Tag poverty

Placing roses on the mass graves.

Almost exactly a year ago today I received a text message while at work at Baxalta; it said that dad had been in a car accident and totaled the only vehicle that my family had. I informed my boss of the situation and he being the amazing human being that he is, may God have mercy on his soul, told me to go home. On the way home I was praying and fighting with the Spirit regarding how I felt about the situation. I arrived at the freeway exit and hit a red light, while waiting for it to turn green so I could turn left to get home; I felt God ask me why I didn’t join my dad in ministry. I responded angrily and tearfully while beating the poor steering wheel of my car yelling, “My dad gives to the poor, loves people, and if anyone has ever trusted You in faith he does!” “Yet he is always broke, always abandoned by his friends, and can’t even own a car!” “If this is how you treat those who give everything to You and trust You in faith then I want no part of it, no thank you God, I don’t have enough faith and you don’t take care of my family enough, to abandon all my hard work for You.” I was expecting Him to respond in anger or condemnation but instead I felt the Spirit ask me what it would take for me to join dad in the ministry; I asked for a salary. I told Him that if he could match 60% of my Baxalta salary I would quit my job and join dad in full time ministry, but the money couldn’t come from donors, couldn’t come from Mission Critical, and couldn’t come from dad’s business; it had to be free of all strings and just magically appear into my account every month. If God could answer that one simple prayer and show me that He does indeed take care of His children who trust Him at all times then I would walk in faith to wherever the Spirit led.

Less than a week later I felt spiritual warfare all around every aspect of my life. I could sense demons stalking me everywhere I went and I could sense angels praying for me and encouraging me. Obviously I was terrified and oddly curious as to what was going on. I spent hours in prayer, reading the word, and doing everything I could to minister to anyone I ran across. The spiritual presence intensified to the point that I walked outside at 4 in the morning with my hands raised in the air yelling at God, asking Him what the heck was going on! He responded, “trust me at all times, abandon everything and follow me.” A few short hours later I parked my car at an unknown location in downtown Atlanta and simply walked away from it, threw my keys off a bridge, threw my phone on the ground shattering it, and threw my wallet into someone’s mailbox; odd I know. The spirit strongly encouraged me to perform a miracle and told me, “We will walk and not grow weary, we will run and not faint.” So I walked, ran, walked, and ran all over Atlanta without saying a word for the following 28 or so hours. Never grew tired, nothing hurt, never grew hungry, and had no sore muscles the following day. While walking I saw many signs and wonders as well as many visions, some of which have been explained since, most of which are still a mystery to me. However, at the end of the walk I could not remember my name or where I left any of my belongings so I was committed to a psych ward. I have no idea how my family found me but they did and came and collected me.

Several months later after applying for veteran benefits I was declared disabled both physically (bone spurs on my feet and loss of hearing in my left ear) and mentally (PTSD). I received a disability pension that equaled 80% of my Baxalta salary and at that moment I knew God loves His children and can indeed do mighty miracles through those who trust in Him at all times. So I joined Mission Critical full time as we started planning several trips for 2016.

The first trip was to Colombia and I wrote 2 blogs of my experience there and I highly recommend to anyone who wishes to please read them, one was about the children in poverty there and around the world,  the other was about veterans here and abroad.  Both were written from the heart and difficult to write but expressed what the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is doing around this world with both children and veterans from my point of view. While those blogs came from the heart and were hard to write both pale in comparison to the experience I had in Rwanda.

Rwanda, oh how I could write from now till Jesus returns about the blessings and trials that country is and has been through and it wouldn’t cover a fraction of the feelings I have for that country. I read many military briefs and summaries of Rwanda while I was in the Navy, both of the failure of the international community to step in during the genocide and of the massive accolades that Rwanda has received for it’s humanitarian work since then. When I started working for Mission Critical and I heard that we had a contact in Rwanda who was working to build a Mercy’s house there and how he wanted us to come and preach there my first response was; who are we that Rwanda has anything to hear from us? We are not worthy to set foot in that sacred country; on that sacred ground. Yet in July of 2016 Rebekah, Brooke, Dad, and I stepped off a plane onto the tarmac in Rwanda, and THAT story alone is a miracle that needs to be told on another day. When we stepped off the plane, the same angels that I heard praying for me in Georgia were singing praises to God for us around the airport. I never felt closer to God than the day I went walking in faith in Atlanta, and stepping off the plane in Rwanda.

