Kathryn Birkey

Well tomorrow’s the day. I get on another plane and fly half way across the world. Except this time it’s not going to a foreign country where I know no one. This time I’m going home.

I feel like I should write a final blog about all the amazing things God has done while I’ve been in South Africa. But that would be way to long of a post, and I wouldn’t even know where to start. Plus, I think I’ve documented a lot of those things along the way.

What I do want to say is that I am so thankful to all of you who have supported me these last seven months. Who have diligently prayed for me and have encouraged me to keep serving the Lord. I ask that you continue to pray for me as I figure out how to go home and fit back into life there.

Yesterday at church, our pastor called me up to the front and my ‘church family’ laid hands on me and prayed for me. And my pastor prayed the words that God gave to Joshua when Moses died..”Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

And so that is what I stand firm in as I head home.  I know I leave this wonderful country and home of mine with some pain in my heart. I am leaving part of myself here. And I know that I need the Lord’s strength and courage to dive back into my world at home.  No matter how I feel, or what my experience is like adjusting again, I am confident that the Lord my God is with me wherever I go. He has walked this incredible journey in South Africa with me every step of the way. And He will be faithful to walk with me through the next journey.  I hold fast to his love and his promises to me.

It is with great joy in Christ that I say my farewells to South Africa and my hellos to America. What a beautiful thing walking with the Lord is…wherever it takes us.

I have a little over two weeks left in South Africa, which is absolutely crazy when i think about it! To be honest, though, I think knowing I’m going home so soon has begun to take a toll on my attitude here.  Lately I’ve found myself feeling that there’s nothing left for me here. I’m already done. With so little time to go, why try to really invest in everything? Right? Wrong. God needed to shake me up a bit and get me to remember that I’M STILL HERE and he still has work for me to do!

We hopped in the car this morning to go to the hospital for Kangaroo Moms, just like I’ve done pretty much every Monday for the past seven months. On our way, we stopped at the gas station by our house to fill up. I needed to run into the store to buy a few things for the day. As I walked up to the check out to pay, an old man shuffled his way towards me. I wasn’t quite sure why he was approaching me, and we’re told to always be on guard here, so I kind of hesitated as he made his way over to me. But he started talking to me and I realized that he was just asking for directions. He had been walking for hours and had lost his way and could not find his retirement home. He could only recall the name of the retirement home and a green gas station across the street from it. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know the area well enough to know where he needed to go. So even though I felt bad for him, I didn’t know what else to do but say my apologies and leave. But i felt something tugging at my heart to stay and help. No one else would help him. They were all too busy and avoiding eye contact with us so they wouldn’t be bothered. So I decided that I could put my day on hold to help this precious man. I took him to a big map outside the gas station and he recognized his town and some street names. So I brought him to our car and we went on a drive to see if we could find his home. I learned his name was Ronnie and he was from Northern Ireland.  He’d moved to Botswana in the 70′s and then to South Africa in ’94.  He was as sweet as could be, but had no family or friends looking after him.  He said the people at the retirement home wouldn’t even know he was gone. After a little while, he started recognizing the area we were driving through, and then we found his home. I helped him out of the car and he held my hand up the driveway. Then we said our goodbyes and he thanked me, and I drove off.

We were half an hour late to the hospital, but I couldn’t help thinking that God had me at that gas station for a reason. I realized that even though I only have a couple weeks left here, that doesn’t mean I get to decide that my ‘serving time’ is somehow over. It wont even be over when I go home. There are so many people under our noses that God lays in front of us every day, no matter where we are! And I was so blessed to have my eyes opened to that in time to help Ronnie get to his retirement home today. God is so good to remind me in such a sweet way. I pray I don’t forget this lesson learned as I finish out my time in Cape Town and as I transition back into life at home.

I have one month left here in South Africa. And I was writing an email to a good friend today about what I’m feeling and thinking right about now.  I’d really like to share that with you.

“The last couple of days I’ve just been spending some time with God thinking about all he has done for me, and specifically all he’s done for me in my time over here. It’s almost overwhelming to think about. He is so so good. He has been gracious to me in every possible way. He has filled my heart with joy.  He has comforted me in pain. He has provided for me when I didn’t think he would. He has taken care of my future. He has forgiven my past. He has pushed me into situations I would have never gone. He has enlarged my heart for those he has a heart for. He has given me wisdom when I asked for it. He has humbled me again and again when I think I know better or it’s all about me. He has shown me that being a servant in his kingdom brings more joy and fulfillment than any other thing in heaven or on earth. He has shown me the absolute beauty of his creation and how it points to his goodness and creativity. He has opened my eyes to appreciate the people I love back home and treasure moments with them more dearly. He has pointed out my struggle with patience and being quick to judge. He has also pointed out my passion for women and girls. Aah I could go on forever about the amazing things he has done. And I know you could and probably have thought about all the ways God has been faithful to you. And every person throughout all of history could do the same.

