Meet the Batwa. An Urgent Cry to Awaken and See. UNITE Link Party

I had surgery. Was forced to lay in bed, staring straight up at the ceiling for five whole days.  Five days that seemed like an eternity, to this ADD, constantly going, OCD human.

It was there thoughts swirled, motives surfaced, the vain attempts at self-preservation found themselves whispering clearly…

And isn’t it funny how when we are still, God often displays His will, mercifully before us. It is then we have a choice; surrender or keep doing things our own way.

I finally crept helplessly, “Lord, I can’t keep fighting. I am done trying to open doors that seem cemented. If YOU want me to go to Africa, or serve in an even greater capacity…you are going to have to have someone outright ask me. Bring what you have, to ME.”

I stand up, after nearly a week of laying low. Then on Instagram, I connect with a lady who has a mutual friend we know.

She has fifteen children and has been to Uganda.

Our mutual friend “introduces us”, saying, we would absolutely love each other, and have the very same heart.

We connect further on Facebook. The Lord prompts me three times to promote the orphanage she is trying to raise funds for. But I am not into begging, and prefer letting God do what He wants in people’s hearts willingly.

So, I ignored Him. Three times.

But then I hear Him whisper this phrase, “Do you care more about your reputation, than you care about starving children?”

Needless to say, their promotion page went up on my Facebook wall and I was convicted for the billionth time, just how much God loves each orphaned child.

My new friend then responds, “You should come with us” in reference to Africa.

We connect further.  Talk on the phone for hours. I hear her heart and she tells me about the beautiful Batwa children…orphaned, left alone on the outskirts of the jungles.

I soon discover, Batwa are reportedly the longest known people group in the history of the world.

I spend the next week studying, learning.  I find the Batwa are less than five feet tall, pigmies.

In 2010, the government chose to protect the forest gorillas, and use their dwelling place to facilitate money-making expeditions.

The Batwa’s were lived there too…but they were kicked out of the forest.

They weren’t given refuge, taught skills, or offered a new home or place to dwell.  They were simply left alone to savage…after being taken from all they knew and loved.

As a result, the Batwa’s became enslaved by other tribes. They worked tireless (even the children), were treated as cursed, and weren’t welcomingly allowed in hospitals and school.

It is also tragically thought in Uganda that if you rape a Batwa women, it will cure you of aides.

The Batwa were whipped and forced to do incredibly hard work, sun up to sun down…for simply a handful of food as a day’s wage.

Ancient Greece once classified the Batwa as sub-human. Even today, many Ugandian’s claim the Batwa are cursed because they are little and don’t have the hormone that makes people grow…

Still, reports say the Batwa are gentle, peaceful, happy, and free from judgement or hate. They have a song that captivates you, and a smile that lights up the darkest of places.

They don’t want to bother people.  They just want to live like they have for hundreds of thousands of years…off the land, only doing what they have always know to do.

• What would it be like to be kicked out of your home?  To live and hunt, eat and survive, having all you have ever know be taken from you?
• What would it be like to be enslaved, having to scavenge, working all day just for one small morsel that somehow has to feed an entire family?
• What would it be like for your own government to think gorilla’s are more important than you, fellow citizens treating you like you were poisonous, or cursed?
• What would you do if you knew your child had only a 50% chance survival rate to live a day past age 5? Knowing disease, hunger, or a simple infectious cut could take your child life?

I am not sure about you, but my heart has always burned for, “the least of the least”. And the Batwa are the forgotten.

Research suggests, “If someone doesn’t help the Batwa…a people who are quite possibly the oldest recorded people group in all of history….the Batwa will soon fail to exist.”

I see her casket on Facebook. A nine-year-old Batwa child, laying there, waiting to be placed deep in the ground.

My new friend tells me, she laid there for days because pastors thought she was cursed and they were afraid to hold a funeral.

This little orphan girl without a future, or family, sat in a casket ignored by the world.

Where is the justice in that? Where are the eyes that scan the whole earth and calls us to evangelize the nations?

Finally, she was buried.

My own adopted African American daughter is also nine-years-old. She woke up this morning, breathes without pain. And I know, she won’t be dying today because she fortunately has access to nutrition and medical care.

Injustice and indignation swirls in my head.  The thought that someone would let a child sit for days, waiting in the sun makes me ache for those even more, that nobody sees.

