nuts! I LOVED it and am glad to be gone at the same time. The
children I met and the stories they told really stick with me!
Seeing the hope and joy they have in the midst of such great tragedy
is like a kick in the chest! I piss and moan far more than someone
as lucky as I am should. The kids really get to me! Especially the
ones with bad/no dads. I know that is birthed out of a place in
myself because of the lack of relationship with my own father.
Nonetheless, it just sticks with me. You see the innocent children
who don’t really do anything wrong, yet their lives are marked with
injustice.
I want to tell you a story from when we
were in Jos Nigeria. First, the background: Jos is a place that has
major conflict between Christians and Muslims. The conflict is
political and ethnic much more than it is religious, but it is easier
to blame religion. While in Jos, we went into the villages where the
conflict had recently escalated into violence and murder. On our
first day visiting the villages, we went to Dogo Nahawa. Over 200
people were killed in this village in one night just two months
before we arrived. These people were savagely beaten, hacked with
sticks and machetes, burned, and shot. The brutality in the attack
was senseless and uncompromisable. As I had come to expect when
visiting a village for the first time, the children went nuts, and so
did I. Before I knew it, I had an entourage of at least 10 kids. We
walked with most of the villagers through the remains of their
village, assessing the damage and hearing peoples’ hearts. The
pastors told their stories about how both of their churches were
burned. One man told us how most of his family was killed and all he
had left was a single grandchild. As we were walking, a
seven-year-old boy named Feist who was holding my right hand tells
me, “I have something I want to tell you.” I knelt down
and responded, “Oh ya buddy, what is that?” He told my,
“When they came in and attacked us, they killed my dad.” I
just looked at him trying not to cry… and proceeded to tell him how
sorry I was. Praise, the nine-year-old boy holding my left hand told
me, “His dad was protecting my mom when they killed him.”
I could feel no resentment from either of these two boys; they were
actually close friends. I was overwhelmed and did not know what to
say or do. I took Feist and threw him on my shoulders hoping that it
would ease his pain for just a moment. I grabbed Praise’s hand again
and we kept walking like nothing happened. But something did happen
in me, and it has not stopped yet! My hear is breaking for these
boys again as I sit and retell their story.
people I have met this year, there is nowhere they can go and nothing
they can do to change their past, and very little they can do to
improve their future. I think about this topic often, the injustice
and the option for betterment. Before the World Race, I would have
said that each person is in charge of his or her own future and they
are the only ones who can limit themselves. I have realized what a
privileged mindset that is. There are so many people in the world who
are truly stuck with the cards they have been dealt. They are
refuges, gypsies, prostitutes,and orphans; hopeless, destitute, and
desperate. I have encountered so many Feist is the smaller boy on the left people that have no means of
improving their lives without a strong outside influence. I have
discovered this to be a poverty mindset that is more than just a
mindset. It is a byproduct of no self-worth, no dreams, no goals, no
aspirations. I used to despise welfare, and food stamps . . . I
still am bothered by it, but I get it in a new way. In Romania,S the
gypsies are the “untouchable class.” They are viewed as
garbage. Many of them are forced to be beggars, while others are
lucky enough to find work in a field. People spit in their faces
because they are gypsies. They are denied employment because their
skin is a bit darker. They have chosen to live as an isolated people
group, because outsiders are the enemy. Again, it is a
mindset/reality that perpetuates a defeatist mentality. It is
devastating and destructive to the nation as a whole. No man feels
like a man when he is not providing for his family; no woman feels
like a woman when she is dirty and has no running water. These
people live with a fraction of what we have, and what they do have is
often taken from them. Yet somehow, as beaten as they are, they find
hope and joy in their situations.
and joy? How do they have the inner resolve to continue on despite
the trials they face daily? The people I have met know suffering.
They have experienced hell on earth. Yet, they chose not to be
defeated. They chose to smile. They chose to hope. They chose to
love.
I find myself frequently asking, who
has it right? Who is better off? How can I make a difference in
their lives as much as they have made in mine? I really don’t know.
I want to help people! I don’t want to be the white guy with $. I
want to be part of a solution to make the world a better place. I
have realized that I don’t deserve anything I have, I was born white,
born middle class, born smart, born with a fat belly, born in the
United States, and born free. I did nothing to earn any of those
things. Yes, I have continuously worked to better myself. But I
have always had so many tools and resources available to me. I want
to find a way to help others in their time of need. I am discovering
God’s grace as a covering on my life in a way I never knew. It is by
the grace of God that I am American . . . that I am smart . . . that
I am married . . . that I am on the World Race . . . He has blessed
me with things that I don’t deserve and He knows what I can handle
and what I cannot! The same is true of the people I have met! He
has given them what they need to survive. He has given them the
grace to endure, to overcome in a manner that is foreign to me!
