unfairness.

We came back on Tuesday from one of the loveliest times away we could have asked for. Toward the end of our trip, both of us had a bit of anxiety to return. Anxiety for what was around the corner and to simply jump back into this lovely community that is swathed in poverty and all that entails.

Now seeing what this week held, it was well-founded anxiety.

Tuesday was brutal, friends. And Wednesday and Thursday weren’t particularly kind.

We’d been expecting a baby to be born while we were away–one of our really good friends. She’s the mother who initially started selling flowers with us (before it was handed off to her mother-in-law, who really had the business) and then later went to the market with us every week for tea shop visits. We helped her start her small pork shop and took her to the market every week to buy meat and ingredients. She recently also started the sewing training with us and will be sewing with us once a week. She’s one of the women I’m closest with in the community.

She didn’t have her baby while we were away, so she was now eight days overdue. In this time, there was a domestic dispute. And while we don’t know or aren’t at liberty to share all the details, we know that she was beaten pretty badly by her husband, leaving her with a black eye, swollen lip, & missing a tooth. He beat her stomach pretty badly as well, so she spent three days in the clinic while they observed the baby.

While we were learning this, she actually went into labor. But being embarrassed–as she was still pretty badly beaten–she didn’t call or tell us. They took a taxi to the clinic.

So Tuesday night found us visiting her in the clinic, far advanced in labor and badly bruised. We then made four more trips to the clinic in the next 12 hours to see the baby and take family members and then bring her home.

Thankfully, the baby is safe and healthy. She is beautiful.

Thankfully, so many friends gathered around to welcome them home with proud smiles and advice.

I’ve had more conversations about abuse this week than I know what to do with. I don’t know what I’m at liberty to talk about or how to present it; I don’t know what to say.

I do know that it was really hard to have such a lovely week with my husband, who is more than I could ever have asked for, while she was beaten by hers. I don’t know why I have this guy and she has him. I don’t know what to say or how to respond. I don’t have the theological answers nor the practical solutions.

The Friday before we left for the beach was pretty full, and I had left our house key with the bread ladies to finish things up while I went to run a few errands. When Stephen returned home, he asked where I was. They said I wasn’t here, but it was no problem, assuring him they were fine to finish baking on their own. He wasn’t actually sure where I was and wanted to know, and replied jokingly, “It IS a problem! I love Kelli and want her here! Where is she?”

It has now become a running joke about how much we love each other and how ridiculously happy we are. They joke about how if one of us isn’t here we’re not happy; we love being together.

It’s true, though.

All those times Stephen has taken them to the clinic when they are worried beyond belief? The times he picks up the baby thats fallen off the step? The times he opens their door and holds their bags while they climb into our two-door car with their baby?

He takes such good care of this community, and he takes even better care of me.

I took this picture of Stephen and one of our little favorites this week. I keep looking at it and trying to reconcile the amazing smiles and joy it captures; the fact that he loves on so many children who aren’t even his. The unfairness of it all.

I feel like I should have a more profound word or response, but it just keeps repeating in my head: it’s unfair.

IT’S UNFAIR.

Six years in to language and culture, I can’t figure out how to answer the questions about why he doesn’t hit me and why we are so happy. I try to say something about loving each other and about Jesus helping us and us loving Jesus and about what the Bible says…but it comes out about that jumbled. Try to imagine a four-year-old trying to explain their faith and belief for why their husband doesn’t beat them, that’s likely what I sound like.

The conversation doesn’t get easier, the words don’t become clearer. Instead the tears feel closer and the answers become more blurred. The situations get closer to home and the dichotomies are more acute.

Instead, we just sit in unfairly distributed households with unfairly distributed blessings.  We hold babies and say prayers.