Life & Death

I
write this story 2 weeks after leaving Uganda…..and find myself
finally starting to process and truly feel the weight of things I
witnessed over the last month.

I woke up this morning in
Dublin Ireland; rolled over to hit my alarm off, grabbed my towel and
headed for the shower. I turned on the water on to feel the first hot
shower in nearly 3 months.  Like most world racers who are freshly out
of Africa; I was ecstatic to feel the foreign experience of warm
running water cascading over me once again. It was like a dream come
true to feel the dirt washing from my feet and the grains of sand
trickling out of my hair. After the first few minutes of bliss I found
myself frozen in time, watching the water swirl down the shiny new
silver drain…. As I watched the water quickly disappear, I
unexpectedly began to weep as memories of Africa invaded my
mind….yes, you read that correctly, crying in the shower….In that
moment my mind had flashbacks to….

Naked children laying out
on dirty mats, with
leftover rice stuck to their cheeks, flies infesting their faces, and
crusted snot running from their nose; the baby that was handed to me
who’s mother had died at her birth, had recently contracted Malaria and
she was left with no one to care for her; I saw children running down
the street yelling Muzungu (white person) and holding out their tiny
dirty palms with worn fingers cupped for change and food donations; I
saw the child who said “Water is Life!” as I realized they didn’t have
ANY!  Those with sickness continued to get dehydrated and the children
were severely malnourished as well. As I watched the water run down the
drain, I realized that the substance I was using to clean myself was
the very substance that could save the lives of many of the children I
met. I was overwhelmed by the mental image of watching the life saving
substance get rapidly washed away.

Last month we were working in communities on the borders of Congo that
hardly had any water available to them at all. Women & children
would have to walk 5+ hours with plastic jugs on their heads to get
water for their families to survive. The 2 cups of water than we would
pour out of a dirty plastic bucket to clean our hands before meals was
more water than most children had to drink the entire day.

God
rocked my heart to the core this month with love & conviction. In
addition to seeing those newly born being left behind from sickness
& disease, we also attended a funeral of a man in a small village.
God really contrasted life & death in this moment as I stood at the
edge of a man made hole in the ground where a corpse lay rotting in the
earth. The smelly stench of the body was overwhelmingly pungent and i
tried not to gag as a group of Africans began to sing over the body and
shovel dirt on top of him.  You can help but think about how fragile
life is when you see something like this. How this life is so temporary
and how our God promises us eternity with Him.

After 4 weeks of
heart wrenching experiences I have come to understand that being a
christian isn’t JUST about receiving salvation and being done- but it
is also about the promises of abundant life while you are here on the
earth.  Are you living and abundant Spirit filled life?

• If
  you
  have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead
  and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world.
• If you have money in
  the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.
  
• And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the
  world
  who has that opportunity.
• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness .. You are more
  
  blessed than the many who will not even survive this day. 
  
• If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of
  imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation … You are
  ahead of 700 million people in the world.
• If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest,
  torture or
  death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the
  world. 
• If your parents are still alive and still married …you are very
  rare. 
• If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you’re
  unique to all those in doubt and despair…..