I know, what a statement to make after the joy of yesterday's blog.
I have a good reason for the switch.
The story: at least 321 people massacred in the D.R. of the Congo by the LRA, the rebel army that has been terrorizing the people of Uganda for decades. The rebel army that is the source of the longest running war in Africa. The rebel army that, like so many others, has operated with freedom, that has ties to the problems in Sudan. The rebel army that has seeped out of Uganda into the Congo, Chad, Sudan, and Kenya.
Add the LRA to the existing conflicts in the Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda, and on and on.
What is more frustrating? It took until March 28th for the majority of the world to acknowledge it happened.
What is the most popular story on the BBC website currently?
There are bombs in Moscow, people dying by mutilation at the hands of brainwashed child soldiers, ongoing wars in the Middle East.
I was in a church service over Christmas break, and the pastor asked "What injustice in the world makes your blood boil?"
Can you think of one?
By the way, that's something like diarrhea. That's something preventable by the water running out of our taps, out of our shower heads, and out of our garden hoses.
I have to be careful when my passion and fury towards injustice takes over. I sometimes lose sight of what is the heart of the matter when I get so overwhelmed with problems.
My heart breaks for people in the third world. God has turned my heart, he has broken me for the injustices toward the poor. And in my summer in Haiti last year I was reminded every day of how little I could do.
I could not take in every orphan I saw on the streets.
I could not give clean water to every person who didn't have any.
I could not provide proper nutrition to every hungry person I saw.
I could not put in jail the men who raped the little girls I saw on a daily basis.
I could not do much, in a nation of 9 million. A nation that is a dot on the globe.
So, Mr. Pastor, that's what makes my blood boil. That the injustice and the need of the world is so massive that I can do little to change it. I am angry that it exists at all.
He followed his initial question with this statement:
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
So - what makes your blood boil? And what are you going to do about it? I would love to hear, because people who live out their passion, who follow what the Lord has broken their hearts over, those people are the ones who remind me of Hope, who point me back to the Lord, and remind me that we serve a Lord who is angry too, and who is coming to change things.
But it isn't enough to wait for Him to fix this shit around us.
Let's do something about it.
Do something like this.
Do something like this.
Do something like this.
What am I doing? I'm moving to Haiti for a year, and I am praying that the Lord shows me what to do next. I am praying that as I go, as I help doctors and nurses take care of the sick people we meet, that I will learn something about meeting physical needs of people. And that that will begin to build bridges to allow spiritual needs to be met.
I have no idea what I am doing here. I have no idea how to be brave enough to be like Isabella and Katie and Mike and Beth Fox. But I hope that I will never stop to be driven and passionate like they are at fighting against the darkness in this world.
And I am thankful that every step along the way reminds me I am broken, I am not enough, and I am provoked and led by a God who never abandons and continually sustains, who asks His people to fight the darkness too.
What will you do? What shall I do?
Whenever I see, read, or hear about a child who is intentionally and repeatedly beaten, reviled, neglected, ignored, and/or mistreated, some part of me fills with both indignation and pity, for both the child and the parent(s).
ReplyDeleteFor the child, for being forced to endure what no child should, and for the parents, who, likely, knew nothing different in their childhoods. More often than not, both are, without intervention of some sort, doomed to repeat these injustices and perpetuate the cycle to the next generation.
It has to stop. It must stop. It's not stopping on its own.
The whole story is more intricate than that.
As always, thanks for your persistent and, much needed, reality checks. They sure are needed here in the heart of JoCo.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has no idea what's coming next. It can be a little unnerving at times.
I feel like my week in the DR accomplished nothing. So what if I hugged a few kids? Their parents still don't do it enough. They'll never get the love they deserve.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but get lost in my anger toward rich, white America.