decided that perhaps right there, in the rain, is the best place to be and that by walking instead of running, I may get to enjoy it for just a while longer.