Reflection on the poor

"In the words of our Holy Father, each one of us must be able 'to cleanse what is dirty, to warm what is lukewarm, to strengthen what is weak, to enlighten what is dark.' We must not be afraid to proclaim Christ's love and to love as He loved. Where God is, there is love; and where there is love, there always is an openness to serve. The world is hungry for God. When we all see God in each other, we will love one another as He loves us all. That is the fulfillment of the law, to love one another. This is all Jesus came to teach us: that God loves us, and that He wants us to love one another as He loves us. We must know that we have been created for greater things, not just to be a number in the world, not just to go for diplomas and degrees, this work and that work. We have been created in order to love and to be loved." Mother Teresa -"No Greater Love" p. 29 I have been convicted. I have been here for three months now and have found myself very self-consumed and disconnected with the marginalized and the suffering here in Ethiopia. I have become desensitized. Everyday I walk the streets and constantly have little hands reaching out to me, tugging on my hands, looking at me with sad eyes. Every day I walk by literally tons of crippled, suffering people. Young poor mothers with their infants curled up on the side of the road. People with no eyes, half their face burned, or abnormal sized body parts. People without legs or arms, people who walk on all fours like dogs....intense suffering. And what do I do? I walk on by it all. I look through them and not actually at them. I say no. Yesterday I was eating lunch with some friends and a little girl came up to our table, wanting money or food. We all ignored her until she went away. I thought nothing of it. It's a daily experience. When I first came here I kept on asking people what they do about all of the beggars...how they choose, when to give and when not to give...many people have different opinions. Most of them say never to give to children. There are SO MANY street children in Addis. Many of them are forced on the streets, some of them choose it, most of them learn to live that life and thus don't even try to work. It's a hard balance, but most Ethiopians say not to encourage the children to beg. Most Ethiopians do give small coins to the crippled and the old, because it's obvious that they can't work. Why are there so many crippled? People give different reasons...the diseases here, the lack of medicine and treatment....they don't have anywhere else to go but the streets. I still don't know what to do though...so I walk on by. I feel like I've lost the personal touch of God's love. At work I know we are helping the poor and suffering to come out of poverty...the work is amazing and it is transforming lives...but I usually am in the office writing papers, editing...etc. and when I do get to go and actually interview the people, it's very professional. It's so different then at home. At home I was able to pour my heart and soul into the Pomona community. Everyday I prayed for Gods love to pour out through me to those kids, and through that I felt God's love radiating back to me. It's hard to feel that here. It's easy to get disconnected and self-consumed. Pray that I will find a way to let God love through me. "God is within me with a more intimate presence than that whereby I am in myself: 'In Him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28 NAB). It is He who gives life to all, who gives power and being to all that exists. But for His sustaining presence, all things would cease to be and fall back into nothingness. Consider that you are in God, surrounded and encompassed by God, swimming in God. God's love is infinite. With God, nothing is impossible."