I am once again honored to feature a guest post by Rev. Kimberly Burke, Associate Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Boerne, Texas. Rev. Burke resides in Boerne with her husband Danny and son Jordan. This post is Part 3 of her impressions of her experience as a missionary to Uganda, participating with the Tree of Life Ministries. See Part 1 and Part 2.
There are a few observations that I made in relation
to our two planets; the planets of the East and West. The first is how the two come to view
hope. In a world that from a western
perspective seems devoid of hope. Hope
abounds! Hope is alive! Hope is all there is. I realized how often we cast our burdens yet
so readily pick them back up, roll around in them and make them part of our
being. They are like ghosts that follow
us around year after year stealing our joy and happiness. They whisper
lies…you’re not good enough, you’re weak, you’re less than. The faith that my Eastern sisters have isone of necessity, it is day to day-moment by moment-breath
by breath faith. In the West we often
lack this kind of faith because we are driven back to the belief that we can
fix our situations that we are the creators of our lives. We believe our doubts and doubt our
faith. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus
tells us, “My grace is enough for you: for where there is weakness, my power is
shown the more completely.” For those of
us in the West with a plethora of distractions, quick fixes, and self-reliance
we lack what the East has at its disposal…trust. Hope draws its power from a deep trust in
God; one that has been tested over time and one that has not come up
lacking. The West is a culture of
instant gratification and we have often learned to trust in the things of this
world to fill us up other than God; relationships, food, sex, money, success,
alcoholism, materialism, consumerism, workaholism…and any other “ism” you can
think of. When we reach for something
other than God we lose the one thing that directly relates to joy and faith and
that is dependence on God and God alone.
I’m not saying that addictions do not occur in the East, they do, but
people do not have the means to rely on purchasing their reliance as
consistently as in the West. The women I
met only have God and each other. It is
the same reality that led the psalmist to proclaim, “I have no hope except in
you.” (Psalm 25:5)
Total dependence for our every need humbles the heart and it
is particularly difficult for the Western world for there is an abundance of
resources to depend on and it creates in us a false sense of independence which
limits our relationship with God and with each other. The women I met actively expected God to be
present with them and they had eyes to see and ears to hear which were not
drowned out by the world. Simply put a
life without total dependence is a hopeless end but with Christ in all things
it is an endless hope.
To read the final post in this series, please go here.
I am honored today to feature the writing of Rev. Kimberly
Burke, who shares her impressions
from a recent trip to Uganda. Kimberly currently serves as Associate Pastor of
First United Methodist Church in Boerne, Texaswhere the congregation and outreach team are involved with Tree of Life Ministries. This is a ministry of the First Baptist Church in Boerne.Through this involvement, Kimberly was called to attend a mission trip to Uganda in Africa What follows is the first in a series of four blog posts. This is her story…..
I've struggled for almost a month now to form words around
the images and emotions I experienced on my journey to Africa. From the moment that I felt the call to go I
knew this trip was more about changing me than changing or helping anyone
else. That may sound a bit egocentric
but I knew that Tree of Life Ministries was doing great things to assist and
empower the communities in Uganda
that we were partnered with. I was
constantly evaluating my inadequacies for mission. I have no medical knowledge,
no nursing skills; I couldn’t speak the language and to top it off I had no
clergy rights in this country as a woman.
I knew there was a women’s ministry and God spoke boldly to my heart
that there were women who were waiting to be empowered to spread the gospel of
Jesus Christ. So I left all my comforts, was properly immunized, sanitized and
set off with my companions.
I’m quite sure my eyes were wide as quarters as we made our
bus journey through the burnt orange dirt roads outside of Ginga. I thought that I was prepared. I had been to poverty stricken cities in
Central America but I had never been to a place so different from the United States. I felt as if I had journeyed to another
planet rather than another continent. A
planet made of red dirt, mud huts, smoky cooking pots and a cacophony of cars,
buses, bota, bota’s (motorcycles) and people walking dangerously close to all
the moving objects, which by the way are all going the opposite direction at
top speeds. This was a planet with no
traffic lights, stop signs or directions and vehicles which spoke their own
honking language of warnings, curses and acknowledgment. People moving with purpose to unknown places,
selling mysterious foods and all eyes seemed to be on us, curious eyes,
questioning eyes, children laughing and running alongside calling up to
us…Muzungu, Muzungu, which is apparently the name for the white faced humans
from the other planet. Evidently
Muzungu’s don’t frequent the planet often and we were quite a spectacle of
intrigue with celebrity status. Yes, I
was not at all prepared for this other world or how it would profoundly change
my life.
Africa is
a place of extremes; extreme poverty and pain and extreme spiritual abundance
and joy. Africa
is rich in beauty; flora, fauna and the human spirit and it is poor in basic
human needs and opportunity. It spins to
its own rhythm which is raw and wild, yet respectful and proud. In contrasting the East with the West I
realized that of course there is poverty and suffering in the West but it is
overshadowed by a pre-packaged neatness and a sterility that is predictable. There is no way to hide the poverty in the
East. It is systemic. In the West, it is often hidden away in
pockets and patches far from the major roads and guarded against by gated
communities and neighborhood safety patrol signs. I am convinced that we suffer from spiritual
poverty in the West brought on by our rugged individualistic nature. We are self-made humans in the West but in
the East the motto of life is I am because “we” are. Community is vital for survival. We in the Christian church are organized
around the community model but I wonder if we could tap into just a bit of what
the East has to offer we might find what is lacking in our constant search for
affirmation, purpose, fulfillment…peace.
We seem to be searching for something just outside of our grasp and
because we can. We seek to fill our empty spiritual voids with the things of
the world, and even the quest for spiritual highs; highs that leave us wanting
more but never seeming to sustain. I
couldn’t understand why the people of Africa
were so joyful and filled with the Holy Spirit, and I don’t say that
lightly. It is a Spirit that can be
felt. God is truly in this place because God is visible. In the midst of so much suffering I imagined I would find a
people so depressed and despondent yet I found just the opposite...
