Names in the Masses

Yesterday was good for my heart.
Let me be really, really honest here. The last week or more I have been having a hard time dealing with some of my inner-criticisms. I've been beating myself up because I feel so detached from the needs and faces around me. I've felt disdain for the idea of missions and my desire for comfort. And I've wrestled my dislike for this enormous Metropolis that is currently my home.
That is my reality - sorry if its a little glass-half-empty. I suppose some of these emotional pitfalls are part of the all familiar culture shock.
But I said that yesterday was good for my heart, so there is an upside... Yesterday Mia and I joined Gerlene, the dear Filipina midwife we work with, and went with her on home visits. This will be a regular part of our work here, walking throughout the community and stopping in at the homes of the pregnant women we care for. The community we are working in is a short walk from our home and the area houses some 300,000 people. The people who call this place home are all poor, families here might live on $100-200 a month!
So we walked about, visiting of our pregnant mommies; we stop in at their homes and perform prenatal check-ups, talk and maybe enjoy some merienda (this is the name for a snack, basically anything without rice!) Our merienda yesterday was Sprite and white bread and mayo sandwiches - nutritious and delicious! During home visits we meet family members and neighbours and have a chance to see their homes (most live in the maze of closet sized cement box houses).
In all of this, my spirit was somehow renewed and I saw the chance to know these women, to be a part of an intimate time in their lives, and to show care for them and their families. In this kind of care we are able to enter their lives not just for the moment of birth, not just as health care providers, but as friends, and hopefully as the light of Christ!
There is a mysterious attraction and beauty in the slums, in close-knit families, in people taking care of each other, in children playing in the lanes, in simplicity, in generosity and open homes. And I find that my heart quickens, that my spirits are bolstered when I walk there. That doesn't erase my questions and it doesn't change the fact that these people live in incredible need. But in a city I dislike, there is a beacon of warmth, in the midst of the masses, people become human. They have faces and names; Gemma, Alma, Irene, Melba, Grace.