impossibilities

So, over dinner tonight, I think I FINALLY articulated something that has been weighing heavy on my heart since I got here almost 5 months ago. I've never been particularly articulate and so it felt really good to put words to this and to say it out loud. I'm not sure I'll be able to recreate it here, but I'll give it a try.

Today, a grandmother came to the Nutrition program at the health center with her orphaned grandchild who is less than a month old. We told this woman a week ago when we gave her milk for the baby that she needed to find a breastfeeding caregiver for the child and that we would provide milk for the baby for the first month while the caregivers breastmilk is coming in and then provide the caregiver with a bit of nutritional support every month until the child is a year old. Well, she came back today without bringing a someone willing to breastfeed the child. The babies weight has come up, so she's doing a good job, but the agreement was that she'd bring a breastfeeder back or we wouldn't be able to help her. We cannot supply formula/milk for every motherless child in this area, we just can't. We can't feed all of these kids until they're a year old, but how can you possibly fault this hardworking grandmother who looks as old as my grandmother and probably walked miles to get to the clinic this morning in pursuit of good care for her grandchild? And the situations like these are endless.

The kid that comes to my door every day and says "give me bread," "give me your money" who has become accustomed to the Bazungu living on the mission being generous and merciful and so comes to see what he can get from you today. I don't want to be taken advantage of, I don't want to hurt these kids by enabling them to grow up thinking that they can just go to the nearest white person for their provision, I can't provide for each kid that comes to my door, I get so frustrated and feel so overwhelmed. But how can you fault them when they see what I have compared to what they have?

The big umbrella organizations like UNICEF or EGPAF or the like that have all kinds of top-down rules and regulations and standards for how you, the small NGO, are to use their resources...these parameters and regulations feel so limiting/constrictive when you're sitting in front of a woman with a child on death's doorsteps who happens to not fit the criteria. But do you fault them as organizations for having rules and regulations as to how their resources are to be used, or requiring reports of how you are using their resources even though the reports are painstaking and time consuming and just downright annoying? No, because it's not wise of them to just hand out resources left and right without any guidelines on how it is to be used, and it's unwise to ask for accountability for how it is being used in the field...But these are not the people sitting with the woman with the sick child who doesn't qualify...

We look at the Babwisi and say "they don't trust each other...they seem to have such strong communities but no one trusts each other so what kind of community is that?" But how can we fault them for not trusting each other when we have a hard time trusting them because of their behavior/deceit?

EVERY situation, and EVERY encounter I have here seems t0 have these impossibilities in them...it's exhausting and overwhelming and should be driving me to the feet of my Savior. Come quickly Lord Jesus!