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Mercy: Stories from Africa.

by Louisa Hall  
8/10/2009 / Missions

I'm sharing these stories to perhaps arrest your heart and draw your hands into sharing your love with the brokenhearted of the world. After all, who are we to "turn away from (our) own flesh and blood?" Isaiah 58:7

Upon arrival in Africa, it was obvious that we had landed in a stunning place. The weather was perfect, the hills and mountains were green like we never see in Australia and I can't even begin to describe how many different beautiful flowers I saw. I was excited that one of the very first things I saw leaving the airport was a giraffe!

However the longer we stayed, the more we began to uncover and see with our own eyes the woundedness of the land. It is difficult to describe the extent of the brokenness we saw. Almost everyone we met had been tainted by tragedy. With our eyes we hungry children and dilapidated houses. In the news we saw daily reports of killing, murder and political violence unlike anything I've ever seen and. In another village we visited, the entire teenage population had died of aids. We didn't see one teenager among them. Surely it was a broken land that we were visiting.

But it was two little girls that represented for me the despair of the country, and my own failure to give what I had to help them. (Praise God,that although these girls had had tragic histories, God had brought them food and shelter and education and His own love.)

Her name was Mercy, she was five years old. Her name alone was enough to break my heart. Mercy. Who of us had had Mercy on her? She sat in my lap and recounted that her father died as an alcoholic and her mother had died of typhoid. Do you know there's a vaccine that prevents typhoid? Not in Africa there isn't. Just think for a minute how precious your own Mother is to you, how much you need her. Then you will see Mercy's own pain. And the honest truth is that it was pain that we in the West could have stopped.

Child by child, the orphans mechanically told me their horror stories...typhoid, malaria, aids, drunkenness. Their mummies and daddies had all died.

Then there was Georgina. She had just turned one. The first thing she did when she saw me was burst into tears. Immediately I scooped her up in my arms and wiped her tears and in a minute she had stopped crying. I tried to put her down but every time she would cry desperately thinking I was about to leave her. I literally had to walk about holding her for hours until she finally fell asleep. After that, she was fine. She was crying because she just needed someone to hold her and the hardest part of it was knowing that the next time she was crying because she needed to be held, to be loved...well that someone might not be there.

When I arrived home I was numb. That was until I made it to the bathroom and looked down to see colored toilet paper. Colored toiler paper. You have got to be kidding me. These kids don't even get a pillow to sleep on. They eat beans and corn three times a day and we decide that we need colored toiler paper.

To be sure, the problem isn't exactly toilet paper. How much money do we waste on meaningless junk? How much money do you waste? It makes so angry. And me, I'm the worst of everyone, that even having met these beautiful needy children could still consider wasting money on things I don't need.

Having looked in their eyes, the old excuses don't do it for me anymore. "Oh practically none of the money you give to charity organizations actually goes to the kids." "But I really need this watch (cd, clothes, entertainment, alcohol etc)"

The problem isn't that we don't care, its honestly just that we're lazy. Too lazy to budget, to weak willed to say no to ourselves. Too prone to frivolity and too allergic to responsibility. I'll be the first to admit that I struggle with these things in myself.

But lets try to get past ourselves. Because there are people in this world who need you. Innocent little broken children who are crying out for mercy.Their needs are obvious. They need your money, for food, medicine, shelter, water and education. But maybe like, Georgina, they are asking for your physical touch. For you to be there, holding them as they cry. Maybe you could be their new mum or dad?

"What we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop" Mother Teresa

I am a bible college student in Brisbane Australia.

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