The Heart of Jesus (South Asia 7)

Before going to South Asia I was mentally preparing for a very difficult trip. I expected to come back to our hotel and cry every night. I thought it would be so overwhelmingly heartbreaking I wouldn't be able to feel or experience much else.

But it wasn't like that.

While in South Asia I saw so much of God's goodness and grace. And His love.

Love and joy were the central themes of the trip for me. Recognizing again and again that loving God, being loved by Him, and showing His love to others are the absolutely most important, the only things that truly matter.

We started our Saturday there going to mass at the “Mother House,” where Mother Teresa lived. This is a popular place for people visiting the city to go, and a very popular place to volunteer. There are a number of charity homes for the destitute and dying around the city, started by Mother Teresa. People come to volunteer at them, sometimes just for a day, for a few weeks, or a few months.

Though we only volunteered for a day, I really wish we could have done it longer. Quite honestly, it was one of the most fulfilling, joyous days of my entire life as we got to serve and love people who really couldn't do anything for themselves.

The guys and girls were in separate groups. Our group went to the “Ray of Hope” home. This home is for severely mentally and physically disabled girls.

Really, they're all women. But they are so disabled they are like girls. It was strange to interact with people so child-like, so helpless, and realize they are physically adults. It was like caring for giant babies, many couldn't talk, walk, or really even move.

A few were more mentally mature and could walk around, talk some, and interact with the volunteers. Seeing their interactions, I saw the name “Ray of Hope” was the most perfect name for this place.

It sounds depressing, the situation these girls are in, helpless and broken. But it wasn't. There was so much joy there. When we arrived the full-time volunteers gave us a short tour of the facilities and told us our duties.

As we walked around we got to meet some of the more functional girls. They were all so happy and so excited to see us. They hugged us, grabbed our hands, touched our faces.

This wasn't a sad place for the broken and unwanted to be fed and clothed, this was a beautiful place for the broken and now very-much wanted to be loved by people who truly cared.

There were volunteers in our group who had been coming to Ray of Hope for weeks and months. One girl had just graduated college and come to the city specifically for the purpose of serving through the Mother Teresa homes. She had been there for three months and would be in the city for another month. After that she planned to travel to Nicaragua to serve similarly.

It was so neat to see people serving simply for the joy of serving. They had no obligation to that place. It wasn't for money, a resume, or to check off the “community service” box on a college application. They were there simply to help others, and in that action there was a joy that I've rarely seen before.

When you have to do something it becomes a task, a chore, something you're doing out of obligation. When you want to do something it is fulfilling, joyous, there is a desire to be there, it was like that in Ray of Hope. Women who desired to love and serve those who could not help themselves.

There was so much laughter, so many smiles.

An absolutely beautiful thing.

That delight of serving, I found that in Ray of Hope. Experienced more joy than I ever have in my entire life. Felt more fulfilled than I could possibly describe with words.

We went into “classrooms” to spend time with the girls. The first room I was in had seven girls, all blind or almost blind, most of them confined to wheelchairs or sitting on a bench or on the floor.

The most you could really do was try to interact with them. They couldn't talk, though a few could make grunting noises, wave their hands in the air in response.

I could hold their hands. I could clap, say their names because that was one of the only words they would recognize. I could pat their hands against my own, rub their shoulders, stroke their hair. Most of the time they didn't even respond.

The girls were deformed and disfigured, some only had one eye, their hair cut very short so they all looked like little boys. No, they were not beautiful by the world's standards. But in the moment when they would respond to touch, to the sound of hands clapping in time to music or the sound of their own name being said over and over, they were the most beautiful girls in the world.

Their faces would light up, a hint of a smile dancing on their lips. They would bob up and down, wave their arms, make sounds of joy and excitement. That moment was filled with so much joy, it was so beautiful.

I couldn't stop smiling. I didn't stop smiling the whole time we were there.

There was this one little girl who loved dancing. She sat in her wheelchair chewing on her hands and just watching people, but when you started clapping with the music, and then dancing along, she got so excited! She was transformed, a smile bright across her face, waving her arms in the air in, totally consumed in the excitement of the moment, the simple act of people dancing around the room.

So much beauty, in a place you would probably never expect to find it.

It would have been easy to be filled with sorrow and pity at the girls in the home. You could see them and wonder what their purpose is. Think they can't contribute to society, they can't think or invent or give or do really anything. You could cynically say that. Those are valid questions, understandable concerns.

But here's the thing. Money, status, health, all these things aren't important. Love is.

Giving and receiving love, that is what makes life full, abundant.

No those girls will never get better. They will be fed and have their diapers changed for the rest of their, probably not very long, lives. They can't do anything, they can't love anyone.

But they can be loved. And loving and serving those girls was legitimately the most fulfilling experience of my entire life. My heart was bursting with joy.

That's what life is about! Loving and serving the “least of these.”

If you are capable of giving love, that's your role. We are filled with Jesus' love so we can go out and love others. You don't need anything else, the greatest commandment is to love one another, and the religion God finds true and faultless is loving the poor, the broken, the lost, the orphaned, and the widowed.

And if you can't give love, then your role is to receive love, which fulfills those giving the love. And serving at Ray of Hope, I was fulfilled.

Sure, it was uncomfortable helping the girls onto the toilet. It hurt to have my hands scratched by very sharp fingernails. It wasn't enjoyable to have saliva rubbed onto my face, to change diapers, wipe up spit, tear apart meat and fat with my fingers to put in a girl's mouth. But I didn't feel a moment of discomfort or a desire to get out and not be there.

That was totally God, working through me. Of my own strength, I couldn't have served there so joyfully. Of my own strength I cannot serve and love anyone unconditionally and fully. But as Christ fills me up, I can pour into others.

Jesus would have been at Ray of Hope.

He would have been there, tearing up pieces of meat for little girls, wiping their mouths, cleaning their clothes, patting their hands, stroking their hair, dancing before their laughing eyes. He would have been laughing and smiling too, loving and serving unconditionally, because that's the heart of Jesus.