Thursday, 27 September 2007
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Today my heart broke for a woman I’ve never met, over a people that are not my own, and for a nation who’s tongue I cannot speak. When I say my heart broke, I mean to say that it poured out as water from my eyes all down my bus seat, on the gravesite, and at the guy’s apartment where we returned to pray.
I blame it on Courtney for giving the book, With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia by Asne Seierstad. She’s a Norwegian journalist who travels often to war-torn locations to report events for worldwide newspapers (and normally follows up the places where she has spent extensive time with a book containing accounts that never make it to the news, either because of their personal nature or depth required to tell their stories well). This past year I read another one of her books, One Hundred Days in Baghdad and was impressed with her style of seeing to the heart of an issue, and for capturing humanity that is often overlooked. Thus, when I picked up her collection of Serbian portraits (taken from a crisscross of society based from her travels between 1999 and 2004), I again was thrown into impartial seeing and loving eyes. I thank Asne for the care with which she writes and captures needs that are present here. With each chapter and new person introduced, the pull became greater and greater on me to love Serbs.
It was the most frustrating thing in a way. Here we were, my team leaving Novi Sad for Belgrade to attend Vesna’s mother’s funeral, and with each mile the bus lurched, and with every page turned, my heart grew heavier and heavier for those who filled the seats around me. The Serbian guy next to me saw that I was reading something about Serbia and would every so often look over my book to see what words he could recognize or what text I underlined. When he boarded and sat next to me at the beginning of the ride, I did not think anything of him. No, it was only after Chapter 3 or so when I dropped my pen and he reached down to pick it up that I first looked upon him with God’s eyes. Love compels and I grew frustrated because I knew not what to say.
How can I communicate to God’s love to Serbs when I can’t even order the right meal off the menu? I know much can be communicated through non-verbals as well, and we have materials in Serbian (like the VOX magazine and Four Laws) but I really do wish and desire to understand more and speak. So often I don’t know what to say… but what is worse is when I do know what to say and don’t because of FEAR of hearing it aloud, of saying it aloud to be heard by others. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I believe Satan attacks me to prevent me from speaking boldly at times because there is power in WORDS – in PRAYER. It is through the spoken word that God turned the invisible into visible (Hebrews 11:3). Paper is easier no doubt.
The verse given to me this week for myself is Acts 18:9,10 – “And Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” Even Paul had to be reminded by God to speak and to not fear. Yes, even Paul had to be reminded that God is a protector. My team is a safe place of community. I know that and desire to walk in that truth more, instead of running inside.
However not to leave my narrative of today, we arrived the graveyard and I was touched by the community I saw there. Loving strangers, my mind went back to Asne’s accounts. The need is here. The need falls in clods of dirt upon sunken caskets. The need presents itself in potent incense. The need sinks down in brooding ravens landing to rest on the yard’s numerous crosses. I do not want this heart cry to be so easily lifted from me, as this love is not of my own. But I do confess feeling a slight apprehension as to what it all could mean. Why do I love these people in this way? I told Courtney, “I hope I’m wrong,” and she just laughed knowing full well what I meant. For now, I’m fine with not knowing the extent of ‘why’ and just ‘loving’ instead. Again, because it is Love that compels to share the great and mysterious hope in Jesus that I have.
Hmm… Can one truly in love keep silent? Truly?
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