All your life you hear stories about other places and other people. Things that happen that are bad, so so bad. You hear these stories, and have no way of identifying with them, no way of understanding them, but you hear them and all you can know is that it's bad and people need to be saved from these actions.
I remember reading stories about girls who have been through mutilation, and I heard from speakers and people that these things happening are bad and that people need to be saved, but never fully understood because I could never relate. This past week I met 30 of 35 girls who have been through this and my heart was literally broken as I stood asking these young girls between the ages of 13-20 why? how? to help me understand. The realization hit me that these are not stories. This is not just some thing that is bad, but that now I have thirty faces and voices that are attached to this thing and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to process, I don't understand why.
When hearing the stories and listening to the differences of why or because of culture I kept asking God, why? Why and how can He let these things happen to girls as young as 9, why do they see it as a cultural okay, why can I only see it as something terrible? I want to understand but I can't. And I probably never will.
The truth is, this is a big problem for me. I desire to have understanding. Understanding of so many things and when I can't understand it makes me frustrated and angry. I want to understand the language, I want to understand the people, the cultural traditions, but I can't and sometimes that is hard for me to surrender. To remember that even when I can't understand and I don't know God does, He knows the reasons why things like this happen, He knows the pain and the hurt and the healing that each girl has and is going through and He understands.
In the middle of trying to understand this heavy topic, a young girl three years younger than me was admitted into a clinic for being cut by her family, they tried to cut her with a thorn, but with no justification as to why. They cut an artery and the girl was bleeding so much, and yet she didn't want to help because she didn't want to go against the cultural, she didn't want to seem different from the other women who have gone through this procedure before her. There is fear there, but there is also so much loyalty, so much respect for the culture that sometimes the right and the wrong things become blurred and for me it's hard to say what is right and what is wrong because I come from such a different culture, from such a different background. It's hard. just hard to help when I can't understand.
Here in this place reality hits me hard in the face everyday and days I wake up and I hate it, I hate that reality is so real! haha. I know, strange. Reality is real and when it hits me, it hits me hard and it has taken a lot of dependence on God and a lot of trust in Him to know that He understands and He is taking care of these women, these young girls. That He is there provider and protecter, that maybe it's not for me to understand, it is just my job to love them no matter what they have gone through and to remind them that they are loved. Loved by me and loved by God. In this moment that is all I know how to do. that is all I can do. and it is all I want to do.
This week of the youth camp has finished and I met some amazing people. Some Germans, some Kenyans and the girls above as well as all the other male and female youth that were here. It was a great time to spend with great people. God really continues to bless me and I am enjoying the relationships I get to have and build no matter how short they last. He is in all and has all in His hands. His reality is that He is going to take care of me, no matter what and no matter where I am He's got me in the palm of His hands.
trusting in the reality of God,
HIS and yours,
Cami
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