What I've Learned

I've been losing sleep over the last few nights, because I have 18 days left in this continent. When I come back people are going to want me to say things. I don't exactly know what things I am going to want to say.

I am vexxed by the complexity of the issues here in Africa. They're not fixable. This removes the possiblility of an honest rallying cry. I've heard rally cries about Africa. They're nonsense- Humanistic visions of a future filled with peace and harmony, saturated in guilt- as if it's every rich person's fault that people are starving. The only thing humanity can do to Africa is make it more western or more eastern. Trust me, both the west and the east are doing their best out here in Gabon, and both are making strides.

The problem is the corruption. The corruption birthed of human evil. The weed in the field, which if pulled up, will destroy the good plants around it.

The problem is actually just evil. I think Africa has a way of pulling back the curtains on life, and exposing the skeleton bones of what's going on. Evil in the United States is cloaked, or made beautiful, or joked about. But in Africa, the evil is raw.

In movies and television, evil is a thing. It is the bad guy. It is an entity seperate from the good guys. But in reality, evil is the filth we cover ourselves with, that we consume ourselves with, that we plant in our own hearts, where it grows outward through our veins and vanities to become a part of us.

No matter how many Konys you kill, there will be more. No matter how many dictators you overthrow, there will be more. Because at the end of the day, dictators are no more than people whose evils are centered around thirst for power.

So what I'm saying is, although a lot of unsavory things happen here, Africa is nothing but a gritty version of what is happening all over the world. People are evil.

This by no means implies that we should therefore not do anything- quite the opposite. But I think a new attitude is in order.

We need to shed the humanistic worldview that has formed a sedimentary crust over the Body of the Church. Humanity is hopeless. We the Church cannot, and will not, fix the world. We need to stop focusing on physical problems.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood..." Ephesians 6:12

One of my major challenges here was watching people disrespect the work we do. They have nigh upon zero respect for the money and work put into the hospital- they throw garbage around when garbage cans are but a few steps away. They horse on the preposterously expensive water fittings (that the hospital provides for free) They throw plastic bags full of waste into toilets, and then when the toilets inevitably clog, they just continue to use them until they are literally piled high with filth, caking the walls and floors.

But what I've come to realize as of recent is that the desperate frustration, and occasionally, the hatred, that I feel in the face of that is nothing more than my tendancy for humanism collapsing on itself.

The true Christian faith has no hope for humanity. The Christian faith hopes that humanity, as it falls, will choose to fall at the foot of the cross.