We are most alive when we are loving and actively giving ourselves because we were made to do these things.
Francis Chan
I stretched out my legs on the lush, green grass and let the sun warm me. July in Kenya is cold. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was almost as though I sensed that this moment—right now, right here—needed to be treasured.
I’m not sure how long I sat there like that, eyes closed, head tilted toward the African sky, listening to babies cooing and toddlers giggling around me. I am listening to miracles, I thought.
I opened my eyes to a chubby hand offering me a flower from the nearby bush. I accepted the fragrant gift and tickled the little girl offering it. She plopped down onto my lap, and I looked up to see her teen mother, Veronica, finishing her lunch on a nearby blanket. She was sitting with my oldest daughter, Madison, fourteen years old at the time. They were talking.
It looked like just another Thursday in Africa. But it was more. It was holy ground. The wind whipped through the trees and blew petals from the flowering plants as if nature itself bowed down in holy reverence at what God had done through our weak and inadequate yes to his leading.
My family started Mercy House in 2010. Mercy House exists to engage, empower, and disciple women around the globe in Jesus’s name: engage those with resources to say yes to relieving the plight of women in poverty, empower women and teenage mothers around the world through partnerships and sustainable fair-trade product development, and disciple women to be lifelong followers of Jesus Christ.
My family was visiting our flagship ministry in Kenya, our maternity home, where our staff rescues the most at-risk pregnant girls in the country.
I looked up from the little girl in my lap and looked over at my daughter, still deep in conversation with Veronica. The wind carried their words, and I caught bits and pieces of their conversation. I noticed they were holding hands, and I couldn’t help but smile at the view.
But then there it was—the moment that changed everything. I froze when I heard Veronica ask Madison this question: “Why do you think I was born here in Kenya and you were born in America?”
I watched as my daughter chewed her lip, considering the question and how she would answer it. I couldn’t stop the tears from filling my eyes. You see, you have to know Veronica’s story to understand the magnitude of her question.
I hugged Veronica’s little girl, who was still sitting in my lap, as I recalled the horrible details of her mother’s life. Veronica was thirteen or fourteen years old when she came to the maternity home, but no one knew her exact age because she didn’t know her own birthday. She was an orphan, and she came to us directly from a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, where she had lived for several months as she recovered from being burned on over 40 percent of her body. While she was in a coma the medical team discovered she was pregnant. The local newspaper shared her story and how justice was being pursued for the crime against her. The article ended with a plea for someone—anyone—to help Veronica. Mercy House answered that call.
I’ll never forget the day our staff in Kenya told me the details of the violent acts committed against Veronica. A distant relative had taken her in, not as a daughter but as an indentured servant. Instead of going to school with the other kids in the home, she worked. One day she was accused of stealing what would be equivalent to five dollars. Her relative tied her up, put her on the thatched roof of a small hut nearby, doused her with fuel, and set her on fire.
When these details were relayed to me I put my head down on my desk and cried. I wept for Veronica because I didn’t know if anyone else had. She had experienced unspeakable hell in her short years on earth.
Within a few months at the maternity home, where she was carried from room to room by the other teen moms, we raised $10,000 so doctors could complete the surgeries that would allow her to walk again. Veronica was a fighter. She not only relearned how to walk and run but also learned to spell her name, read, and be a mother.
That’s the girl who was asking my daughter the question on the grass that day.
“I don’t know,” Madison said after a long pause. I could tell she was thinking. It was an impossible question to answer because there was so much more behind it. Veronica might as well have asked, “Why have I known a life of suffering? Why has my life been so hard? Why does your life seem so easy compared to mine?”
Like most who have never left third-world and developing countries, these Kenyan girls know of America only from the news and movies. Generally, we are the only Americans they interact with. And while they may never visit our country, they long to because they understand how much we have. They know how much we’ve been given.
My daughter’s story probably isn’t very different from your kids’ stories. She’s never missed a meal or been refused school. She has free time and can use her babysitting money for trips to the mall. She’s never prostituted for food. She’s never been assaulted. She has loving parents and extended family. She lives in a nice house, not too big or too small. Madison has grown up in America.
Madison was ten years old when we started Mercy House. She was ten years old on her first trip to Africa. She was ten years old when we decided to give our lives away. She was ten years old when we decided it was better to give than to receive.
Over the next few years she watched us as our home was turned upside down, or maybe it was really turned right side up. Instead of living for ourselves, we started giving to others. Instead of focusing on what we wanted, we looked for ways to serve.
