Dear Friends,
I realize i wrote an email to you all a week ago, but once again my heart is so full that I feel the need to just pour out a little of what I am feeling, I also wanted to ask you all of you to take a little time out of your day this week to get on your knees and beg God to have mercy on this beautiful but destitute country called Swaziland.
Last nite we had bible study and we went around the room asking for prayer requests. One after one we all spilled our daily struggles. However, when we got to the last person she asked that we all pray for Swaziland... the moment she said that it was like this floodgate opened for all of us, it was like the elephant in the room that all of us had been holding our breath about and none of us even dared to say out loud because the moment you step outside the borders of Bulembu, and even within Bulembu you realize that the situation here is beyond hopeless, you realize that you are literally watching the death of country and there is this heaviness and feeling of helplessness and despair that I cannot even express. Yet being a follower of Jesus means that we have the audacity to hope even in the face of the most desperate situations.
It is such an emotional thing because this place is so incredibly broken.... the cycles that lead to the continued downward spiral of this country continue onwards, and this evil disease continues to spread... and nothing changes.
... I’ve only been here four months but I am tired, and Niel who runs the clinic and who has only been here for a month is tired - because his daily reports consist of 5 more positive today, 3 more positive today, 7 more positive today.... etc. etc. (out of the 20 odd patients he sees every day, most of which are already positive), and Jeanne who runs the creativity centre is tired because every time she hires and trains new ladies they get sick and die off, and the people who do the HIV prevention training program here in Bulembu are tired of hearing that the people they spent so much time training, are consistently infected the week after the program ends, and Lorraine who is our social worker, is tired of collecting sad children whose parents are sick or dying, and 200 of our orphans are tired of this disease because it made their parents sick and it stole them away, and almost half of those children are sad because they are already HIV positive from no decision they were even given the chance to make, and their life is being stolen away as the seconds pass, before they even had a chance to live... and on and on it goes, and everyone is tired... and I am angry because I love these beautiful people and I love this beautiful land and I don't know how to watch them die, which is exactly what is happening... Because nothing is changing, and Bulembu can do all it wants to create a place for a hope and a future for children of Swaziland, but if they are all infected then there is no one to offer a future to... and something has got to change before there is nothing left to change. This is not drama, this is reality, this is fact... by 2050 Swaziland will, at the present rate, be extinct, and I promise you it is happening before my eyes.
... and so I am asking you whether you pray regularly or not, and whether you are totally convinced God exists or not, to put aside your deep theological questions for a moment and just for once get down on your knees and beg God for mercy for this desperate land... because this is the only hope it has left...
...Because this could be a beautiful land, a land bursting with joy and peace and hope and health and a future....
... and as I was praying this morning, I read this piece of scripture this morning and thought it was the best piece of scripture I had read about our hope for Bulembu...
“ You will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees will clap their hands. Instead of thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briars the myrtle will grow.”
... because as a Christian this is what I have the audacity to hope for.
...so I pray that somehow my anguished cry would reach you and touch your heart and that you would pause in your day- to - day life and say a prayer for Bulembu.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. i hope you are all doing well and are all blessed, and that as you wrestle with the struggles in your day-to-day life that you may find peace and joy.
With much love, and hope,
Heather Davies
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