I just stared at the little faces that gazed back at me with these big smiles, smiles that could melt any heart. As i stared at my computer screen alone in my office i felt the tears start welling and my throat choke up, the reality hit me that i was starring at the smiling faces of children that had seen more heart ache and more devistation then i could even begin to comprehend. Their faces were encrusted with dirt, you could see it was in their hair on their cloths, they were thin with melnurishment, but they were smiling. These sweet little children are affectionatly, and rightly so, referred to as the “children of the dirt”.

  These are the orphans of Nsoko, they were born in dirt, live in dirt, eat dirt when hungry enough and die in dirt. These are the innocent lives that have been racked with pain and hoplessness due to the AIDS epidemic that has sweeped through Swaziland, South Africa. These little angels are starving for food, attention, love and life, they are starved for hope.

  I have never been to Swaziland, i have never walked with these children,  or had the oppertunity to scoop them up and love on them with everything i have.And yet just reading their stories, reading on what is happening in Swazi, i feel my heart breaking, and this amazing love for them and their country just growing. i can’t explain how it happened, but i have fallen in love with people i have yet to meet.

  For those that don’t know, Swaziland is in a crisis. The AIDS epidemic is running ramped , 44% of the population is HIV positive, making it THE most AIDS infected country in the world. The population fell from 1.1 million two years ago to less than a million! This means that people are dying faster then they’re being born! The life expectancy is 28 years old, 28…we here in the US at this age have just really started living our lives, and these desperate people aren’t living to see it. Due to this there are over 100,000 orphans, one hundred thousand can you even begin to wrap your brain around that one, i know i can’t. My heart breaks when i see just one child sick, or in need of love, but there are thousands of them sleeping in the dirt tonight with out arms to hold them. Even more heart brekaing is the fact that 70% of these children will be HIV positive by the time they are 15 years old, and only 1 in 10 children will make it to the age of 30. If this is not a reason to grieve, i don’t know what is.

  BUT there is HOPE. I know, it doesn’t seem like it, but as Mother Teresa showed in her work in Calcutta with the leper’s, she was not there to prolong life, but to allow people to live out what ever time they had left, with someone loving them, singing and laughing with them, being Jesus to them. This is what we can do for these little souls, and for the women and men that are affected by this disease. We also are given the hope to see the epidemic stop with oppertunities to raise awareness and teach prevention, to save those who have not been exposed to this disease. There is HOPE! Jesus brings hope, there can be a light that peirces the dark places.

  I didn’t know what my true passion was, until i saw these faces, and that was when God awakened my heart for these little angels and for the hopeless hearts of the grieving mothers. For the longest time i didn’t understand the calling God had placed on my heart  years ago, when I had silently sat in a pew in a church turned training house in Kensington Philidelphia. It was there i heard Gods speak so clearly i could of sworn He was sitting there with me as he whispered, “I have called you to be my servant.” i remember feeling this incredable joy just filling every corner of my being. I had a purpose, He had spoken into that, but then came the  questions, “what does that mean?”, “aren’t we all called to be servants?”  God lead me time and time again throughout the years to Isaiah 6:8; “Whome shall I send? Who will go as a messanger to these people? Who will go for us? I said, Here I AM. SEND ME.” I felt from the moment my eyes glided over those words that these were spoken to me. These words meant something so significant to me personally. I felt it so much that i had Isaiah 6:8 tattooed onto my neck! crazy i know. I knew that this was the scripture that would define my destitiny in Christ. But it wasn’t until last week when He showed me this passage again, and i saw the smiling, dirty  faces in my mind, that i heard deep with in something say “be my messanger to these people. Be my servant.”

   I am saying “here i am! send me!” not only to the orphans of Swazi, but to the broken hearted hopeless hearts all around the world. This is what it is to be a servant. I finally understand. I am to be Jesus with skin on to these people. I am to bring Him to them.I am to bring His hope. 

   Mother Teresa is such an inspiration to me. She was the most, in my opinion, amazing servant figure of our century. She did nothing out of her own strength, or out of her own love. Someone once said to her, ” i wouldn’t do what you do for a million dollars.” and she answered, “neither would I.” What a response! I can only imagine a soft smile on her lips as she loving looked back at this person, and genuinely felt every word.

   I know that this is my calling. This is what God is asking of me, to take a step of faith. To go where ever it is that He calls me. And for the moment my calling is to love without condition the ones that stole my heart, these little angels with dirty faces.

 

“We can do no great things, just small things with great love. it is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it.” Mother Teresa

 

To read more on swaziland and the Nsoko Project click the site and checkout www.swaziland.myadventures.org