When I see abject poverty at the slum clinics I work at, witness children with bellies outstretched from malnutrition, little ones wearing nothing but rags... I want to be more. I feel so hopelessly inadequate. I'm simply not enough to fix these problems. What's the point of being here if I can't make a difference?
Crying out to God at night after a long day in the Kibera slum, the answers start to come to me. At the bare minimum, I am bearing witness. By giving myself awareness of how the least of these live, they are making an indelible mark on my conscious that will follow me and shape my path for the rest of my life. I am learning. I am shifting within myself, becoming uncomfortable with the status quo. If I simply left, didn't continue to see all that I can see, that would be denying these people the power to change my life.
Maybe I'm not much yet: just an undergraduate student with a big heart and a sense of purpose that lives mostly unfulfilled. But I'm already becoming more, I can feel the marks being made on my soul. Each day of my internship awakens me a bit more, every night under the Kenyan stars I go to sleep feeling just a little more alive. I can imagine the things I'll be capable of once I have more education and experience, and it takes my breath away.
In the mean time, I can love. This is no small feat, you see. To give myself completely when the sights around me threaten to reduce me to tears, it's not the easiest job I've ever undertaken, but its certainly one of the most important. My heart is changed by this outpouring just as much as the children I love on are changed by it, all of us becoming richer in the process. It's teaching me what this thing called life is all about.
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