Today at church my pastor, Wayne, preached from Matthew 6:19-34 about not worrying. But it was a really unique take on it. God really convicted me about how much I put my hope in the things of this world, storing my treasures on earth instead of heaven. and so of course I worry! but if I truly store up treasures in heaven, then I can trust the Lord with my life! With my clothes, my food, my every care and stress. And more than that, I can be free to see how perfectly he provides for me. And I can then be joyful enough to give to others.

So all of that to say, I want to meditate on these things every day until I leave to come home. I don’t want to come home and have stories of “incredible things kathryn has done” or worry about all the people at home and what they’ll think of me now, or what they’ll say to me, or what they’ll think I look like or if I’ve done a good enough job over here. But to put my priority in the kingdom of Jesus Christ and daily cling to his faithfulness and will in my life. That’s where the money is. That’s where the life is. That’s where I want to be forever and ever.”

I pray that God would help me live out what my heart is slowly realizing. And that we would all meditate on the goodness of the Lord in our lives and how that completely frees us.

My roommate gave me a book to read the other day called The Shaming of The Strong by Sarah Williams. Since then, I haven’t been able to get away from it. I read it whenever I have a spare moment. It’s a beautiful and brutal true account of a woman who finds out the child she’s carrying won’t be able to live beyond birth because of a terrible condition, and is left with a gut-wrenching decision.  She opens her heart about her and her husband’s struggle to choose termination or carrying the baby, and once she’s decided to have the child, how they battle through and cling to the Lord knowing their baby girl will die the moment she’s born.

I want to put a quotation from the book on here that got me thinking about our world, and my world as it relates to the children I work with.

Is the normal person one who has physical attributes within a particular range? Do normal people have certain intelligence or skin color? Are there normal habits one must have, or normal speech patterns?… Normality is a relative scale with no set of accepted criteria in all cultures. At one end of the scale lie those restricted by intellectual function, illness, age or accident to dependence on others for their survival. At the other end are those with efficient minds and bodies who are not only able to provide sufficiently for their own needs but also to serve the needs of others. The baby, Emilia and Hannah (her daughters) sit at different points in the spectrum of ‘normality’ so defined: but could I, as a parent who loved them equally, decide which one of them had the best quality of life and which one was, therefore, most normal and most worthy of their place on the planet?

I realized that if God had indeed purposed my daughter and loved her as Psalm 139 suggests, then not only did this have profound implications for how I judged ‘normality’, but it also had profound implications for my role as a mother.  I began to think long and hard about what it means to be a mother… God began to challenge me: what if his definition of life and health was different from mine? What if this baby’s destiny was simply to be with him forever? What if the days ordained for her did not include a birthday?  Did it make those days any less precious or meaningful?  What if my role as a mother was to co-operate with God’s dreams for my child – his plans for her – even if they did not fit with mine?

Now I know I’m not a mother, and am not facing the challenge of having my child die before my very eyes, but nonetheless I am struck to the core by this woman’s honest questioning and beautiful recognition of how God sees and loves those who are so easily cast aside.  And even though she wrestles with how she should mother the way Christ calls her to, I believe we as the body of Christ need to wrestle with how to love and care for other children of God that are deemed ‘abnormal’ or ‘unlovable’.

I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers to this issue. My aim is not to leave you with some profound realization that I have come to, and therefore fix the problem. I just know I am sure of a couple of things.

First, I am sure that God has allowed me to get to know some incredibly special children during my time here in South Africa that are not what our world thinks of as being worthy of a place here on Earth. Yes, some of them are physically and mentally handicapped. But I believe it goes beyond that. The masses of orphans that I have the privilege of working with have been cast out by their families because they were somehow deemed unworthy of love and care.  And even though they are in shelters and orphanages now, they still have the marks of those that are forgotten and abandoned.  I can see in their little eyes that to some degree they believe the lie that they are not worth it. They are not like all those other children that have ‘quality’ lives.

Second, I am sure that Christ loves every one of them with a love that goes beyond anything I can understand or duplicate, and that he asks me to love them, not for my own glory, but so the Lord’s dream for them is carried out.  That means that I do not get to decide who gets my affection and who doesn’t. Or who is worthy of love and who is not. That just like a mother, God calls me to surrender these children to him and to his plan for their lives. And that plan may not be what I think is best for them. It might mean seeing hardship continue in their lives.  It might mean seeing the diseased children I love go home to Jesus. But it is God that formed every part of every child.  It is God that gives life with just a breath. And it is still God that allows death, even when we don’t understand it.

