Notes From a Big White Ship.

April 9, 2014April 9, 2014 / Erin Kirk / 4 Comments

Few times in my life do I ever recall sweating like I was in this picture. Part of the reason is, I was standing in a two-room orphanage in the Republic of Congo with about 20 people and no fans.

The other part was Destin, the little boy I’m holding. He clung to me so tightly, for so long in that sweltering room, that we began melting together like a s’more.

Destin wore me out, but each time I shuffled him around trying to rest my arms, little worry lines grew on his forehead. He clutched my shoulders and whimpered as though his tiny protest, might prevent the inevitable.

The inevitable was, of course, me setting him down and heading back to the Big White Ship, to my big white life, where I have choices Destin can’t even imagine.

What kind of world is this? Setting those babies down, as they reached back up to us and cried, made me wonder if it was fair to pick them up in the first place. Oh Jesus help. This life is brutal.

Luckily, I’ve learned to drop to my knees when I get to thinking like that because, newsflash – it’s not all up to me to fix.

So on the way out, we paused in the Land Rover for a second and I prayed for all the things we can’t change. And of course we prayed for them too. Lord. Families please! Hurry!

Baby Creche is a program hosted by a Mercy Ships division called Mercy Ministries. For this program, they load up a dozen or so ship folks and head out to a state-run orphanage to hug some babies. Simple really. Humans need hugging. Especially baby humans who are abandoned on trash heaps or orphaned by AIDS.

At the orphanage, nine women, working around the clock in shifts of three, care for the children. While they do their best, they are outmatched by the need, and it’s clear by the way Destin clings, physical hunger hasn’t been his only concern. Cribs line the walls and you have to watch where you walk because the women leave babies sprawled out on the tile floor.

It’s not a bad idea, it’s cooler there.

Malika This is my friend Heather holding a little boy named Malchiat.

Like Destin, it’s hard to guess Malchiat’s age because he is malnourished. He was on the brink when somebody found him in the market and brought him to the orphanage. The women nursed him and Mercy Ministries put him on a special and kind of expensive diet. Malchiat is putting on weight now, frankly, because Mercy Ships is in Congo providing him a kind of expensive diet.

But the ship pulls out in June.

“What happens then?” I asked my friend KJ.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

So, in a big, mean world full of things we can’t change, here’s to the things we can. They need us, we need you and we all need each other. If you too would like to hug a baby on the other side of the world, we can help you do that.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

**As ever friends, the views herein are my own, not those of Mercy Ships.

Telling the Truth in Provence

April 2, 2014 / Erin Kirk / 5 Comments

There are only two ways to live your life,” Einstein said. “One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.”

Moonlight swim. Congo. Photo Credit: Martha Rodriguez

Last weekend, I was drinking wine in a beautiful French farmhouse chatting with two secular humanists about Jesus. Both of them believe that a historical Jesus was probably a fabrication, definitely an institutionalized myth, an opiate for the masses and certainly not the Christ.

It was jarring, especially after spending so much time recently on a big, white ship in West Africa, surrounded by some of the world’s most radical Christians.

And yet this is where I live now – sacred and secular all tangled up together, confusing the territory, demanding that I answer the question: Why bother with Jesus? Can’t one do good work without all that? I’m learning to respond in a way that loves people regardless of my opinion on their faith. Because really, who cares what I think about their faith?

But in Provence, I was on the ropes, taking a few punches, without any big, smart Christians around to defend me and why I live like I do now. It’s one thing to hang out with people who think just like you do, it’s another to talk openly about Jesus to a couple very shrewd, uber-rational atheists.

Hello rubber. Meet road.

So, do I trust Jesus to help me speak with clarity and kindness, no matter the audience? Can I articulate what I’m doing with Mercy Ships and why? Can I talk about Jesus honestly, like he’s in the room? How do I explain, without hysteria, what he did for me to people who think he is a myth?

I don’t know. So I just told them the truth – mine.

It didn’t take long for the “Jesus is a crutch for you” comment to drop like a bomb. Considering it afresh I thought:

Jesus isn’t crutch for me. He’s a stretcher upon which I collapsed and wearily admitted that I don’t know how to quit being selfish and to do work that matters in Africa or anywhere else. That, as it turns out, was a great place to start.

But the woman knowing what had happened to her came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her “Daughter your faith as made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease.” Mark 5:33-34

So it doesn’t matter where I am now, Congo, France, Texas, if you ask, I’m just going to tell you the truth, and frankly, it’s kind of messy. Sorry. Other Christians are doing the same. Meet Glennon. Meet Shauna. Meet Sarah.

Yes, it’s terrifying to lay yourself bare for others to inspect and challenge, because they do. Yes, I hear the enemy calling me a self-aggrandizing jerk and I squirm with fear and self-doubt. But every time I simply answer the question, every time I just tell the truth, inevitably a young woman will pull me aside afterward and say:

“Thank you for saying that out loud.”

And that to me is work that matters.

On Heaven and Earth In Congo.

March 22, 2014March 22, 2014 / Erin Kirk / 5 Comments

During dry season in Impfondo, Congo, the Oubangui River narrows and slows. Miles of wide sand beaches surface like beige river monsters, shimmery and hot, until the river interrupts them.

If the barge docks don’t lie, the river will rise thirty feet when the rains come, but for now it’s quiet with women schussing barefoot along the river carrying cassava on their heads and babies on their backs.

If you’re a doctor at Pioneer Christian Hospital, and not busy dispensing ARVs or convincing beautiful black women who’ve destroyed their skin with lightening creams not to split for the witch doctor, you can grab your family and trot down the cliffs to the miles of open sand. There, new and old friends are waiting.

Tonight it’s a little cold to swim, so we camp out on an old tarp left behind by the UN. We eat avocado and pineapple sandwiches and salty peanuts and real American brownies somebody made with the last of their propane. Blond haired missionary kids, who were born in country and speak Lingala like the natives they are, do backflips in the river with their friends.

Soon, stars belonging to both North and South begin dancing over the equator, as if one hemisphere’s stars are not enough. And because moon is late, the Milky Way emerges like pixie dust.

It’s here your cup might overflow and drown you.

Jesus himself said “I came so you might have and enjoy your life and have it in abundance until it overflows.” John 10:10.

This gathering, this river, this space, these stars feel so abundant it is hard to contain it – something Jesus also promised – Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. Luke 6:38.

That kind of abundance exists for those willing to submit all of it to Jesus and let him decide where the abundance is found. But who would have thought? Here Lord? The Republic of Congo? In my wildest imagination, I never saw this coming.

Walking home across the river dunes, Orion’s Belt up ahead and the Southern Cross at our backs, we wind up back at the mission, – the beating heart of Pioneer Christian Hospital. And because this is Africa, the Land Cruiser keys are missing or it won’t start or somebody needs a ride but they disappeared, so we wait.

Photo Credit: Nat Geo

And that’s lucky because standing deep in the shadows as the bats squeal in the mango trees, the fireflies appear, lighting up the wet grass with fleeting little sparkles.

And it doesn’t matter where you look, over your head or under your feet, the world just shines, and it’s tempting to drop to your knees and weep. For this one small moment, it is as He prayed…

On earth as it is in heaven.