But what was it specifically about Rwanda that is so hard to write about? Is it the genocide that happened? The fact that that genocide happened during my lifetime? The fact that I remember watching it unfold on the news as a kid? Yes and no. On our first day in Rwanda, my first time ever visiting Africa, we ran many errands to finish the final preparations for the many crusades that pastor Ndagijimana had planned for us, also on our first day in Rwanda we discovered that not only had Ndagijimana finished and finalized the paperwork to make Mission Critical Rwanda a legitimate entity in Rwanda but that he also planted five churches under it. So now not only are we a mission team in Rwanda trying to start building an orphanage there, we are the heads and representatives of five new churches in the country, shocking news to us. After running many errands to finish preps for the crusades he planned we visited the genocide memorial. Let me say that nothing prepared me for what we were about to see.

Preaching in Nygatare

We arrived at the museum and I noticed that they were selling roses to place on the graves, the proceeds for the sales would go to the families of the survivors. “Magically” there “happened” to be 5 roses left for sale, there were 5 of us, so I bought them and we walked down to the graves. I had no idea what to expect from this visit or what the graves would look like but as we walked down the steps I saw 5 large slabs of concrete surrounded by black walls with red roses bushes, the blocks of concrete looked like half finished basketball courts to me, rough and just sitting on the ground with no edging. When it finally hit me what those blocks of concrete were; I audibly gasped, I started shaking, and had to remind myself to breathe. I was looking at the unmarked unfinished tombstones of 250,000 people. My dad happened to be nearby and I grabbed him violently so I wouldn’t collapse. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, and couldn’t walk. He gently but forcibly shoved me forward trying to remind me, I guess we haven’t talked about it since, not to make a scene at this place of remembrance. At the bottom of the steps, there was a wall with many names on it. I thought at first how odd it was that SO MANY of their first names were the same, then I realized that they listed the last names first. Because this was a genocide of a specific ethnicity of people and of course they wiped out whole families, so this wall has at one spot 26 last names that match, the entire family. The rest of the museum is dedicated to laying out the history of the country, the theology and colonial history that led to the genocide, the actual daily events of the genocide, and the aftermath of the genocide. Before colonialism Rwanda did not have different ethnicities, just a social caste system that presented titles to different Rwandans based on their wealth or social standings. The Belgians took this caste system and made it, forcibly, into different ethnicities in order to more efficiently rule over the Rwandans. After Rwanda became free this social order remained and the church even got in on it by teaching Hamitical theology to support the idea that some Rwandans were born lesser than others, children of Ham. This entire situation came to a head in the 90s where the government spent at least 10 years planning the genocide as a final solution to the problem of the children of Ham and set in motion the Genocide. 1 MILLION people killed in less than 100 days, faster and more efficient than the Nazis. Afterward the “children of Ham” took over the country and wiped out all records of ethnic background and basically forgave the perpetrators of the genocide. Sentences were handed out but in our eyes would be considered very lenient. How do you punish 2/3rds of your country for killing the other 1/3rd of the country, there wouldn’t be enough jails or gallows to hand out actual justice.

THIS is the Rwanda that shocked me. As an American I’m used to stories of gross injustice where a hero rises up and overcomes evil. While that story IS there, the oppressed people rose up and using sticks and stones defeated the government forces who had guns and tanks and stopped the genocide, but the ending surprised me. How can you forgive, how can you move on, how can you let people who machete’d unarmed men, women, and children in the streets return to normal life after only repairing a road here and a house there? How does Rwanda today set the example of humanitarianism in Africa only 20 years after the genocide which had deep systemic racism for the 150 years before that? Obviously from my point of view God worked a miracle but these aren’t the kind of miracles I was taught in American churches. I’m used to the miracles and stories of God stopping injustice and punishing the sinners who abuse the innocent. I’m not familiar with the stories of how God seemingly turns a blind eye to horrible horrendous offenses and then FORGIVES the offender. I’m familiar with the God who protects the innocent, not the God who allows the innocent to suffer so that He wins over the abuser.  While I earnestly believe that every victim of the genocide was and is dearly loved by God who comforted them in the afterlife for their suffering. I also learned from Rwanda that the same God forgave and loves millions of the perpetrators who committed the genocide and comforted them in the afterlife from the guilt of their actions. That is why the visit to Rwanda shocked me so badly that I had to remind myself to breathe, but also took me months of reflection before I could write a blog about it.