I talk to the pastor of the orphans via Facebook. He is the one who cares for the Batwa people.  His fervent cry to feed the children makes me think, “How easy it is for us to not see?”

This pastor knows how hunger feels. He was an orphan himself when he was a child, and as a result, responds in faith, taking on those children God places in front of him.

I pray about what to do. I don’t want to close my eyes, live idolly by, in my bubble pretending…when my God came to care for; emotionally, spiritually, and physically ALL who are hungry and thirsty.

On Sunday, I attend an outdoor service.  I see Francis Chan in person and hear his message about dying to ourselves.

He says, “I don’t care if it’s offensive, I don’t care if it gets me killed. I do it because He loves me.”  And I wonder what I have died for lately….

Francis talks about not just listening, but “doing”, and “when your secure in your relationship with Him….you are fearless”.

I look up and spot a man directly in front of me.  He has a brown tee-shirt on. Africa stars back at me.

Days before that…I pray and seek the Lord, trusting His Spirit to speak to me….

I randomly open my Bible and read, “I have pity and sympathy for the people and My heart goes out to them, for they have been with Me now three days and have nothing left to eat.”

The hungry Batwa orphans flash into my mind.

Scripture goes on to talk about how He can’t send them away because they will faint and are feeble.  And Jesus asks his disciples, “How many loaves do you have?” (Mark 8:2)

And it is as if He is asking me…“What do you have to feed them?”

I look around at my big house, five bedrooms, three bathroom, acres sprawling, at the bounty He has given me.  And He whispers…“What do you have that you could give them?”

I glance one passage back and am shocked that out of all of scripture the words stare back at me…

“Let the children be fed, for it is not becoming, or proper or right to take children’s bread and give it to the dogs.”

My mind flashes to statistics that say, if we took all the food the restaurants in American threw away and fed those who are hungry, there would be no more starving people in the world.

I think about how each of us throw away left-overs, get full and throw away our dinners. We throw away our time, our efforts, our skills, and our callings…just because “waist” in normal in our country.

The pastor who oversees these children flashes in my mind. I think of writing this post, and as I am texting Him, He immediately says, “Feel free to share this story with as many as you like”.

So, it is simply and only by grace I write.  I don’t have all the answers.  I don’t know how to even comprehend, hundreds of children dying or going to bed hungry tonight….Or how the orphans without parents will survive in a country prizing gorillas over people...

But…

• I do know that His Spirit is life.
• And where He is, there is truth and power and strength and hope for the weak.
• I do know children shouldn’t have to go to bed tonight, hungry.
• I do know that God has given each of us such an abundance that we can easily forget that nine-year-old girls are fighting for their life, due to a disease that is totally curable and preventable.
• I do know Christ came not for the strong, He humbled himself and came to earth, for those that are the weak and the outcast…those that are in need a physician.

And I don’t want to live in the flesh, treading in my little suburban corner of the world, thinking a complacent life might somehow glorify our people-making, kind and compassion, every loving, orphan saving God.

I do not know where you are at tonight, what your journey of faith is, or how even reading this might make you feel.

But, what I do know is…

• We serve a big and amazing God, a God who can take the weak, and feeble, a humble people…and use them to feed the poor.
• He can take orphans and make them leaders.
• He can use evangelists to go where others refuse to go.
• He can somehow use these words to share the plight of the broken and needy…Those children fighting for their lives, while I sit back and wonder…Who will go?  Who will give their life?

He searches the whole world over…

Will you join me as I stand and cry, “Here I am Lord.  Send me”.

If you want more information on the campaign for the Batwa orphans, click HERE.

Will you prayerfully consider how God might have you participate in caring for these displaced people?

Also, will you please take a second and “like” the, House Of Living Hope Facebook Page? (“Like” this orphanage ministry, here)

In close, I am reminded of what Jesus tells us…“If you give even a cup of water to the least of these in My name, it is as if you are giving it to me.” (Matt 10:42)

Please, will you help us by sharing this post?  We want as many people possible to know about the Batwa children as we seek God in the days to come how to serve this needy and denigrating and ancient people group…

The orphans God so desperately loves…Just as much as He loves us.

(Photo credit, Sonya Schweighardt)

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