The other night Angie, Haile, and I decided to watch Hotel Rwanda, a movie about the genocide that killed almost 1 million Rwandan’s in the summer of 1994. As we watched, I couldn’t help think about the various images of The Killing Fields of Cambodia that my team visited last month (I had tried to write a blog about it, but never could find the words… if you have the time PLEASE check out my squadmate Rachel’s blog about it here). I can’t even imagine the horror that these people went through.
As I’ve been laying around in my tent (which btw, just got extended by at least five days as I now not only have typhoid, but malaria as well) I keep thinking about this quote from the movie that’s totally rocked me:
“I think if people see this footage, they’ll say, ‘Oh, my God, that’s horrible.’
And then they’ll go on eating their dinners.”
How true is this?! I mean, how many times before this race did I hear about something on the news, feel sorry for a few minutes, and then just kept on going in my own personal world?! How many times did I say I cared, but then my actions proved differently?!
As I’ve thought back on my experiences through the race, my mind has flooded with different images and encounters I’ve faced this past 7 1/2 months. Julio, being tied up to a wheelchair that’s tied to the wall every night because the orphanage didn’t have enough money to pay staff to protect him and the other children there at night. The children in Nicaragua, walking away empty handed because the food had run out, crying because they probably wouldn’t eat that day… or even days. Knowing that the present or two that we handed out to each child in Costa Rica was the only Christmas that child would get. The Filipino families struggling to recover from the Tsunami in the makeshift ‘Tent City’. The prostitutes trapped in a lifestyle throughout Bangla Road. The children in Cambodia that were forced to hunt frogs, crabs, and ants to eat when money ran out each month. And then the Kibera slums here in Nairobi.
Honestly, after living through these things day in and day out this year, when I think about this quote, I know that now,
I’D RATHER STARVE TO DEATH!
There’s absolutely no way that I can just sit back and do nothing anymore! God didn’t call me to leave the familiar and then break my heart for the nations, just so I could return home in a few months and act like nothing ever happened. I can no longer just get by with saying a quick prayer or donating five bucks every now and then. I’ve been so totally and completely wrecked and there’s just no turning back. I’ve heard that little whisper thats inside saying there’s more to life than this… and if I have to give up my own for the sake of the Kingdom I will do so.
Jesus did.
So why can’t I?!