The blue choir

What does my story in Atlanta have to do with this? Minutes after throwing my keys off the bridge I was led into a tunnel that had beautiful murals on both walls of African women in blue dresses who were staring at me, their eyes and expressions followed me through the tunnel; as if to say, “don’t give up Levi, we need you.” Two weeks after visiting the museum I was scheduled to preach a sermon to our new church in Nyagatare, a border town in the North East of Rwanda, and as I stood up to preach I realized I was preaching to the choir from Kigali, Rwanda’s capital and our base of operations in East Africa. They were all beautiful Rwandan women wearing blue dresses who were staring earnestly at the American who was about to deliver God’s word. During my sermon I was reminded of that vision so I forsook my notes and mentioned it to them. I don’t know entirely why God wanted me in the ministry, I have nothing to offer, but I do know that during the genocide which rocked Africa and the entire world in 1994, He knew I’d visit that museum and learn something about how He truly works and what forgiveness actually looks like. The story of redemption in Rwanda, redemption in my life, and the Bible for that matter is not a story of an underdog who overcame evil and stops injustice from happening. It is a story of an innocent defenseless man who is brutalized, tortured, and killed and yet forgives all involved. Just like Rwanda is a story of a group of people who were brutalized, tortured, raped, and killed and yet forgave all who were involved. Rwanda could have easily rejected the Gospel of Jesus which was taught hand in hand with Hamitical theology for 150 years and returned to their tribal ways which were very peaceful for thousands of years. Instead on that museum etched in the wall are written these summarized words, “While the Europeans brought racism and genocide, they also brought modern medicine and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and for that we thank them.”

Probably the most chilling and yet amazing words I’ve ever read.

When I was a boy I watched a movie called “Behind Enemy Lines” and in that movie there is a very brief scene that made me cry uncontrollably and still affects me to this day. There are these rebels holed up in a warehouse and the military blows in the walls with tanks killing almost everyone, when the troops breach the wall the camera pans and in the foreground for about 10 frames you see this little girl probably 4 years old playing with a doll, gently talking to it and stroking it’s hair, oblivious to everything that is going on. As a boy and now a man that scene affected me, all I wanted to do in this life was pick that girl up and give her a hug, to take her out of that horrible situation and give her a normal life. Well obviously the movie is fiction but the reality is that all over this world that little girl’s story is real and in June 2016 God took me to a place that is so incredibly poverty stricken that I was fighting back tears the entire time I was there. In fact as I type this up the tears are finally pouring out.

This is Suba, we were visiting a privately run and inadequately funded orphanage named Colombia Chiquita. When we first arrived the orphanage owner gave us a brief tour of the 3 story building where they house dozens of abandoned children. These children had some of the most precious smiles I’ve ever seen as they greeted us, before we started the day of playing and testimony they wanted to take us to the girls’ house which wasn’t far from the main building. So we walked down the streets of Suba and my God the poverty was intense. Most of the families in the area recycle trash in order to feed themselves. While we were walking to the girls’ house I spotted a boy about the age of 7 sitting on the “curb” playing in the sand with a stick and his, I presume, sister sitting beside him playing with a piece of rope. She couldn’t have been older than 4 years old and she was gently talking to her brother while stroking the end of the rope like it was a doll and that was it’s hair. I had to look away as hot tears filled my eyes as I was reminded of the above mentioned film. Somehow God had brought me full circle from being moved by scenes depicted in fiction to seeing the real thing in real life and knowing that there was not going to be a happy ending. That girl was probably not an orphan and I will never know her whole story but I do know that there is never going to be a knight in shining armor that comes along, picks her up, gives her a hug, and tells her the whole world was going to be ok. I still hope and pray for her even though I don’t know her name or story, but honestly she was just there to remind me of how cruel and torn this world is; how viciously cruel this world is to children: especially to little girls.

Most children in Suba from the age of 4 dig through trash piles with their parents and family members looking for plastic or anything recyclable, they then load this trash onto carts or bags and haul it I don’t know how many miles to recycling centers where they sell it for next to nothing in order to survive. These kids’ education is so bad that they don’t even know the difference between letters and numbers. Their education level is so horrendous that they aren’t even qualified to go to public school, the public school system in Colombia is horrible btw, so they will spend their entire lives either gathering trash day to day or end up having to enter a life of crime. These mind you are the lucky ones with parents and family willing to give them a home.

