Living at St. Joseph’s has been amazing. I simply want to take a moment to show you this great picture, courtesy of my teammate Brooke Leffelman.
Some days on the Race, you get to spend a whole afternoon cooking spaghetti for the kids. Serving it was my favorite part.
Some days you get to hop on a tram up Penang Hill and enjoy the most amazing views of the island city.
And some days you see ‘FRANCE DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY’ in red, on the tv, in the hotel room you are hanging out in with friends.
It was shocking to sit there in horror, on that comfy hotel bed watching a British news channel tell what little there was to tell of the events.
After a while, I commented on how it felt so different to be taking in events like that ‘out here’ than it is back home. My team leader, Josh, asked me why; I had to think real hard about that, trying to put it into words.
You see, there’s a strange barrier between the USA and the rest of the world. I think it’s neither a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just how it is. From out here, I feel somehow closer. I see that a country is under attack, and I’m outside of the world’s superpower country, feeling slightly more vulnerable than I would back home. But I especially remarked to him that if I was back home, I would most certainly, at that very moment, be surrounded by deep political discussion; hearing all about the background and the angles of what’s ‘really going on.’
Out here it’s just something that’s going on; not a topic for political debate.
I made a dear friend while in Thailand. He’s from France. He JUST went home. He was there during the attacks. His mother saw a woman blow herself up. He can’t leave his home. I’m terribly worried about his safety.
I’m closer out here. And it just feels so much more real. At the end of the day, politics aside, people are dying. Two months ago in Cambodia, I was awakened to the horrors and reality of genocide in the modern world. It’s happening somewhere right now. World peace doesn’t exist and it never will; it can’t. This is how the world runs, and it’s awful, but true.
I’m a bit confused at the way there is such a strong response to these attacks in France, when there’s horrors of this sort going on daily elsewhere. Why do we consider it so much more newsworthy just because it’s in a Western “more civilized” country this time? Has nobody noticed what ISIS has been up to for a LONG FREAKIN TIME?! Has nobody noticed the terrible things that happen in African countries all the days? Is there another hidden genocide happening in Asia right now that we are oblivious to?
Life goes on. My heart sincerely breaks for France right now. But it broke for Cambodia too. It broke as I watched ISIS videos on youtube a year ago. I’m about to enter Africa and from there the Caribbean; who knows what pains of war I will encounter there? I will feel the pain of war in the world for the rest of my life. But I’ll say it again: life goes on. We all do the best we can.
Instead of making my usual request for prayer for my mission trip at the end of this blog, I’d like to request an international prayer this time. Could you please just take a moment, while you are praying for France, to lift up at least two other countries that are on your heart right now? Please and thank you.
Love to all.
