Hope Where All Seems Hopeless

I glanced around at my surroundings, unsure of where my fourteen-hour journey had taken me. I had prayed for this trip for months. I felt certain the Lord had called me to this ministry. But as I stood and took in everything around me, I suddenly felt unsure, weak, and incapable of doing all that I had been called to do.

I was in the Appalachian region of the southern United States; an area of the country where poverty reigns. It was a third world area, in a first world country. I didn’t realize that poverty existed to that extent in the United States of America. I was terrified at the thought of spending the next three months in an area that seemed so hopeless. Why had I been sent here? This area was in need of way more than I could offer. Where do I begin?

I repressed my nervous insecurities and got straight to work. I drove around to different communities scoping out basic home repair projects. As I pulled into the first community, nothing inside me was prepared for what I saw; a house in desperate need. It seemed impossible to me that people actually lived in this dwelling. The roof was falling apart, with holes scattered across the old, worn shingles. Shattered, dirty glass lay glistening on the ground where the majority of the windows had been busted out. One whole section of wall was missing, allowing me to see straight into the bedroom of the man and woman who called this place their home. The couple came out to meet my teammate and I and welcomed us into their home. I shook hands with the woman, probably around my mother’s age, as I noticed how worn and tired her face appeared. The four of us slid into their home by a piece of chain link fence used as a wall to keep critters out. I wanted to hear their story. How had they gotten to this point? Was it by choice? Did they even know any different? I tried to push back the jumbled thoughts in my head to make conversation with my new neighbors. But what was there to say to them? I had never felt so many worlds apart from anyone in my life. Every word and thought seemed so vain and meaningless as I stood on their dirt floor, with a leaky pipe over my head.

My teammate carried the conversation as we all discussed ways to help their living situation. “Lower a pipe there, replace windows here, and strengthen the weak floor up there.” Before I knew it, I found myself sliding out past that same chain link fence back into their front yard. The emotion I had been suppressing sense I had arrived, boiled inside me. How does an area like this exist? Will everyone continue to forget these people? Where is God in all this? How has He allowed this to happen? These people need the deep love of Christ.  Am I even capable of showing such love?

I looked at the beautiful mountains on each side of me that blanket these people in security as I began to call out to God. “Father, I need strength to love these people like you do. I need my heart to be softened to your will. Provide these people with hope! I need to know you have not forgotten these people like everyone else has!” As soon as the words left my lips, God gently placed a verse on my heart “The rich and poor have this in common: the LORD is Maker of them all” (Proverbs 22:2 NIV). I was reminded that God did care for them more than I ever could. It was in that instant, that I no longer felt worlds away from these people, but rather viewed them as dear friends and family. We were united under a banner of hope provided by Jesus’ death and resurrection. I had never been so thankful to Jesus Christ for overcoming the world.

The rest of the Summer I witnessed God do amazing things in the lives of these people that I grew to love, cherish, and admire. Through Christ, my new friends and I were able to walk hand in hand in a perfect brightness of hope along an illuminated path, instead of stumbling aimlessly in the darkness where poverty had previously reigned. At the end of my time in Appalachia, I looked around at the place that I lovingly began to call home and was so thankful that each face I saw was the image bearer of a divine God. A God who DOES care, a God who IS hope, and a God who is NEVER finished working in the lives of his people.