God wasn’t done making a grown veteran cry that day. We walked back to the orphanage and took the kids out to the nearby “park” to play with them and make them laugh all day. We had a great time with these kids yet the entire time I was struggling with tears for these orphans. Suddenly, at the end of the park a door opens and these two kids run out of this “house,” maybe 7 and 5, and start playing in the street. I’m using quotation marks because if you could have seen the conditions of this neighborhood the terms curb, park, and house are too nice of words to describe the horrible condition this place was in. This town literally looked one strong breeze away from falling down, it looked like a card house project gone wrong. So these two kids a boy and a girl are playing, they looked like they haven’t showered in a month, the rags they wore were so dirty that it looked like if you shook them too hard you could collect a bucket of sand from their clothes. The little girl, the 5 year old, knocks on the door and to my incredible surprise a 2 year old answers it and decides to come out and play with his siblings. The poor thing had on sweat pants and a t-shirt and the sweat pants were soaked as if he had been peeing in his pants for days. At that point I looked back at the orphan kids we were playing with and my tears held back, I could justify staying emotionally neutral because these kids all had on clean clothes. Yes they were orphans with no hope, yes they lived in a horrible part of town, yes their education level was sub-par to the public school system, and yes their parents had all been killed in the civil war or drug violence; but at least they had on a fresh set of clean clothes so Levi didn’t start crying on the spot because Levi could see that they had on clean clothes.

When we returned to the orphanage God wasn’t done breaking my heart. I learned that some time before we arrived the water company sent a man to shut off water to the orphanage due to lack of payment. When the meter man arrived and saw the children he couldn’t shut it off out of conscience. I also learned that their food budget ran out and they were trying to sell broken bikes they had stacked on top of their roof to get the next month’s food. With tears rolling down my face Rebekah asked me to pray over the orphanage owner for the money they so badly needed. Angry at God but trusting in His good will I prayed like I never prayed before in my life for the funds for them to stay open, feed their kids, have running water, and basic necessities.

When we returned to the hotel my brother Luke and I stayed up until about 1 in the morning praying and talking about God and His plan for our ministry. Honestly I was dying inside and losing hope for the immense task ahead of us. Luke needed some prayer and discussion so I kinda kept it all together for him. We talked about everything we had seen that day and the day before. All the little signs that God gave us letting us know we were doing His will. I kept everything that I’ve shared here to myself until writing this but there were many other signs up to that point that I talked with Luke about.

The next day I was supposed to lead a devotion on a topic of my choice. Honestly, I was so broken hearted for those kids and so incredibly helpless to do anything about their condition that I really didn’t want to lead the devotion, I didn’t want to be there anymore, I wanted to go home and pretend that kids are only in those conditions in fiction. I really wanted that little girl in the movie to be the only problem I’d face like that. But God was still working on me and led me to the book of John once again. He led me to where Jesus commands us to ask Him for anything and it will be done. The day before Luke had taught on being helpless before God so I decided I’d teach on praying helpless before God. If God is indeed like the judge in the parable that Jesus taught about, only good instead of evil, then the best way I know how to get someone to change their mind is to show how helpless and desperate the situation is when pleading my case. I believe that God showed me these things in this way to show me where true power lies, in being helpless and completely dependent on Him. People with money don’t need God, people with nice houses don’t need God, people with busy lives are too busy for God. God also reminded me of the story of Lazarus and the rich man, He reminded me that the little girl I saw was Lazarus, and that while in this life she isn’t comforted, while in this life she doesn’t have dolls, and while in this life no one is coming to give her a big hug and let her know everything is going to be ok; in the next life Jesus has every doll she will ever want, in the next life she will be comforted, and in the next life she will never cry again. I felt strongly that if I’m even to see a glimpse of what awaits her I needed to get busy doing what Jesus commanded us; caring for the orphans, the widows, and the sick in their time of need. It’s easy to pass on a picture of Christ carrying the cross on FaceBook saying, “would you help Jesus up, share if you would, ignore if you won’t.” It’s hard to do what Jesus said is helping Jesus in His time of need, that if you so much as give a glass of water to one of these little one’s you’ve done it unto Him.

The last thing that broke my heart that day was when we were walking back to the orphanage I learned that Dad was giving the place all we could afford as a donation and I thanked him. He said, “yeah son, this isn’t slum tourism, we are doing all we can to help.” I literally lost it when I gave him a hug for saying that. Mission Critical can’t even begin to be a drop of water in the bucket of the problems we face and see in Colombia and around the world, but we can make sure that their stories are heard, show that their pain is real, and maybe give some water to 40 or 50 orphans here and there in the name of Christ. This ministry is two parts, sanctifying ourselves by seeing the desperation and helplessness in others, and making a real difference in the lives that we possibly can.

