laughing at Jesus

{photo by jennifer upton}

I remember the first time I went to the mission. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember it was cold. I was with my grandfather and his friend, a chaplain whose name I can't recall. I know I was young.

and I remember the first time I ever heard someone laugh at the name of Jesus.

I had never seen a prostitute before. I don't think I even knew what the word meant. but I remember her clothes :: black leather jacket, hot pink shirt that plunged lower than anything I had ever seen. I remember her hair, box-blonde with obvious dark roots, piled up on top of her head. I remember the cigarette dangling from her fingers.

she was sitting behind me on the plastic chairs. the chaplain asked, when you hear the name Jesus, what do you think? and the woman laughed and screamed, holy schmoly. effing Christians!

the chaplain kept in stride, never breaking for a second. I remember that. he pointed to her and repeated the first part of her words like a teacher accepting answers from a crowd of boisterous students, glad they were speaking at all.

I don't remember anything else that was said after that. 

I had never heard someone respond that way to Jesus. I never even knew that existed, never knew that people thought that way about Christians. I was confused, hurt, a little girl who had grown up with Jesus from day one and never even dreamed that someone wouldn't like Him. why didn't she love Christians?

{photo by jennifer upton}

and then I grew up. and I started seeing that woman more often.

obviously it wasn't the same face. but the eyes were identical. I saw her everywhere, in crowds and in churches. I found her in the supermarket. I noticed her at the post office. I realized that I was friends with her.

and now I understand that laughter. I hear it differently. it was mocking, caustic, and was laden with so much pain. it was the sound of a woman who had been slapped and kicked and knocked down a thousand times, had reached out her hand, and had someone spit in her face.

she had been given up on by the ones who were supposed to be the hands and the feet. I don't know every step she took. but she is familiar to me now. her story is one I understand, her words are ones I completely comprehend.

He didn't come for us to look down, to refuse to meet the eyes of humanity. He was born for lifting up. for getting dirty. for putting on skin and blood and pain. He touched.

can't we?

compassion

{via pinterest}

church made me ache this morning. 

not one of those cringing aches in which convictions floods my soul and begs me to bring about change. no, this was different.

as Wess Stafford, the President of Compassion International, spoke of the need in the hearts of children around the world, i began to feel it then.

the ache of longing, of sorrow and grief and the strangest feeling of homesickness.

i ached for Peru. 

and i ached for her children.

i landed in Lima, Peru for the first time in 2006 on a two-week mission experience with then-Brio magazine. the minute i arrived, my soul knit with that place. 

it was the longest and shortest two weeks of my life. i could not be stopped, and so i returned to that same area again the next year...and then the next year after that. 

i still dream about that place. i step outside some mornings, and find myself stopping to sniff the air...because i smell Peru on the wind. it bears that distinct aroma of burning plastic and spices and tears and love and suffering and Jesus Christ. 

i dream about it sometimes -- almost as though i am there. when i wake up, i find myself weeping because i am not there, and it was only a dream. 

because those people are beautiful. that place is so full of emptiness and need. they are so hungry, starving for the Saviour. 

{photo by DramaticElegance, 2008}
me with Trian in Peru

the need is immense. these souls have nothing but the currency of Love, and they are more than willing to give you their very last dime. 

and i miss them. 

Peru's children are not the only ones that cry to be seen, to be heard in this broken, twisted shuffle. 

there are thousands of these dirt-streaked angels in a thousand countries, all with upturned faces and whispered words in a hundred languages. 

love me

please?

and the voice of their only Advocate whispering in reply

feed My lambs.

it costs less to sponsor a child with Compassion than it does to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks every day. 

what life could you change with a handful of dollars?  

sponsor a child with Compassion.

and feed His lambs.