My job is not to be God to the unlovable. My job is not to think I know what God’s will is for the unlovable. I believe my job is to love the unlovable and trust the maker of even the most deformed and rejected to accomplish his good and perfect plan in their lives and in mine.

Today marks one year that my grandma Gaye has been gone from this earth.  On this beautiful day in Cape Town, among projects to go to and planning to do, my mind and heart are thinking about the tall, elegant woman with perfectly silver hair who could make the most killer meals and bring me peace with just one tight hand squeeze.

I think finally leaving home and serving overseas has made me appreciate and miss Gaye even more than I already did.  I wish I could know she was praying for me daily like she always did. I wish I could share with her all the incredible experiences I’m having and all the ways God’s challenging me and know she would be just as excited and moved by them as I am.

As one of the Wolgemuth girls that carry her name, I am determined to honor her life and her love, first and foremost, for Jesus Christ by serving him with my whole heart. Wherever that takes me.  Whatever it costs me.  For however long He gives me.

I love and miss you Gaye.

On the outside: I live in South Africa.  I work at an orphanage. I read children Bible stories. I pray with suffering women.  I paint new mothers’ nails.  I do a Bible study with society’s rejects.  I play with poor, filthy children.  I hold babies who don’t have families. I change HIV+ children’s diapers.  I color pictures with kids who don’t speak my language.  I visit scared women in hospitals who have just given their children up for adoption.

On the inside: I am in no way a perfect person.  I am selfish. I am rude.  I give up too quickly.  I depend on people/things more than God far too many times.  I complain too often.  I judge too quickly.   I find myself trying to control my life even after I’ve realized it’s not mine to control.  I fail.

What God has transformed: The roommate I have that is twelve years my elder has understood me like no one else.  People I judged too quickly have now become the ones I pray with multiple nights a week.  The women I went to “teach and convert” have become some of my best friends.  The trendy and hip church I thought I needed to be apart of pales in comparison to the tiny body of believers that meet in a school gym and sing out of date worship songs because they have their hearts in the right place.  The one project I most feared has now become my greatest passion.  My future no longer means just the next place I feel like going but the next place God is asking me to trust and obey.  The children that bite and scream and hit and cry are the ones I’ve grown to love the most.

I love the God that can be the reason behind every good deed.  I love the God who can forgive every failure and fault. I love the God who can take my plans and change them to fit into his wonderful plan.

I love my God who makes transformation beautiful.

Well, it’s almost March, and that means that I have about two and a half months left here in South Africa.  Ever since I decided to take a gap year and come here for seven months, I felt that I was leaving home for SO long.  It seemed like an eternity to think i’d be away from everything I knew in Chicagoland for that long. And there were a few moments while I have been here in Cape Town that I’ve felt exactly that. What a long time to be away from home.  But honestly, the past few days I’ve had an increasing realization that seven months is SO short! That two and a half months remaining is not enough time in a country that has truly become my home. That instead of only feeling excitement when I think about returning to Chicago, there is a new wave of sadness that is joining it.

I’m almost scared to go home. What if it doesn’t feel like the home I left? What if I’ve changed so much that South Africa feels more close to home than Oak Park? What happens if I don’t feel that I fit back into my former home with the ease and comfortability I was used to?

I was on a plane from Durban to Cape Town earlier today. And I was thinking all of this over while I was looking out the window at beautiful mountains and clouds. And even though I don’t know what the final months here will hold, or what it will be like to leave South Africa, or how I’ll feel when I get back,  I was reminded of one thing.  Jesus Christ is my one, true home.   What an awesomely peaceful thing to realize.  I mean, maybe it will be a blessing in some ways to struggle with leaving SA and going back to the US.  If it pushes me to rely on Christ to be the one, consistent, unchanging home I have, then isn’t that a gift? I think so.

I spent the day yesterday at a children’s home in a suburb of Cape Town.  Surrounded by 20+ kids under the age of five. biting. screaming. hitting. running. crying. I walked out of there after a full day feeling completely overwhelmed.  But the crazy thing about the day was that i saw beyond the wild behavior of tons of ridiculous children. They all have come to this home because they’ve been abandoned, abused, or just neglected.  A lot of them are HIV positive. And although the house they live in now is supposed to be better than where they came from, they still don’t get near enough attention and love. So no wonder they end up running around hitting everyone and screaming for attention.  Each of those children needs one-on-one time with an adult that loves them dearly.  They need structure and tough love instead of staff members sitting around watching the kids do whatever they want.  Don’t get me wrong, i loved being with the kids.  I could see their little sweet faces light up when i sang them songs or pushed them on a swing. But i sat in the car driving away from the home completely drained of all strength and love.  It’s like i had given them everything i had in myself, and it wasn’t enough.  I realized why God tells us that He needs to fill us up.  Why i need his strength and his love for those who have none.

