Love.

God did big things this summer, and one of those things was continuing to teach me to love. He showed me a lot about physical touch, not only in my life and my own love language, but also the impact it had on the kids in Swaziland. I think God had me sick all the time for this reason, or at least it was one of the reasons. As much as I wanted to run around and play with the kids all day long, I just couldn't all the time. I was weak and tired 75% of my time in Nsoko. Not a huge deal, but still, I went half way across the world to play with kids and show them the love of Christ. How could I do that by just sitting there? The kids received SO much love just by sitting there and holding my hand or sitting in my lap. The biggest instance of Him showing me the impact of physical touch was in a precious girl named Bongiwe, which I've already blogged about. The first night we bonded through physical touch when she slept on me. And after that, every time we spent time together, it was usually holding hands, sitting together. There was never any talking really, because she knows very little English. So we just sat. And held hands. And thinking about it, you wouldn't really think a close relationship would form from that just because we didn't really know anything about each other. But God really showed me the impact our love had the last couple days I was in Nsoko. On Sunday, the day before we left, Bongiwe found me after church. She had been in children's church and they had drawn pictures. Bongiwe gave me a piece of construction paper that she had drawn a kombi (van) pulling a trailer. She also wrote, "Goodbye" & "I love you Sara." As soon as she handed me that piece of paper, tears started rolling down my face. How could I be leaving this precious girl and possibly never seeing her again? And the next day.... oh man, was it hard. I think I cried the most of our whole team (be proud Lambda family). Bongiwe was there first thing in the morning. She had skipped school just to be there. When we were finally done with our chores I was able to go outside and hold her hand.... for the last time. She was standing there and tears started slowly rolling down her cheeks. After a little while, we were sitting down next to the house.... holding hands and crying together. Eventually she had her head in my lap, and the girl was sobbing. She was sitting there, holding my hand, with her head on my lap, bawling for at least an hour. And I'm not even exaggerating. Her shirt was soaked with her tears, and even my jeans were soaked as well. The same girl that I had exchanged very few words with was bawling on my lap because she didn't want me to leave. I was able to show her love just by sitting with her. Just by holding her hand. And I always have to remind myself that the only reason I'm able to love in the first place is because of Christ. One of my team members put it perfectly in a letter she wrote me. She said, "It's like God's love pours out into you and you let it fill you up AND THEN you let it overflow and touch everyone around you." I thought this was such a good visual. God pours His love into us, and we're able to let it overflow into the people around us. And even though I wasn't able to show this girl my love through conversations and games and playing, I was able to show just as much love, if not more, by just simply holding her hand.