Things that matter

About one month ago she came in the clinic and the height/weight chart identified her as moderately malnourished. We talked about a few simple things, like how eating avocados and peanuts  and cooking with oil would help her gain weight. How fish and eggs are good sources of protein to build muscle.

Fast forward four weeks. She has gained 7 pounds, and I can’t believe that our short education session actually helped. It’s one of those amazingly confusing moments that makes me think, did this really happen? Because it seems too easy, even though I’m really glad it did. As we check the chart again she is now classified as being at a healthy weight. “C’est bon maintenant, bon travail!” We clap and shake hands, excited for this little success story. I think it deserves this kind of celebration because there are too many other stories of people who are only getting sicker and malnourished babies who are losing even more weight.

I leave the clinic at noon to walk home for lunch like I always do. I join the crowds of kids as they walk home from school for their lunch too, running and laughing and talking and buying food from little corner stands of people selling snacks on the side of the road. On the corner I see a little boy who always waves at me whenever he sees me walking by. “Christine!” I smile and wave back, “ça va?”

“Oui, ça va,” he responds, and gives me a thumbs up. As I keep walking two girls wave and cross the street to my side, and recognize them as my new friends I met last Friday, when I shared my grilled plantain with them and we walked on the main road together toward our homes together.

Je vous connais! Bonsoir, ça va?
Oui! ça va.
Et l'école?
Oui, bien, they say, smiling.

Even that we can have this short exchange of words makes me feel so good. Connected, and a little bit more like I belong here.

More kids come around and join our group as we walk home today and it’s fun to just watch as they play around and talk and laugh with each other as we all make our way home. A little girl is walking close to me, looking up at me with big brown eyes that don’t look away from my face. When I smile at her, her face changes from a blank stare to a smile. I hold out my hand and she takes it, and we walk together until I need to turn. "Je vais ici," and we wave goodbye with smiles and exclamations of "Au revoir!"

I walk the rest of the way to my house by myself, ending what would probably seem to anyone else like an insignificant walk home. But to me it isn’t, because I feel so free and on fire with a love that this world doesn’t give. And that love is alive here, I can feel it. Also, I kind of want to start skipping. The thought crosses my mind that these are the things that really matter, and I smile to myself as I think of how what matters to God and to people are so different. What matters to people is proof and numbers and physical evidence that a difference has been made. What matters to God is love.

“Meaningful” is not completely in the fact that people are learning how to eat healthy and nutrition demonstrations are happening and gardens are being planted (although these things are really exciting to be a part of and to see happening!). The truth is, they are not the end-result. Instead, the work is a result of lives changed by love, and it points to a God who is a good Father and cares about the whole person, every single part and detail of our lives.

I came here to help people, and I am so grateful that I can in the little ways that I know how. But I also know that any help I can give is not the final solution. Real help can’t end with me, or any person or place or education or physical aid or temporary thing. Because in God’s upside down kingdom, programs and knowledge and statistics aren’t what really matters. I think things that really matter are hidden in the simple things, so simple they almost seem too insignificant by the world’s standards.

I think that to God, “meaningful” is seen in the faces of people when they realize that someone cares, the laughter that comes from experiences of just living life with people through the good times and the bad. It is people working together and helping each other even when it’s not convenient or easy. It is a smile that says, “You matter to me,” a hand to hold, a familiar face, and love that gives without thinking about what it can get in return. A love that is contagious and gives confident hope, even in the midst of babies dying and children being neglected and people wasting away from AIDS.

I am learning to see “meaningful” through God’s eyes. And it’s not really something that can be put into words, or measured and calculated to see the impact. Because the difference is love, the real thing, that we are all empty without and that can only really come the source Himself. A love that lives and breathes and has a name - Jesus. It is a love that I don’t want to just talk about or write about. I want to know it. I want to know Him, for myself, more and more every day. And to live a life that matters by His standards.