I was honestly scared to death as I stepped out of the crowded taxi and immediately smelled the stench of drugs, urine, trash and a lot of people who have not bathed in only God knows how long. Rosita (the head honcho of the street ministry and a very sweet friend), Alex , Omar, Karen, Carolina (all young adults who are part of the 50 kids we care for day in and day out) and I were back once again on the streets of Medellin hunting souls and meeting needs. But as always it is not a fairy tale setting, nor is it filled with beautiful people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and need saving. No, as we began unloading the boxes of sandwiches, hot chocolate, personal hygiene items and rice I couldn’t help but feel very nervous being literally surrounded by men, women and young teenagers who had obviously been living in the street for a very long time and who simply stared at us. Some eyes reflected curiosity, others contemplating the possibility of valuables to steal and still others held pure distain for the “do gooders” who were back again.

Our mission tonight was not exactly the streets but a “hotel”, if you can call it that, actually it was more like a cramped, wet, smoke filled, roach infested community drug house where over 150+ men, women and children live their lives day in and day out spending a very little amount to live there 24/7 and sometimes just pay for their children to live there alone and uncared for. Try to imagine the worst motel you have ever been in and then times that by 4.

The fear continued to grip my heart as I made my way to the staircase but soon vanished as I was met by three tiny brown faces smiling and yelling “Chocolate! Chocolate!” One little boy wrapped his arms around my neck and used me as a ride up the stairs. I am glad he knew how to hang on because I had a 20 gallon jug of hot chocolate in one hand and a 15 pound bag of rice in the other plus this little boy around my neck and walking upstairs, lets just say my physical strength was really being tested. As soon as we entered the door a flood of little 1-4 year old kids jumping up and down and asking to be held met us. Let me tell you a bit about these beautiful little kids. None of them were completely dressed. The majority only had some old dirty sweats on and no shoes, socks or shirts and the others were completely naked from head to toe. Every one was dirty and in serious need of a tissue. They were malnourished and had their faces, legs, and arms painted with Indian cultural markings and bleached hair. I will never forget the moment when Nancy (a little 2 year old girl) stood on her toes and stretched her arms up to me wanting me to hold her. I picked her up and was immediately sickened by the fact that her little sweats were completely soaked by her own urine. But at the same I was so happy and touched to see her little face smiling at me. She followed me around the rest of the night and I never was able to find out to whom she belonged.

We took some time to go room to room inviting everyone to come to the main patio (where they all individually cook over a “hole in the concrete” stove with wood and fire) to receive the gospel and food. We started with the kids by sharing “The shepherd who left the 99 to look for the one” Bible story and giving them chips, sandwiches, candy and hot chocolate. I had to hand feed the sandwich to a little one-year-old who weighed no more than 10 pounds tops (I am not exaggerating). She was tiny and was not able to feed herself. Afterwards we shared the gospel with the adults who behaved a lot worse than the children. The adults were fighting, arguing, yelling and cursing us but we were able to feed them as well.

All in all it was a very eye opening experience and I can’t wait to go back. It is not easy, especially seeing people live that way, and what is worse seeing children live that life. But instead of letting that damage my faith and cause me to complain to God about why He would allow those things to happen, it fuels my faith even more and my passion to pursue the broken and realize that God in His great love and mercy is using me to help these people and to help bring them to Himself. Of course we don’t always see the fruit of our labor right away or maybe never in this life, but I know God used us that night to plant a seed in their hearts and He is in charge of growing that seed, all we have to do is go where He leads us and love whomever He puts in front of us.

“Where You go I go, What You say I say, What You pray I pray, What You pray I pray. Jesus only did what He saw You do, He would only say what he heard You speak, He would only move when He felt You lead following Your heart, following Your spirit. How could I expect to walk without You when every move that Jesus made was in surrender I will not begin to live without You, for You only are worthy, You are always good. You are always good. Though the world sees and soon forgets, we will not forget who you are and what you’ve done for us, what you’ve done for us.” “Where you go I go”- Jesus Culture

Love Brooke

Photos of Brooke’s work in Colombia

Like many missionaries, Brooke has no source of income other than love gifts from home.

If you would like to support Brooke you can mail a check to:

Mission Critical International

11743 Northpointe Blvd #1025

Tomball, TX 77377

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