My daughter has finished her quest to find the best schools for her children. She is faced, since her husband was killed in a vehicle accident four plus years ago, with having to transport her kids to two different schools in a matter of an hour before she races to work. It is an intense time when getting the kids dressed and out the door is like dressing an angry ostrich. Imagine what she goes through on a daily basis.
But what she goes through is nothing compared to what is going on in the world thousands of miles away from Shanna, Gabe and Gavin. Nothing.
Ask yourselves this: What it is in your life that you just flat out couldn't live without? Take your time. It's not as easy a question as we will try to make it to be. Imagine, if you will, life without television, without newspapers or books, without a car or air conditioning. Imagine life without your loved ones, or life without certain foods or without fresh, drinkable water.
Imagine life, then, in Kenya or any of the Horn of Africa countries.
Imagine dying because it won't rain. Rain.
This is life over there: There are water distribution points in Kenya, places that some have to walk 10-12 miles under the scorching sun to reach the nearest borehole.
Water is scarce. Wells are 500 feet deep and sometimes the water is salty. Water trucks will dump the precious liquid in tanks in remote communities, but sometimes the water is pumped straight out of the rivers and it is much less than clean. Another sure sign of drought are the animal carcasses lining up the side of the road. Some have had a long time to rot, but others look like they have just fallen from exhaustion. Goats, cows, and even a giraffe remind that a shortage of food and water inevitably lead to a slow death.
One refugee settlement is now home to more than 400,000 people, mostly Somali families who have escaped their own country with hopes of a better future in Kenya. The political instability in Somalia has only exacerbated the effects of the drought, causing the United Nations to call the situation a famine. As a result, 2,000 new refugees cross into Kenya daily, slowly and painfully making their way from the border town of Liboi to the camps in Dadaab, located approximately 60 miles from the entry point.
While we're imagining the fears of having no cable or Internet, these people are dying because they don't have a drink of water or a morsel of food. People have been walking for weeks. They are hungry, thirsty, and exhausted from their exodus. Each story is different but the common thread is tragic. Many have lost children along the way, starved to death, with no other choice but to leave them behind. I don’t think any of us can fully understand the unimaginable sense of helplessness that a mother can feel when facing such tragic circumstances.
When these new arrivals finally make it to Dadaab, they receive a ration of food for 20 days, a tent, and medical attention. It’s not much, but it’s still more than some Kenyan communities in the corridor between Liboi and Dadaab are getting. The percentages of children who are malnourished have soared. The nomadic cattle herders have lost their source of income, as animals have died and prices for livestock have plummeted, leaving them with insufficient means to provide adequate food for their families.
Imagine if you will, people who have lost all things, but the most tragic of all the things they have lost is the fact that they've lost all hope. They don't look forward to anything but a day that might, might mind you, be less tragic than the day they're currently in.
David writes in the 144th Psalm, "Blessed be God, my mountain, who trains me to fight fair and well. He's the bedrock on which I stand, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight."
Imagine those persons without water, without clean water, without rain, without food, and without anything they can call a home. Imagine their gaunt, skeleton-like dirty faces and stringy hair. Imagine having no dental care and no health care in general. Imagine no nights of mac and cheese, like, ever. Imagine the last time you had on clean clothes was not within memory because having clean clothes is not a priority at all. Imagine a land where stealing animals from your neighbor is not only understood it is expected because what would you do, after all, if you hadn't eaten in days and even a scrawny, unhealthy cow looks unimaginably enticing.
Imagine no hope.
See, giving Jesus to someone, talking about what Jesus has done in our lives, isn't going to work if one doesn't also give someone a drink of water and a morsel of food, and a bit of health-care as well. Love is patient and it is kind, but it is also pragmatic and real.
We have the the means of giving everyone in this world a Bible. We also have the means to give everyone clean water and reasonable food. We've made many people dot.com millionaires. Can't we give up some of that money to make kids in Africa hopeful beings?
With every bite of food and every slurp of water, they will know that Jesus is King of Kings. You know, that probably would work in America as well.
Just saying....
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