And yet i still struggle to understand how God provides for these kids.  I know he uses people like me, and others who volunteer their time, to be his hands and feet.  But im only here for a few months.  And i can’t fix those kids’ lives. How will they grow up and ever truly know that Jesus loves them? How will they understand that they are being looked out for when they are lost in a sea of screaming children? How does God take care of the ones that were born with AIDS? How do all these things work together for good?

I know at the end of the day, I trust the Lord.  I trust that he loves those kids infinitely more than i ever could. And his heart breaks for every child i see, and every child i don’t. And i believe in my heart that Christ came to die to give life to those children that may never have a full life here on this broken earth.  My God is big enough to work all these things together for good, even when my human mind cannot understand how that is possible.

We’re finally trying to get back into the swing of things here in Cape Town. To be honest, i’ve been frustrated that i haven’t been in the projects for such a long time. But this Thursday i stepped back into a familiar gated house and sat for two hours with three pregnant women who i love with my whole heart.

For those who don’t know…the new life center is a safe home for pregnant women waiting to give their babies up for adoption.  It has completely become my greatest passion here.  The women that live there have become some of my best friends in South Africa.  I would rather spend my weekends watching movies with them at their house and visiting them in the hospital after they’ve given birth than do pretty much anything else.

On Thursday mornings a few of us volunteers go to their home and do a Bible study.  At first, it was hard to get them to open up about spiritual things, even after we’d gotten to know them as friends. But this past Thursday we had such a wonderful time together. We did a study on kindness. And i cannot tell you how incredibly God-filled that study was.  The women opened up about so much. They were willing to discuss when it’s hardest to be kind and to love others. And how in the end, Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of kindness…especially kindness when it gets nothing for you in return, and you do it for those who hate you.  It was like these women ate up every word we said. They wanted to talk, and learn, and grow.  What a refreshing thing to see. And i felt myself being challenged along with them.  At the end of our time we decided to pray with them. We prayed for strength and willingness to be kind. We prayed for their health and the health of the babies they’re carrying inside of them.  And then we were surprised when one of the ladies piped up and began to pray for us.  She thanked God from the bottom of her heart for sending us to the women in the house.  She prayed that every morning we would wake up and be confident that God wanted us here. And she thanked the Lord because she loved us. I was sitting there with tears in my eyes. This woman has had such a burdened life, and obviously is in a lot of pain as she goes through a pregnancy and gives up her child. But she was so full of joy because WE had been there. because WE had loved. because WE had taken time to talk and listen and pray with her.

When i left that house this is what i decided: The women in that house are why God asked me two years ago to trust and obey him and leave everything i knew and postpone college and fly halfway around the world to serve. They are the answer to my countless nights of wondering why God wanted me to do all of this.  They are the tangible way God has not only allowed me to serve, but also the tangible way God has revealed himself to me. And now that i realize all that, my heart has deeper love and gratefulness to my savior for using such a broken person like me to do his work.

I’ve never been much of a runner.  Honestly, just running a mile made me want to die.  I tried so many times to get into the whole running scene. I always liked the idea of me running, but hated actually doing it.  But while i’ve been here in South Africa it has become one of my new passions. Yeah, it was still hard to do in the beginning.  And i wanted to give up a few too many times. But it is one of my favorite things to do here.  Not just because i’m finally a “runner” and have some street cred. But for a few other, and better reasons.

1. I do happen to live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and also, on the beach.  Running along the ocean is gorgeous, and i have a perfect view of Table Mountain.  It’s pretty motivating to run along that kind of picture perfect coast.

2. Running has become my favorite place/time to think and pray. No matter what kind of day i’m having, running is such a wonderful time to get away from the craziness of living in a house with 11 other girls and the intensity of projects and just breath fresh air and clear my mind.  I usually end my runs at a part of the beach where there are lots of huge rocks that jut out into the water and the waves crash up on them.  So i like to walk out and sit on the biggest one and just watch the water come up and go back.  It’s the best place to pray. It’s my spot with God. Sometimes i just sit there in silence, and listen to the ocean. There really is something so God-filled about the water and the waves.

3. I have running friends. I think i’ve had some of my favorite conversations with girls in my house while we were running.  It’s such a good time to talk with others, since you’re not distracted by anything like a phone or a computer. It’s just you and friends and the open earth.  I love having running buddies and catching up.  Because even though we all work together daily and live in the same house, sometimes we can go through days and not REALLY know what’s going on in each other’s lives.  But running together at 7 am gives you time to hear what’s really going on. And i love it.

In the end, i’m so glad i finally caught the running bug, even though i’m not up to marathoner status yet.  And i’m happy about it for way more reasons than just the exercise. I think God gave us the gift of running and the ability to experience him, his beauty in nature, and bonding with others while we do pound the pavement.