Doctor. That's what one of the kids I met at JP Brand Primary School wanted to be when they grew up. I also heard answers like lawyer, vet, and teacher. I almost couldn't believe the hope I was looking at when I heard those words. These kids, mostly, have nothing compared to American standards. This one kid in particular had all odds against her: divorce at a young age, abuse, death, alcoholism all within her family. Yet, on this day, I saw nothing but hope. I began to think about my own life. Although in a much different situation growing up with good money, I had experienced those hardships too. There was divorce at a young age, alcoholism, death, abuse, and jail all thrown into my story. But here I was, at a school in the middle of the desert, bringing love and God to kids who have basically nothing.
In those moments, our stories intertwined. I saw the hope of a young child and the hope of myself and in this was the most important lesson I had learned on this trip: hope in brokenness. Two different stories brought together by this hope. Two stories of brokenness, loss, hurt, pain but triumph because of Jesus Christ.
This led me to think about the cross. The cross symbolizes hope but for me it symbolizes brokenness too. As Jesus hung on the cross, he was bloody, beaten, bruised and broken crying out for God to help. But in a moment of death and life, all hope was given because of the sacrifice he made.
In the brokenness of the cross, we were given hope. While this may not seem like much, on that day out in the desert as the sun set, I began to comprehend the hope in brokenness that Christ gives us. A hope so deeply rooted in sacrifice that it didn't matter that a young kid from Africa and a girl from America lived two different lives because we were each given hope in our brokenness. We are redeemed, beautiful, and worthy and Christ did that for us. Without hope, this precious moment would not have happened. Without hope, we have nothing.
