For nearly two decades, I have lived in a village in Western Kenya and worked as a hospice nurse caring for seriously ill adults and children. Each day, I see a combination of beauty and brokenness aplenty within my neighborhood. I walk dirt paths where my footprints blend with those of barefooted children. I ask myself a question that so often serves as a guide when I’m unsure of how to respond to the needs around or within me: What does it look like to love in this situation? I sit alongside joy and pain and witness God’s nearness to the brokenhearted, including my own.
Every morning, I wake up to the sound of a choir of birds singing outside my window. They remind me of the new mercies that are enough for the day. I find great consolation and courage from the words of Lamentation 3:22-23: “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
In 2009, I had been living in Kenya for five years and sensed God inviting me to start a hospice ministry that would eventually become what is now Living Room International, a faith-based work with more than 100 skilled and loving Kenyan staff who care for thousands of patients at our two hospices/hospitals in Western Kenya. Before any of this, though, it was an invitation, and I was trying to discern the right next steps. One night, dear Kenyan friends prayed a simple prayer with the familiar message of Jesus over me: “If God takes care of the birds, he will take care of you.”
Something about their prayer that night went deep into my soul and caused me to begin noticing birds. Every day, everywhere I go – I look and listen for them.
All these years later, this prayer and message of Jesus keeps drawing me to go outside to look for birds. To listen to the choir of their singing. To be reminded that being a neighbor involves noticing, helping, and being helped when needed. To recognize that loving-kindness is available again today. To rest in the truth, as I remember again: if God takes care of the birds, he will take care of me and all that I love.
Somehow, this practice grows compassion within me to ask the questions: what does it look like to do justly now? To love mercy today? To walk humbly with God in my neighborhood? Perhaps you need to go outside today to look for the birds too.
About the Author:
Juli Boit is an author, community builder, and nonprofit leader working at the intersection of faith, global health, and human dignity. For eighteen years, Juli has lived and worked in Africa, founding and serving as International Director of Living Room International, a community-led nonprofit providing hospice and palliative care services to adults and children in Western Kenya.
A Family Nurse Practitioner, Juli has combined her dual passions of healthcare and social justice into a unique expression of love that is providing desperately needed services in an underserved community. That said, Juli would be the first to add she’s the one who has been loved the most by her patients and neighbors in her home village of Kipkaren—most notably by Titus, her Kenyan husband, and their children Sharon, Alice, Ella, Geoffrey, and Ryan.
Connect with Julie:
www.instagram.com/julimcgowanboit
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