Kristen Welch

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Open Your Heart

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“Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. He who loves is a participant in the being of God.” Martin Luther King

I checked the time and tried to mentally calculate the line of traffic ahead of me. The hospital on the other end of the phone and city confirmed that visiting hours would end soon.

I would have 30 minutes to spend with my dad. He was in the hospital again with a heart issue.

I was having my own kind of heart problems. I had just spent the last 8 hours and 8 weeks assisting Afghan refugees in settling into their new lives in Houston.  As I drove, I thought about the chaos –and the grief–of the day.

The front row seat into the lives of these beautiful people was messing up my heart. In the last two months, I’ve lost count how many incredibly hospitable and warm Afghan people I’ve met, arriving from military bases around the world where they fled when Kabul fell.We have collected food, delivered groceries, enrolled kids in school, put beds together, unpacked welcome kits, picked up new families from the airport, collected couches and delivered tables. We are helping people who helped us.

And we need more help than ever to continue.

I pulled into the hospital parking lot with 28 minutes to spare and made my way to my dad’s room. I was getting a quick update from my dad and telling him about my day with refugees when the cardiologist came in. He introduced himself and mentioned his background in the Middle East.

My dad told the doctor that I had been serving new refugees from his home region. The doctor stopped, turned and said, “Thank you for helping them. These are beautiful people who have been through so much.” It turns out this doctor would end up solving the mystery of the pain in my dad’s heart by performing a surgery no else had thought of.

Little did I know, one of the young refugee women I helped move into an apartment that day was also a cardiologist. She had been practicing for 3 years when she had hours to feel Afghanistan with her family.We have since spent a lot of time together talking about her long and hard journey to practice as a cardiologist in the USA. The expensive books, the tests–it’s daunting. At one point, she said this mountain is too big. I got tears in my eyes and said, “Do you know how to climb a mountain?
One step at a time.
And in a turn of events only God could orchestrate, her first of three sets of book and tests have been provided for and she now has my dad’s cardiologist’s phone number with his offer to help.
Sometimes I feel like God gives us  tiny glimpse into His heart for His people. And it opens our heart.
I’ve sat on floors in completely bare apartments, humbly accepting the only seat in the home, shared one piece of fruit — their only and best—with my family, and experienced beautiful hospitality. I’ve listened to horror stories of escape and cramped cargo planes, and witnessed the unspeakable grief that comes with losing everything and worst of all, watched the painful memory cross the face of someone who left loved ones behind in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban.
The past 8 weeks (and 12 years in Kenya) have been holy and horrible and more than once I felt like God was lifting this veil to show me how much He loves us in the weaving together of our stories and how far he will go after the one...one pregnant teen, one mom who put her daughter into prostitution because she doesn’t have access to dignified work, one cardiologist who can help another, one American mom who needs to open her heart to end up healing it….
In the next 4 weeks, Mercy House Global’s partner- YMCA International— is expecting the largest wave of Afghan evacuees in Houston to date.
They’ve asked us to fill a couple of specific gaps:
1. Continue to provide and deliver groceries until families can get food stamps (locals sign up here). If you’re not, download the Mercy House Global app and give towards food (it cost about a $1000 a week to feed 40 families).
2. Assemble newborn welcome kits for the large population of pregnant women arriving (Here’s the Amazon wish list so anyone can participate)

Will you open your heart and be a part of one of the greatest opportunities to love on a group of unreached people who faced hell only to escape and become our neighbors?
It turned out it’s just what my heart needs.

Cry Like a Baby

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I don't know where to begin. I've been drinking from a fire hydrant the past few weeks. But instead of feeling like I'm drowning, I feel like I'm tasting Living Water and it only makes me want more. Before church on Sunday, my husband told me about this David Platt podcast. In a nutshell: David Platt got in an Uber on the way to the airport and his Muslim driver asked what he did for a living. David Platt told him he was a pastor. The driver said I've had a dream I need to tell you about. ... Read More

Mercy House Global is a True Story

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Over the past decade, I’ve cried a million tears, told a thousand stories and witnessed the miracle second chances of a hundred teen moms and their babies that are still alive long after the world left them for dead. This is the true story of Mercy House Global.  At first news of the global pandemic  in March, I knew it would make what we do in Kenya more difficult and even more critical. I hate it when I’m right. In the last couple of months, we’ve rescued a girl who was sold for a loaf ... Read More

Living a Paradox: The Truth About A Contradictory Life

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I'll never forget the moment of clarity I had in the middle of the pasta aisle. It was the day after I returned from a trip to Kenya with my family. I ran into an old friend next to the spaghetti sauce and she hugged me and said, "so, was your trip to Kenya just ah-maazing!?!?" She drug out the last word and her voice went up and I was afraid to commit. It's the tone used to describe a memorable vacation in an exotic place with a lot of exclamation points. Before I could answer, she said, ... Read More

When Your Soul is Starving

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Guest post by Janel Breitenstein I spoke to two women this week—women I would describe as hungry. Both were choosing tough situations: not situations where they needed to endure, but choices that twanged my heart like a violin string. Choices whose destination would be obvious if they weren’t within them. I found myself wordless. My friends seemed desperate for a safe embrace from me. For acceptance. But my head clanged with warning. Y’know those situations where you wonder if you’ll ... Read More

For When You’re Having a Hard Time Being Human

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I'm rarely at a loss for words. But that's exactly how I've felt the past month every time I've started to write a blog post. I've been sharing my life in this space for a decade now. Ten years. By now, we know each other well. So, you know that when I don't know what to say next, I'm in a weird place. I can say this: I've had a hard time being a human lately. I, mean, I like being human, I'm just not very good at it. I told my husband the other night after a long day that I was ready ... Read More

Sometimes When You’re in a Dark Place You Think You’ve Been Buried, But Actually You’ve Been Planted

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This summer while we were hiking in the mountains one day during our sabbatical, my family wanted to keep climbing. I wanted to hide in the cleft of the rock. It was quiet and beautiful and I took a deep breath, stretched out my legs and rested while they kept going. That's when I saw the small opening in the rocks behind me. I bent down and peeked into the black hole and I was surprised to see bright green plants growing in the darkness. I have thought about those little plants and their bad ... Read More

The Poorest People In The World

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"The bedbugs used to eat my babies but God is God and now they get to sleep," Agnes "I’m thankful that God has given me a new name. I was “that poor woman” but now I have a name," Esther "I was a sex worker but now I’m free and I have a good job making jewelry," Faith "I’m thankful for clean food. I used to only get food from the dump," Papina "I thank God that I can feed my children," Miriam "I’m thankful that I now have more than one dress to wear so I don’t have to wash and dry ... Read More