I’ve kind of always had an angry streak in me. Even as a child, I was pretty quick to get angry. Sometimes now, for little things (like today, when I couldn’t get my flip flop on!), my first response is to get angry. It’s not right. I realize that this is selfish anger- a response to an expectation or want that wasn’t met how I wanted it to be met. But there is also righteous anger. Jodi told me a while ago that she thought God would turn my anger and use it for righteous anger.
I think that’s been happening. But maybe it’s about to really start.
We leave tonight for Istanbul, where tomorrow we’ll board a flight for Nairobi, Kenya. As the teams then spread out across the country, we’ll stay in Nairobi, in the Kibera slum. There, there are no toilets like we know them, just “flying toilets” (read: bags used for human waste that are then tossed into the street or streams). There are 50,000 AIDS orphans. Did you read that? Because 50,000 kids without parents means 100,000 parents dead to AIDS….in one part of one city.
AIDS is decimating people, families, countries, continents.
Every day, 30,000 children die. Most of these kids aren’t even 5 years old when they succumb to often treatable illnesses. I eat every 3 hours because I don’t like even the remote chance of feeling hungry, while these kids’ bellies bloat from lack of substance in their tummies. These kids, who laugh and cry and love their moms and enjoy having their hair stroked and have favorite songs, these kids are dying. And we’re not doing anything.
You might disagree. And that’s fine.
But there has to be more we can do. I don’t know what it is. I’m not sure. But I bet there are a lot of people with ideas out there, who just haven’t spoken up yet. Only Satan wins in that silence.
Maybe, in churches, we could make it less about the money and more about the people. Did you know that there are people in the United States (supposed Christians!) working with governments in Africa to have gays killed? There are Christians who actually support the killing of gays. What? There are churches that will not condemn premarital sex, or will just avoid the topic altogether. Where are the prophets in our churches to stand up and say that this is not right?
As Shane Claiborne says in Irresistible Revolution, Jesus is coming back for a bride, not a harem. Maybe we should all band together, as a unified body, stop worrying about little divisive things, and focus on the poverty that is in our midst. Maybe we should love more people, live out our faith more fully, and worry less about convicting other people of their sins. Let the Holy Spirit do His work, and let’s start doing ours.
