cry, the beloved continent

Happy Monday, dear friends! Here's a recap of my week:

• Fisher's Hill - we went up on a hill that overlooked Johannesburg... this city is absolutely enormous! It really put it in perspective for me to overlook the city up there. We had a lot of great time to pray over the city and its people.
• Madagascar party - my teammate was dying to watch Madagascar I & II so we made a party of it!
• Daniel Bible Study - always a joy!
• Thursday at the Orphanage - this week Nomonde (the director of the orphanage) told us the stories behind each of the ten babies at the home. It was so difficult to hear about the heartbreaking things these babies came out of. Some were found abandoned on the roadside, under bridges or outside hospitals; some were brothel babies; some were very badly abused, raped and left for dead and others were found in drug homes. I've been at the orphanage enough to start to feel somewhat comfortable. It's easy to displace yourself and your feelings, but God shook my heart through their stories. Some days I leave feeling hopeless and burdened, but it is a beautiful thing to know the hope that they have in the Lord. Oh that I may be a tool in God's hand to help these little ones understand His heart for them...
• Youth on Friday night was awesome! We have been breaking into small groups and studying the book of Nehemiah. We are challenging our youth to be servants and reach out to the communities they live in. They are starting to catch the vision that we are called to be God's hands and feet in this broken world... what an amazing thing it has been to see!
• Saturday we took a group of about 12 youth prayer walking around Lyndhurst... we met and prayed over the needs of this community. It was such a joy to hear these young men and women crying out to God about the brokenness of their world. We sang and prayed as we walked... more Zulu songs, of course! God is the God of this city and he has great things for this place and these people! I feel so blessed that he has allowed me to be a part of what he is doing.
• A prospective pastor spoke on Sunday... he did an awesome job! Continue to lift up the search committee in prayer as we determine God's will for LBC.

Overall, we had another amazing week! We have officially passed the half-way point... This week brought about the strangest mix of emotions. I miss home and all of you so much, but it is hard for me to picture myself ever leaving this place! I feel like my heart belongs in two places! God has blessed the first half in amazing ways and I am praying that he will do glorious things in the remaining time we have.

I finished a book this week entitled, Finding God In Unexpected Places, by Philip Yancey. This book contained a chapter about AIDS in South Africa that I found so poignant that I must share it with you... it's a bit long, but I hope you take the time to read it

"... But who wants to hear about AIDS in Africa? Relief agencies such as World Vision and World Concern face that question while trying to raise funds to fight this world health catastrophe. Americans, overwhelmed by the magnitude of problems in Africa, wonder if anything can help. Though they may not say so directly, many American Christians also can't help thinking "They deserve it." After all, doesn't AIDS in Africa spread mainly through sexual promiscuity?

Indeed, the visitor to Africa finds a different sexual landscape. Adolescent boys celebrate their rite of passage into adulthood with a public circumcision ceremony; in major cities you can see plastic "circumcision tents" near airports, inside expressway clover-leafs, or wherever open land remains. Later, the new "men" may celebrate their adult status with sexual exploits. The continent has a long history of polygamy, and in places like South Africa, the practice of separating male workers from their families further broke down marital ties.

No one is exempt: in confidential surveys by World Vision, 72 percent of South African pastors admit to having had extramarital affairs, with an average of three to four partners each...

Yet a finger-wagging approach does little to help the problem. Bruce Wilkinson stirred up a hornet's nest when he lectured African church leaders about the sinful aspects of the AIDS epidemic. In Uganda, some evangelical churches require mandatory HIV testing and will not marry a couple unless both test negative for the virus - thus driving young couples away from the church.

Nor does denial help. In South Africa, which has the world's largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS, President Thabo Mbeki has openly questioned the link between AIDS and the HIV virus. Recently he declared that he personally knew of no one who had died of AIDS. That may be technically true (AIDS lowers the body's resistance to other diseases, which do the killing), but his attitude has set back the work of AIDS educators who are trying to alert Africans to the urgency of the crisis.

By any measure, Aids workers face a herculean task. In parts of Africa, life expectancy has sunk from sixty-five to thirty-three, a level not seen since the nineteenth century. I heard many statistics about AIDS in South Africa, and none more stunning than this: researchers predict that in some areas, half the youngsters under fifteen will die within ten years. Imagine a teacher walking into a classroom and looking at eager young faces, knowing that half will soon be dead.

World Vision workers in southern Africa told me that self-stigma is their biggest obstacle, which keeps infected people from getting tested or seeking treatment. When Botswana (with a 38 percent HIV infection rate, the world's highest) offered free medication for those with AIDS, only 1 percent of the population responded, due to the sigma.

An HIV-infected worker who got the virus through a blood transfusion told me, "To those who lack compassion for Africans because 'they deserve it,' I remind them that half the infections come about when a promiscuous partner infects someone 'innocent' and unsuspecting." All too often, HIV gets passed on to the resulting child as well, or else that child may become one of the millions of AIDS orphans who are now growing up in Africa.

I visited a Christian care facility in Johannesburg for those in the advanced stages of the disease, and saw children with matchstick arms and vacant eyes who lie in beds all day awaiting the next seizure. Volunteer "mothers" visit to hold and rock them. New advances in treatment offer hope for some children, but meanwhile many are dying. One nearby community used to average two funeral per week; it now has seventy-five. A Christian center in Cape Town that teaches young people printing skills used to specialize in wedding invitations; it now supports itself by selling funeral programs.

Of all countries on the continent, South Africa is the one where you will most likely hear the words hope and transformation. Larger-than-life heroes such as Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela still inspire the nation with the power of grace and reconciliation. AIDS presents a wholly different crisis from the one posed by an entrenched apartheid government. That was a crisis of theology and justice. This is a crisis of compassion, requiring not a change in laws and government, but of hearts.

We can look at the children with stolen futures, at an entire continent whose future hangs in the balance, and ask questions of God. Or we can look at the same problems and realize that these are God's questions to us. Who cares about AIDS in Africa?"

I hope that all is well with you! I love you and miss you. Know that you are all in my prayers!

Sending my love,

Jarah

Psalm 72:12-14

He will rescue the poor when they cry to him; he will help the oppressed who have no one to defend them. He feels pity for the weak and the needy, and he will rescue them. He will redeem them from oppression and violence for their lives are precious to him