Walking

I am thankful to be writing this from the comfort of a retreat home in Jinja, Uganda. It 
is green, wet, and restful. And I have to say, I need the rest. I feel like I've been wrung 
out and hung up to dry.

It's not that I've been doing too much, it's that I've been trying to do less.

Less taking over and more stepping back...
Less "fixing" and more walking alongside...

I just never knew it would be so hard.

This week as I went back and forth to the hospital, taking care of little Ziada and her mama,
I met another mama with premature twin girls. They are the same size Achuka was at birth (2 1/2 lb.) and are perfect. No complications. Beautiful.

And wet...and freezing...and wrapped in a thin blanket on a cold cement bench.

My first response, of course, was to take them home. To save them.

"They aren't going to survive...they'll get pneumonia if they don't have it already...they don't
have a chance in the village..." I thought to myself. Not to mention that the mother doesn't have milk and has been trying to buy and boil cow's milk from the local corral. What are their chances, really? Slim to none.

So what should we do? Take them home? What about tomorrow when another baby comes...and the next day, another? We can't save all the babies in Karamoja...we just can't. There are so many.

I'm learning this week that I can't save them. I tried, and I failed. I wish I could, but I just can't.

All I can do is walk. 

I can walk alongside...I can teach, I can model, I can love and cuddle, I can give value to each child's life. And this is so much harder. Walking is harder for me than taking them home. But this is what Jesus does for me...he walks with me. He holds me as I hold her, the grieving mother of the baby I could not save...he holds me as I give blankets to the mother of the beautiful, perfect twins. He holds me as I struggle to just walk...to walk alongside Him and to walk alongside them. 

Please pray for these sweet babies, Achen and Apiyo, that they would grow healthy and strong, and that I could walk with this mother as she struggles to raise them. Pray for refreshment for us here in beautiful Jinja. But more than anything, pray we would just keep walking, putting one foot in front of the other, following in our Master's footprints.

Be encouraged that He is walking with you as well in whatever situations you are facing. He knows your griefs and wants to walk alongside you through them...He is so good to us.