Job 2:8, 10- “Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes… Job replied, ‘…-Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
6,000 people die a month from HIV/AIDS in Pietermaritzburg alone.
The Walk in the Light director, Bruce, did more than 70 funerals last year.
A set of X-ray results for a young man with Tuberculosis lost at a government hospital (Bruce affirmed that can be the trend).
Informal settlements insulated with mud, covered with metal boards, and held up with wooden sticks.
A woman in the Township of Harneyville, running away from the Walk in the Light staff bringing her medicine. She didn’t need treatment because she heard a ‘voice’ the previous night that told her she was completely healed from both HIV and TB.
A jam-packed clinic that was full of people awaiting check-ups, test results, or meetings to cope with the results. Ages ranged from infants to grandparents.
A dead body lying face up in the middle of the road; shoddily covered with a thin sheet of silver-tin paper kept down by the man’s own shoes. Blood divided in three, thick, streams that strayed from the upper cavity of his chest towards the slant of the road.
Good morning team Walk in the Light (The NGO our service project team affiliates itself: Me, Jenny, Ivor, Eric, Anna, Walker, Corrie)
South Africa has 1st world elements meshed with 3rd world tragedy- as I'm sure most corners of this earth withhold no matter the circumstance.
Never in my life have I seen a place of such wonderful and awe-inspiring beauty, the kind that captures you where you are and forces you to sit with it.
Neither have I experienced a place of such direful depravity, the kind that turns the stomach and swells the eyes.
This is the great paradox of what I've experienced in Africa.
How does one make sense of suffering, especially when brought upon our existence through the wickedness of our own hearts?
It is clear that the ticking time bomb that is HIV/AIDS is fashioned by human depravity unwilling to commit to God, leading lives of sexual immorality. How much of an epidemic would this be if everyone abstained from premarital sex and stayed faithful to one partner?
The African ABC’s tagline is: Abstain, Be faithful to one partner, Condomize.
I would disagree with anyone who thinks HIV/AIDs is GOD’S curse on humanity. God is who warned us, God is the One who heals, comforts, and offers His condolences during times of loss and suffering- and through all this, He is made higher- all the more worthy to love and place our trust in as well as all the more worthy to mourn with. HIV/AIDS is a curse brought on by OURselves. I've noticed a dangerous resistance towards taking responsibility for our actions, especially when it is time to face the consequences, and this makes it all the more trendy to point the finger at God.
I think most Christians can look back at some of the most difficult things in their lives and find that God has used that for good and redeemed certain heart-wrenching happenings.
This is yet one stream of thoughts on many problems I’ve encountered not in Africa, but in us. I’m talking about people, real people: you, me, US. An 'US' without borders, classifications, labels, and elitist distinctions.
Problems such as the devastation of HIV/Aids working against the lives of so many, or oppression similar to the horrors of Apartheid, at first confront my faith with the God I believe in with all my heart. This first confrontation- a doubt in the One I live for- is more deeply representative of the fears and weaknesses of my own heart and flesh, they are in many ways superficial. Grasping for greater attentiveness to the meaning of such problems though, in the face of suffering, can lead me to a humbled but enlightened state. A state in which my pride and fear can meet their (my) match. I learn quickly, the truth of it corroding my spirit, that as much as this world feels purposeless in the face of suffering, so is God redeemed through it. As much knowledge, power, wealth, or pride we can accumulate, so is our powerlessness without God as well.
This is how I felt when I encountered my first HIV/TB victim laying across a row of chairs in the meeting hall at Walk in the Light. He slept, but there seemed to be no peace that went with it. He barely had the energy to acknowledge my presence. I managed to send him a friendly nod before he dosed off in exhaustion. All I could do for him in THAT specific moment was sit next to him… and pray for him-be it medically, emotionally, spiritually, or supernaturally that he be healed and comforted.
This is where David Crowder can help. Here he is talking about the album art off his 2005 CD, A Collision or (3+4=7):
“There's a pursuit in search of the core of existence. When you research a bit, you learn about the atom, this invisible particle, yet we can split that apart as well. But the cover [album art] has [this diagram of] an atom hovering above a picture of a little boy, which was the codename of the first atomic bomb dropped. Well, our own pursuits wind up broken too. So it's really a beautiful cover, depicting the core of life and what everything's all about, yet we're so broken and depraved, we destroy stuff in the process.”
I honestly don't believe in coincidences. That is why I don’t think its coincidence that in what is perhaps one of the most trivial seasons of my life that I am bombarded with the idea of Kingdom.
Depravity, but Kingdom. Does depravity + Kingdom = sense? I don’t know. So I’ll have to just call it what it is. Kind of like Crowder: a collision.
One example: 1st Church service attended at Walk in the Light ministry, held in their meeting hall. A concrete room with beaten chairs, an unclosed roof, and a pungent smell converged by chemicals, dirt, & agriculture. This Church was not about four walls, but the people inside of them. This Church had room for 30, but not for 1. Towards the end of the service David asks the crowd if there is prayer needed. A woman brings a young boy, no more than three years, lying practically unconscious in her arms (due to seizures from not yet known reasons, called ‘fitting’ here in Africa). Dave hoists him into his arms as the mother’s tears begin to stream- and we ALL pray. Since western Christians are all so poignant about their formulas, try this on for size:
A wonderful Church + a suffering family =
God’s Kingdom injected into Worldly depravity
This is a collision between two shades- one dark and one light. These are the directions in which we are pulled towards. Crowder says gravity weighs us down, yet the sky falls all the way to the ground. There’s no space inbetween the two and Christ has made Himself the Lark. Ascending us up, towards God and pulling others up with us.
