Hopelessness,
Injustice, and Desperation
How easily would you
give away your baby? What would drive a woman to offer up her child to the
first passerby? Most mothers would fight at all costs to keep her child with
her. A good mother would give up all she
has to provide for her child, but what if there is no hope left; no hope of
food, no hope of water, no hope of living past thirty… if you are lucky enough
to make in into your twenties. What if the only thing you could do for your
baby was to beg for someone else to take him home? 
Everyone in earshot
shuddered when a young woman pleaded with Jessie to take care of her three
month old baby. “I’m not going to live
much longer. Please take my baby home
with you!” The mother sat there with tears forming in her eyes. Her body was thin, frail and lifeless. The HIV she has been living with had already
turned into full blown AIDS and now TB was in the process of steeling away her
final days. Poor Jesse stood there as hopeless as the mother with the three month
old baby in her arms. No one really knew
how to respond. “I’m so sorry,” Jessie finally responded, “I don’t have a job,
a home, or anyway of providing for your child”.
How easily would you
give away your baby if you are a mother in Swaziland dying from AIDS? The
reality here is that a good mother fights to find a good home for her child
before she dies. There is nothing else she can do.
Hopelessness
Swaziland
is quickly becoming a country of hopelessness. With the highest AIDS rate in the world coupled with extreme poverty,
this small country in Southern Africa is at
risk of completely dying out within the next 50 years. The infection rate is increasing drastically
year to year, and there is not a family without a loss.
I’d heard all the statistics, but nothing could have
prepared us for what we were about to see. I’ve seen hopelessness before, but nothing like the suffering people of Swaziland. The sense of hopelessness is contagious, and
their pain and suffering has already seemed to age us.
Injustice
With the life expectancy being thirty years old, and
children raising children, there are great injustices against our Swazi
children. Rape, abuse, and neglect are normal and almost expected. There are two major factors that play into
this problem. The first being that the family structure is dying away and
extended family is struggling enough to take care of their own children. The second is that it is against the law to
take an orphan off of their family’s property.
The kids are stuck on their property, left to fight for
themselves, and unable to protect themselves from starvation and sexual
predators. A young orphaned girl is
considered lucky to make it through her childhood without being rapped. With no family to protect her and no orphanage
at which to live, she quickly becomes an easy target.
Desperation
With hopelessness covering every aspect of life and
injustice fanning the flame of destruction, the sense of desperation is
inevitable. The people of Swaziland, and more specifically Nsoko, Swaziland
need our prayers and our help. We need our
hearts to be desperate with them; we need to be desperate to provide them with
food, we need to be desperate to give them water, we need to be desperate to
help them stop the spread of AIDS! These are our children, this is our
family!
seriously when he said,
For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a
stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick
and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me… I tell you
the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you
did for me Matthew 25:35-37
This isn’t a friendly suggestion… this is a command, a
must! It’s time to stop asking God why
and start asking him what! What can I
do?