With anything that changes its course, there is pain and difficulty and a stretching of all things comfortable. So, yes, it was hard for our family to find a new normal, and we struggled to find a balance. But I like to think Madison’s next words to Veronica came from the fertile ground in which we had raised her. I like to think that generosity had taken deep root and produced the joy of giving.
My fourteen-year-old daughter continued to answer the question posed by her African-born friend: “Maybe I was born in America and you were born here because I’m supposed to help you.”
They grabbed each other’s hands and held tightly: two girls from two different sides of the globe figuring out a profound truth that most of the world cannot seem to grasp. I swallowed the lump in my throat because, yes, this was it. This was the perfect answer to Veronica’s question. The honesty and purity of one child’s words to another were sacred.
The book Revolution in World Mission by K. P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia, revolutionized my life and the way I parent. He urged every North American Christian to ask themselves two questions—two questions that were answered on that lush lawn in Kenya that day.
These are the questions that keep me awake at night. These are the questions that have shaped my home and turned my family right side up. I want to spend my life answering them. I want my children to answer them with how they choose to live and give.
Go ahead. Ask yourself these questions. Where you live is not an accident; it is not the luck of the draw. There is a reason you are where you are. God has a purpose for placing you here and not there. What do you think that purpose is?
I don’t think it’s a mathematical mistake that one-third of the world is rich enough to ease the burden of the other two-thirds, who are desperately poor and living on less than one dollar per day. Nor is it a curious coincidence that we are already sitting on the answer: we are supposed to help each other. It’s something we teach our children from the cradle. It’s called sharing. We have more than enough, and we have enough to share. It sounds like a match made in heaven. Maybe it was God’s plan all along for us to love others and, instead of accumulating more stuff, to give some of what we have away.
America is a land of opportunity. It’s a place where we can achieve all we want and more. But just because we can get more, should we? It’s a hard question only we can answer. This isn’t about the size of a home or a car or a bank account. It’s not about guilt or lifestyle—it’s about the size of our hearts.
I know people who have much and give much. I know people who have almost nothing and give even more.
Yohannan challenges us with more tough questions in No Longer a Slumdog. He asks, “How many more cars, clothes, toys and trinkets do we really need before we wake up and realize that half the world goes to bed every night with empty stomachs and naked bodies?”2
I believe when God asks us what we did with our talents, our resources, our land-of-the-free, home-of-the-brave opportunities, we will be accountable for our answers. We may give already. But we have been given so much. We could give more, share more, and do more. Not to prove we are good people or because we need a longer list of good works. We give because our purpose is to glorify God. We give because he first loved us, and we are to love others. We give because we have it to give. We give because we want to raise children who give. We want to see our kids change someone else’s world.
Maybe this is why we have so much. Maybe this is why we were born where we were born. Maybe this is why we are where we are today. I don’t know where you are right now. You might be in any country in the world. You might be in the middle of your house in the middle of suburbia folding laundry. You might be reading this on your shift break at your job in the hospital on floor two. You might be standing in line at the pharmacy, waiting for a prescription for your mother, who is very sick. You might be in the lowest season of your life or in the best. I don’t know. But I believe where you are matters. I believe we are where we are for a reason. And we simply must acknowledge that God in all his power and sovereignty placed us among the world’s richest people for a purpose other than fulfilling the American dream.
Someone in your world, at your job, in your neighborhood, or on your path needs to know that you are where you are because you can help them where they are. Someone is waiting for you to share your money, your time, or your life with them. We were created to reveal the glory of Jesus to others.
You might question where God has you today. Why here, God? Why this hard, broken place? I have thought about my daughter’s words many times. They remind me of my purpose. I was created for more than surviving, getting by, or moving to the next phase in life. When our hands are busy serving others, we aren’t thinking about what we don’t have. Instead, we are reminded about what we do have. We were created for more than filling our time and our lives with more stuff and more space. We were created for a purpose and to live our lives with purpose. We were created to give our lives away.
What we choose to give is not as important as our motive for giving it. If we give with good and generous hearts we will give our best. And God honors that.
We change the world when we change another person’s day, one small act at a time. And when we change the world for someone else, we change it for ourselves too. I want to raise children who ask hard questions of themselves. I want my kids to press into who they are, what they have, and what they are supposed to do with what they’ve been given. When we are obedient enough to ask hard questions and brave enough to encourage our kids to do the same, we unlock a deep well of joy. This kind of joy isn’t touched by our circumstances or what we receive in life. This kind of unparalleled joy comes from giving our lives away.
I often think back to that day on the green, grassy lawn in Kenya. I close my eyes and remember that one moment when everything changed. That moment when I wanted to live out the answer my daughter had given. I’m challenged every day by the choice our family faces: we can let the world change us, or we can change the world.