Sometimes we see something that is just beyond sad, heartbreaking, and we wish that we could unsee it, press rewind, and take a few steps back. But it’s etched on our minds forever. The very thing that breaks God’s heart, is also breaking mine. We are to love our neighbour as ourselves. I couldn’t ignore the urgent concern I felt for my seaside neighbour Uma. Unlike any other visit, this one disturbed me to my core. No human being should have to live like this.
In a room fit only for animals, a litter of newborn kittens have overtaken her bed which she finds too difficult to reach anyway. She lies in a fixed position, on top of a torn grass mat, spread over a dirty unswept wooden floor. I step over holes where the floor boards have rotted out, afraid of what else I might see if I look down, as I attempt to get close enough to look into her pain-stricken eyes and tell her, “Jesus love you Uma.”
It’s hard to breath in the stench. She tries to rest her head wrapped with white linen to cover an oozing
growth.
Day after day there is a torrential downpour making the water unfit to drink. Neighbours check in on her from time to time, sharing their food, but at the end of the day, behind a locked door, in a dark and lonely room, it’s just Uma and her cats.
Today, we take the light of Christ, the light that illumines the darkness around her. As we fill up her empty bottle with clean drinking water we offer her living water. Without hesitation she accepts and drinks of the living water, a thirst that was never quenched quite like this before is now satisfied. Now Uma can sleep in peace, in spite of her great pain and difficult circumstances, filled with the Hope of eternity.
By One of our workers in Fiji