I came across this beautifully written blog via Adam Cleavland’s blog. Under African Skies is about one man’s 8-week journey into Africa to help in AIDS clinics and orphans of AIDS patients. It is deeply touching, passionate and beautifully written. Here are a couple of excerpts that broke my heart:

…I don’t know what else to write. I am questioning my strength to handle this situation, my ability to keep my mind while I’m in the slums. The funny thing is that these words mean nothing to you if you haven’t seen it, the poverty. I saw women placing shirts in the sewage and then wringing them out in an attempt to get water for dishes or clothes. I saw cats and dogs running around covered in sewage, and the smell is still stuck in my nostrils. The hardest thing to begin to do is process what I can do for these people. I met many Christians with beautiful smiles and warm hearts, and I still felt so cold. Tears well up in my eyes now as I think about how hard it is to look into their eyes, knowing what I have and what they have, it is not fair. They smile at me, treat me like I’m a king and I just want to fall to my knees and beg them to let me wash their feet. It was the hardest day yet.

I am going back tomorrow…
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…Victor does not have budget for massive speakers, large jumbo screens, fancy music, free coffee, or ten million dollar sanctuaries complete with cool Celtic crosses. His budget involves finding or somehow purchasing metal sheets to continue to construct a humble building where over 200 people can gather to worship God without being harassed by other slum dwellers or sit soaking in sewage. We have it so wrong, so backwards. But you know what, no matter how hopeless today seemed, and how difficult it might be, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can influence our churches to give, and not just to foreign missions or large aid agencies (which is still important), but even better our churches can begin to partner with churches all over the world. Money from Seattle could be sent directly to a church in Nairobi that focuses on supplying Victor with metal and wood. It is a risk and certainly the churches would have to know lots about each other, but I really believe it is possible and change in Nairobi will not come from the government, it must come from the Churches here. I hope and pray that if anything, the things I saw today and have written about wouldn’t just be something that make us all feel sad, but that it would move us to hope, dream, and work for something greater than what we know.
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“Oh Lord, break our hearts with the things that break the heart of God.”

Related posts:

1. African Aid
2. Embezzlement
3. Separation between Church and State…
4. Apathy
5. Uh oh, Emergent forgot about the Purpose Driven Drivel!

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