On the 1st day of service projects I ‘coincidently’ opened up to Matthew 6:25-34 and was reminded not to worry, seeking first His Kingdom. If the birds in the air, the lilies of the field, and the grass are sculpted beautifully in His care, do not be troubled by the necessities of your life- God has it in mind; trust in the Lord.
But what about all the people who do not have these necessities as abundantly as I, yet have great faith in Christ or goodness and love? At the very least they have been blessed in their strong faith due to these iniquities.
The Bread and Wine of His flesh and blood are coming to them. I guess we can say that through the quote"e ‘coincidence’ that comes with me reading the Gospel of John over this semester- the Holy Spirit led me to John 6:53-58:
“53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
Reflecting on the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12- helping to define the absolutes of what kind of people the Kingdom is for. A quick recap (each deserving their own space for emphasis):
The poor in spirit,
Those who mourn,
The meek,
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
The merciful,
The pure in heart,
The peacemakers,
And those who are persecuted because of righteousness
And at the end of this, Jesus tells us,“-Rejoice and be glad…”
In the beginning of this note you read a passage from Job. Here we find Job willingly and faithfully given up by God to Satan’s hands with exemption of Job’s life.
Job is on a journey with God- one that didn’t consist of making sense of it all, but to have a faith that can endure...a faith enough to dare to be bold.
Recently, the president of Azusa Pacific University, John Wallace, came and visited us. He left some parting words as to how we can go about these last 27 days in South Africa. These words were meant to encourage and push us to live each day to it’s fullest. These words had to do with thanksgiving.
Let’s split that in two. 1. Thanks, 2. Giving. This is something that speaks directly to my condition, the heart paradox. Wallace went on to say that come later, be it February, March, April, whenever; we’re going to miss where we are NOW.
David Crowder, in his newest 2007 album, Remedy, he helps mesh world depravity with God Kingdom, familiar to the 1st and 3rd world aspects of South Africa. His new album art shines by way of a green medical cross on the front. This was his form of cathartic release and now my own. In one song titled, “O, surely we can change” he sings:
And the problem is this
We were bought with a kiss
But the cheek still turned
Even when it wasn’t hit
And I don’t know
What to do with a love like that
And I don’t know
How to be a love like that
When all the love in the world
Is right here among us
And hatred too
And so we must choose
What our hands will do
Where there is pain
Let there be grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Help them be brave
Where there is misery
Bring expectancy
And surely we can change
Surely we can change
Something
One album review explains that:
“Remedy focuses on God's constant presence as the answer to our hurts while challenging listeners to be the balm needed in the lives of others. Remedy is a meditation on God's love and unfailing presence. As the album progresses, Crowder takes the message slightly further. The title track acknowledges how God heals his people when they come together in worship, and the acoustic closer "Surely We Can Change" isn't as much a prayer for internal transformation as it is for external influence on the world.”
This is what brings me full circle. Although I am cautious to mimic the intense labeling that many modern Christians are apt to do, I cannot deny my convictions to share but one understanding I have in reading Job:
40 Chapters later, through all his suffering, we find Job in the ashes again, despising himself and repenting in dust and ashes to God. He has journeyed with God, followed through in this one stint, and he is better for it.
I’m in the ashes. I’m covered in them. Sometimes I want to grab and close the distance, make answers (or excuses?), tempted to propel myself from the unknowing into the labeling. Are you in a place like this? May be for you it has to do with love, school, jobs, family, friends, lifestyle, sexual lifestyles, sickness, simply fill in the blank.
The difficulty comes with the understanding that this is where God wants me to be right now. This is where I need to stay, in ashes; if Job hadn’t, he would of never learned. I’m enkindled BY my heart paradox to learn. There’s no shame in that. As Christians, we should learn to embrace the ashes.
See part of the problem is impatience. As our semester group left for Africa there was so much discourse on how we’ll be ‘changed’-‘come back different’-‘be broken’- and to a certain extent we have all struggled to search for that within us. There was all this premature TRANSLATION being done, these futile attempts to specify God’s work via spiritual jargon.
It went like this: brain receives insecure impulses then the mouth opens- continuous talking, acting out, and projecting of spiritual personas.
Rather than going like this: be still, breathe, pray.
That’s what the ashes are all about anyways; it’s about taking your day-to-day life and walking with God with this big, question mark, halo hovering over your head and heart. That’s where learning and more importantly growth can sprout. I find that however more curious and unsettled some people are, the more they want out of life; whether Christian or not, I respect that. I think that desire is what God works through.
It’s about standing pat because you trust God is working in you or me, in Walk in the Light, informal settlements, sickly children, someone you love whom is not there, HIV/AIDS/TB, our sins, the world, and even in the fact that he has worked and offered Himself over to the man lying dead in the street, through His own death thousands of years ago.
Be patient and rejoice in the seasons where you learn to stand pat.
The Kingdom of God awaits this world. It isn’t in Heaven, it’s on Earth. It is both now and future. It is here and is coming. This is confusing, but I encourage you to experience the aftermath of things that trouble your soul. Sit in the ashes of your grief, your worries, your confusion.
Just.
Sit.
When John Wallace talked with us he offered simple words (or word?) that can fit into my experience. Thanksgiving. Give thanks, then give. That’s all I can do at this moment, I can help build Kingdom amidst depravity. I’ll remember this so I can appreciate where I am NOW come February, March, April, whenever.
The experiences I’ve had sitting in the ashes have brought redemption to my purpose. The Lord has renewed my confusion with a reminder that HE is the REMEDY. Amidst suffering, the idea of God’s Kingdom only makes MORE sense to me now. Let us all bring the Remedy.
THINK ‘ashes’ then BE ‘remedy’
I’ll remember this during moments I stand pat at night. Staring into the sky, beneath an African view of the stars. Because I know a day will come when all I want is to be
Right
Where
I
Am.
