From the back seat . . .

I've spent the last 3 days shopping for goods to take into the "bush" of Congo, Africa, where our mission campus is located. There are no malls in Kinshasa, the capital, so every store has its own product, making shopping a challenge and an all-day, many-day event. From the back seat of the little car that Matondo, the driver navigates, I have plenty of time to take in my surroundings. He eases/jerks through lanes of slow-moving vehicles on "highways" and side streets built in the late forties, totally incapable of handling today's increased population.

Windows are kept rolled up, and doors are locked as refugees, beggars, and vendors walk freely on the boulevard and side streets, dodging traffic everywhere to make their presence known, in hopes of selling their wares in order to take a few Congo francs home with them in the evening. The physically and mentally handicapped are always nearby as well, crawling or squawking for help. Poverty abounds. Rotting trash lines the street shoulders. Hundreds of people pass on foot, many looking for work of any type to help ease their family's financial burdens.

I must distance myself from the shops where the goods we want are located because my white skin means a higher price for products normally costing less when purchased by the Congolese. While waiting for our pastors to find the best prices and buy the supplies, I have only to glance out of my window to view an assortment of products for sale carried by men and women, such as brooms, watches, soap, shirts, pants, jewelry, rat poison (that's a biggie for the bush where rats abound), shoes, and almost anything else one can imagine, even toilet bowl cleaner, waffles, hot dogs (who knows how long they've been exposed to the tropical sun?), toothbrushes, and whatever. You get the idea. These are for the bidding. A negotiated price is expected. It never remains the price suggested by the vendor. Thank God the temps have been in the 70's and low 80's, so perspiration is not at a drowning level.

Millions are without work. Hundreds rise each morning with some francs in their pockets from the previous day's sales. They scramble to buy goods from the stores downtown and then hand carry their purchases to resell them at a little bit higher cost. Hopefully, they will gain enough that day to feed their family supper and perhaps even make an installment on their children's "public school" tuition, since there are no free public schools in Congo. The tuition charges goes toward paying the teachers, whether it be grade school, middle school, or high school.

Times are hard in America, but they have always been hard in Congo. Now they are even harder. People are starving. Many are homeless. Others live in squalor. Most are born and die in obscurity; and, though they appear to be in the category of the "least" as Jesus called them, they are acknowledged throughout Scripture again and again. In fact, as you may recall, Jesus says that whatever we do unto the least of these, we actually show kindness to Him.

I have comforted my sad heart regarding their perilous condition, the despair in their faces, and the pain and agony on the countenances of the mamas who carry their babies on their backs looking for help with the words of the psalmist who says that it won't always be this way for the poor. Psalm 22:26 declares that they will one day eat and be satisfied. Not now necessarily, but one day. Men are dying from the stress of leaving their children in their homes hungry day after day as they seek employment which is just not to be had in Congo these days. So the fathers are literally dropping dead from the horror of watching their children starve according to Pastor Kanzila, one of our graduates who ministers in Kinshasa. But "the Lord hears the poor and needy and despises not His prisoners (His miserable and wounded ones). So our hope is that He will relieve them of their suffering one way or another; many times it is through death out here because of the lack of medical care facilities and/or no money to pay for health care of any kind.

I am reminded as I continue to watch abject poverty in my face of our meager efforts to help our staff physically with a small salary and other goods as God provides through you in America. Those efforts pale in comparison to what we aggressively attempt to offer them through the Word of God, specifically through the Gospel, and then further training in the Word of God by means of our Bible Institutes. It helps me breathe a sigh of temporary relief because if they are in the Beloved, relief and deliverance are on their way. But oh the suffering they experience in the now! Unfathomable unless you smell it, taste it, hear it, and touch it for yourselves. And even though I do all of that--smell, taste, hear, and touch it, it is still unfathomable. Psalm 131 becomes my refuge once again in dealing with the afflicted. It says, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in matters too great or in things too wonderful for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me ceased from fretting.

We cannot allow ourselves to fret. We just can't. Fretting leads to sin, and sin is equivalent to distrust. It's telling the Lord He is not doing a good enough job of this business of keeping everyone fed or whatever we may be personally facing in our lives that is beyond our grasp. There are no answers to the plight of the Congolese. I once again choose to rest in Him and remember that the "least" are of great worth in the Lord's eyes. He considers them precious cargo awaiting their flight to the comforts and splendor of Heaven.

God values the poor so much that the first 3 verses of Psalm 41 state that He handsomely rewards those who find like value in the poor. "Blessed, to be envied, is he who considers the weak and the poor; the Lord will deliver him in the time of evil and trouble. The Lord will protect him and keep him alive; he shall be called blessed in the land; and You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies. The Lord will sustain, refresh, and strength him on his bed off languishing; all his bed You O Lord will turn, change, and transform in his illness."

Wow! I want to be one of those You call blessed, one of those you protect and deliver because of the way I respond to the poor in my life. I happen to know some of those "least" who will be in your Hall of Fame, Lord. Their day is coming, Father. You will esteem them publicly, and they will no longer be pressed into the wall of despair by their lack. Bless Your Holy Name! You have it all figured out! I will rest in You.