Keep Breaking My Heart

I have a visitor coming in a little less than two weeks. Today, I had a random thought on that. I was wondering to myself how my home will look to her. Not my house where I sleep but the country I now call home. I sometimes forget those first moments here in Uganda where I was taking everything in. All the smells, the sounds, what I saw.
I sometimes wish I could see with those eyes again. I looked around as I was thinking this. I was on a boda boda at the time. I couldn't help but think how all these things had become so familiar to me. The piles of trash, the naked children with their bloated stomachs, the mud, the smell of urine, the run down slum, the trenches that have to be jumped (while hoping you don't land in it), and all the poverty.
I wonder if when people first come if they are totally disgusted. But, you see, this has become my world, my home. I sometimes don't notice these things. They've become common to me. I don't get disgusted. Then I wondered to myself, does this mean I'm becoming hardened to the things around me? Am I losing the passion that I once had? Or is that I love these people so much that I have just come to identify with everything and choose not to let it bother me?
I got some answers this afternoon. I try to visit every family of the children that are sponsored at least once a month. Today I felt like going to visit a number of people. I went to the family that lost their mom recently. I hung out there for a bit amidst the flies hovering all around us. I then went to visit two old grandmothers raising their orphaned grandchildren. As we were sitting there chatting and laughing, I felt my heart breaking again. I can help these children with school but there's not much I can do about the situations they are living in. I would love to, but the money is never enough. There are too many people. Too many broken lives. All I can do is give the best hope I know, Christ.
Then I went to visit another family that I've come to love dearly. I've suspected for a long time that the parents and one of their three children are HIV+. They've never admitted it to me but there are just some signs. While I was there today, the mom sent all the children out, asked her sister to come in, shut the door, and then busted into tears. She let it all out. Both of the parents are infected and so is the middle girl. I also cried. I love these people. I love their little girl. She's a gifted child, always number 1 in her class, very bright. But, I know the reality is that she will probably never reach her full potential. Her life will be cut short. She will leave this world before it should be her time.
So, my questions were answered. I've not become hardened. My passion is still there. I walked home fighting back the next flood of tears. But, at the same time very aware of my determination to help at least a handful of these kids make it out of this slum.
God, I pray you keep my heart broken..........