GiGi's Kitchen

GiGi’s kitchen is a small school and “Soup Kitchen,” for lack of a better term, which feeds those children in this particular area of Manzini who are termed orphans or vulnerable. Although these kids have a place to live and sleep, and some even have people to pay their school fees, most do not have families of their own anymore. One woman helping the children explained that the kids who do have a parent left are fending for themselves anyway, because that parent is often very sick and/or extremely poor. Brent and I visited this place for the first time a week ago, and we hope to return many times. I had wanted to write about this earlier, but truthfully I have been struggling with it ever since we left.

We went with a wonderful woman, Evelyn, who is the District Superintendant’s wife and the co-leader of the HIV/AIDS Task Force. She goes once a week to bring the kids a Bible lesson before they eat at about 3pm. Brent brought his guitar, so we sang with them a little bit and then served them their food. I served out of a huge pot of mealie meal (a corn porridge, like thick grits), and Brent ladled out the gravy, which had beans but no meat or vegetables in it. Someone had donated a huge bag of oranges, so each child also received an orange.

As we were serving I did not have an opportunity to think about each child and their struggle ut when we left the tears didn’t stop for over an hour. A day and half later the enormity of the truth finally set it: each of those beautiful, precious children has such a difficult challenge ahead of them, just to grow up! An abundance of questions sprang out of my tears and frustration: Will their lives be any better or different than their parents’? Will their children be orphans? Will they even live long enough to have children? If they do, what kind of life will they have without education? Will they have jobs? Is anyone at home fighting for them? And the worst question of all: what on earth can I do about it!? What was the point of me being here if I couldn’t do anything to help??

In the middle of my anger and tears, God spoke very clearly: compassion is not about fixing things. Compassion is about suffering with. Yet I was still not satisfied to think that God’s solution to suffering was just more suffering. How are my tears and pain going to help their hunger, their poverty, their sickness and their lack of education? I fought with God again for a few more minutes, but then he gently turned me around again.

In Genesis 16 when Hagar names God “the God who sees me,” she didn’t just mean a God who stands far off watching a situation. In the Hebrew understanding, to see meant to "act" upon something, just as God acted upon Hagar’s own situation as she was homeless, pregnant, and running away from Sarah and Abraham. Therefore our God does indeed suffer with… but He is also a God of action. And he calls His Church to suffer to the point of action as well!

I am reminded of the strong, generous women who ran GiGi’s kitchen in the first place – their compassion, their relationship with the children, the way they provide for them. We rejoice with our Lord that our God is not dead nor is he too busy for any circumstance. Even as he asks us to suffer with others in their pain.. praise be to God that he does not stop calling and his people still answer him.

Please join us in prayer this week:
· That God would call His Church to action here in Swaziland and all over the world
· That Brent and I would hear clearly the actions God is calling us to while we are here
· For the many orphans and vulnerable children here in Swaziland (about 150,000)
· For the strength and encouragement of many volunteers whose compassion leads them to action