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Project Agape – A Glimpse of Abundance |
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Project Agape – A Glimpse of Abundance
by Steve Taylor
John 10:1-10
Abundant life, it’s a point that sometimes appears impossible, maybe even in most times, especially in times when the pain seems so complete, so overwhelming. It's amazing how much pain a people can carry. Spitak, Armenia is a city where even nature weeps. I was amazed that after 14 years, the results of the earthquake are still so stark, so dramatic. The containerized housing is still seen everywhere. With horrific loss of life, about 1/3 of a population of 19,000, with the destruction of industry, with the full upheaval of the social order even as the land itself buckled, the people have simply been able to find little rebirth. Perhaps it was the lingering snow in the cracks and crevices that received no sun, perhaps it was the low clouds blanketing the barren mountains, perhaps it was simply because pain of such magnitude can never be fully escaped, but the land, nature itself, seemed to weep as we moved around the city.
We had come to visit the newly built school. It stood on the side of the large hill rising above much of the city. It seemed to proclaim connection with other Christians, a connection with others that sought in some way to minimize the pain. It some small way, perhaps it stood as a statement of hope in the midst of such deep despair. As we stepped from our vehicles now parked on the rocky, cratered driveway, the children quickly gathered around us, pushing forward, eyeing our cameras and wanting to see what might be in our bags. Like children everywhere, their life was infectious, quickly transforming our gloomy mood into laugher and light. We moved from classroom to classroom, meeting teachers and enjoying the wonder of their collective spirit. One class of young children offered up an Armenian poem of hope and promise. Another older class sat shyly in their chairs only to explode in exuberant giggles as soon as we departed the room and the door safely closed behind us.
After a short while we made our way over to the old school, the one which was still being used for the high school students. It was a series of metal containerized classrooms linked together by a long enclosed foyer. Dark rust stains ran down the structure’s dingy sides, like so many rivers of blood, proclaiming it’s demise as useful shelter. Like a rotting corpse, there was little life left for the harsh weather to suck out of it. Yet, used it was. For in several classes, sitting there surrounded by exposed wiring and enveloped by the pungent smell of moldy walls, children tried as best they could to claim some hold on the future, to reach a point of hope where little hope existed.
It was there in that decomposing shell where I met him. It was hard to tell which was the most lifeless, the dieing building or the hollow eyes that looked beyond the haggard and battered face. Henri, had once been a teacher, back then, back before the bad times, back before the earth opened up and swallowed the life from this place. Each day he had brought these children of Armenia, new language and new perspective. Each day he had taught them of other cultures and histories and hopes. But now he said, "I can no longer teach, I can no longer go into that place where it happened."
He had been teaching a class of fifteen children when the earth began to shake. He stood in the front of class, there in that place where he had proclaimed truth, there in that place where he had offered story and future and vision. He stood there and watched as the floor above rained down upon the bodies of these young ones.
In what was almost a whisper, Henri offered, "I knew I would die. The floor fell around us and I knew I would die. But then, there was this small space that opened up around me. After the rumbling had stopped, I was lying in the rubble and I thought, 'Isn't this funny. I am not dead.’ I was pinned there for five hours until they came and dug me out, pinned beneath all the concrete and desks and bodies from the floor above. Eleven of my children died. Eleven, but then, that is such a small number of all of those who died.” As his bottom lip quivered, in small voice it was almost imperceptible, in the midst of a breath, the words struggled from the depths of his soul bearing his greatest pain, “Maybe you don't understand, but I can never teach again. I can never teach."
We stood looking up at the wind-swept mountains, watching as the cold, snow-filled clouds moved slowly down toward the valley. The frigid wind bit through my fleece-lined jacket. His lined weathered face was turned away from me. He continued, "I trusted the people who built the school. I trusted the people who said it was safe. I don't trust anymore. It hurts too much to trust."
We walked in silence for a bit, Henri and I. And then he said, "I would like to give you something. I would like to give you a gift. If you come back here in an hour, I will give you a gift." To my sorrow, the group was leaving soon. I explained that I would gladly accept his gift except that I could not return in an hour. He shook his head slowly, sad that he could not offer a small token to acknowledge our presence. I placed my hand in his and said, “But you did give me a gift.” He looked puzzled at my comment. “You gave me the gift of your life, you gave me a gift of your story.” His arms closed around me, pulling our bodies close. I felt his thin frame press against me, his life flowing into mine in the miracle of touch. And then, he turned and walked swiftly down the street, walked hand in hand with three children who were just leaving the school. He never looked back.
Thank you for your gift my brother, thank you. I promise I will always handle it gently.
Later, our small group walked through the cemetery above the town. Floating above the cemetery on the hillside was a church, a place built so that the thousands who had friends and family members buried in this place could have a place to mourn. The shaking had spared little and the church that had served the community for so long had been destroyed. Each time the sun would glimmer through the sullen skies, the metal sides would echo it's light -- a light on a hill, here among all the death. Whole families were buried together in that place -- whole families who shared the date and place of ending, a community connected forever by more than blood, a community connected by death. We stood there reaching across the years of pain, reaching into the past in the attempt to once again hear the laughter, to once again listen to the voices and songs and conversations. Yet, the only sound was the mournful groaning of the wind as it blew around the black granite tomb stones. It was the sound of sadness, the cry of a mother who would never find her child. Perhaps, in the end, it was the cry of Christ, the lament of the one who loves the most, the one who died the hardest.
An hour later, our surroundings had changed. There in the newest restaurant in town, under the chandelier throwing gentle light to all corners of the newly painted room, we sat with the principal of the school. A feast of magnanimous proportion was spread out before us. And there was life, life in the presence of memories that would never diminish, life only a stones throw from those fields of death. One of our party, a man who feels more than most, made a solemn toast, a toast to disputed land where mines would daily tear human bodies to pieces, a toast to peace and freedom and hope. The principal, nodded in the man's direction. He slowly raised his cup and in a somber tone said, "We have a saying in our country. It is 'give me your pain and together, we will lighten your load.'”
Give me your pain, give me your pain and I will carry it, here on the shoulders that bear the deaths of scores of young children. Give me your pain and I will bear it with the scars of a land torn apart by war and by the rupture of the earth itself. Give me your pain ... an offer only made by those who know what it is to bear unbearable pain.
“I am the gate,” the voice says, “I am the gate who opens to give pasture, I am the gate who offers abundant life that connects you one to another, together there where flesh touches flesh, there where it might appear that life is most tenuous, there where tears drip into the dust where you walk … and where I walk with you.” Abundant life, here, now, not in spite of the pain, but sometimes, maybe even in most times, because of it. |
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*Mission Stories