“You will never understand what we go through. Yes, there are problems where you come from, but you will never understand what it is like to be a Haitian. To be afraid to exist. To be judged by the color of your skin. To have to be 10 times smarter than any Dominican because if you make a mistake you will get judged harsher. I know 5 languages. I learned English in 4 months because I had to survive here.”
Imagine living in a country that is not your home. Imagine wishing your skin was 3 shades lighter because that is what you grew up believing beauty was. Imagine wishing your flesh wasn’t dark brown because if it were lighter, you wouldn’t be constantly be in danger of deportation and discrimination. Your family lives across the island, across a border that you can’t cross, that might as well be an ocean. You struggled there, so you immigrated only to find the same struggles here without the comfort of those you love. You feel poor, you feel defeated, you feel confused. Imagine being a Haitian in the Dominican Republic. But you will never understand, at least that’s what I was told.
And that is the plight of the missionary. To be unable to understand, eternally encased in a past of ease. To have to look inside the eyes of the oppressed without having been oppressed yourself, holding the Word of Life out to people whose earthly need is incomprehensible. What do we say, what do we do, when there is no bridge to their hearts but through Christ? I guess we have to take that bridge, the one that He offers, the hard one. It’s the path Jesus took, 2,000 years ago, when He descended to earth, lived in our mess simply so He could be close to those who were hurting. It’s what we are called to do, too. It doesn’t work to drag them into our world, since our world is full of its own problems. We have to meet them in theirs, absorbing their troubles into our own hearts. We know that there is no way there can be unity between our experience and theirs, but that isn’t the point of our labor. We aren’t trying to save them, we are trying to point them to the Savior. And when our stories seem inadequate to explain the magnitude of His mercy, He is the one who intercedes. As much as I love them, He loves them more, He loves them more than I or anyone else could imagine. So let Him love them, allow Him to speak through you when you are the good news, because anything you say in your own strength will not be enough. Don’t regret what you have been through, good or bad, because He is the one who distributes life to each person, and He is the One who desires to bring each person to Himself.
Trying to imagine what people have gone through is necessary to loving them as Jesus did. But don’t dive too deep into your imagination, losing the light that you were given from the Lord. There is a reason you have your past, there is a purpose for your story. Trust that the Lord will bring all things to glorify Himself. And when all comes to an end, we will be eternally worshipping our Father next to other citizens of heaven, unable to remember this life of pain, except that it was a dream of a dream.
