September Newsletter
HIV/AIDS EDUCATION TOUR
October 2007
Liz Cantu
September 9, 2007
Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
http://www.crwrc.org/
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.
God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives.
God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war.
God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives,nand God is with us if we are with them.
-BONO, lead singer for the musical band U2
Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for all of your wonderful emails and phone calls. My heart rejoices when I get a message from you. The preparation for the journey hasn't been a smooth one and you're prayers are deeply relished. I'm so glad that you've chosen to take this educational journey with me and I look forward to sharing even more of what I've learned along the way.
Part of my preparation has been physical homework. CRWRC have sent me several projects to complete locally before I go to Africa. So it is safe to say that I'm well on my way to my educational tour of HIV/AIDS. One of my homework assignments is to meet with leaders of HIV/AIDS support groups in my area. In this, I've made appointments to visit and find out what exactly they are doing for our local community. Other pieces of my homework have been to study and mediate on words such as poverty, lack, illness, and hope. All of this training has lead me to want to even learn more. To know more about the effects/affects of HIV/AIDS in our global community, to find out what is really needed, and to hear what Africa needs/wants.
As I ask myself these questions, I'm sent more information on where I will be and who I will meet. And as I read the information they give to me, prayers start to go out. Please permit me to share a bit about one of the places I will be visiting? When I am in Kenya I will be visiting groups that are in the Kware slum just outside of Nairobi. The reality of AIDS is something that this community is living with. Just one reality of this slum, are children caring for their dying parents and taking on adult responsibilities before they're prepared. Usually this translates into the denial of education, health care, and a violation of rights for the vulnerable. And after all of this they are still left with the distress of HIV/AIDS and how it's taken the lives of their loved ones.
As I sit here and read more statistics and still ask questions like why? How? Who? What? So many questions, that there are constellations full. But I find, that if I just pick one of those questioning stars out of that pile, I might be able to get my head/heart around it.
The answers come. Africa answers. And we find that in these slums children go without an education because they're too busy taking care of their ill loved ones, and their usually isn't enough money for food, medicine much less an education. (There are very few "free" schools in Africa). Soon it starts to make so much sense. Actually, it starts to make non-sense when so many of the solutions can be made available and just aren't.
Perhaps for some of us we already have heard all the issues going on in Africa and it's a situation we find so large that we grow paralyzed in response. But it doesn't' hurt to ask questions. It doesn't hurt to pray. It doesn't hurt to listen and just to know more. And when you begin to scratch at the surface, you soon find yourself even in deeper in the life of Africa. Or at least I do. I start to ask even more questions.
When I scratch more, I find even more information about this one particular slum. There are over 6,000 children in this neighborhood and almost half (maybe) have walked into a class room. The other half may have become street children.
Stop. I have to even read what I just wrote. If half of 6,000 children in one slum outside of Nairobi are street children, that means that 3,000 (approx.) children will sleep in the street alone, hungry, and thirsty. They will sleep in the streets tonight when I lay down on my temperpedic, and will again tomorrow night. And will again on Christmas and on their birthday. Wow! Not in all of Kenya. Just a small slum outside of Nairobi. How many more children could there be?
What are these statistics saying to us?
What is Africa trying to say?
Honestly, I don't know. I am beginning to find clues to answers. But I want to find out more. I want us to find out. My hope is to go and see. My hope is to go and hear. My hope is to go and touch. My hope is to go and taste. My hope is to go and smell. My hope is that upon my return I will have an audience with you, my friends, and share what my senses have acquired. And we can continue the dialog with Africa, saying we have seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled, and we will intelligently spiritually/physically respond.
A long time ago one of my pastors presented to me a great book about a photographer and journalist traveling through Africa. I recently took it on a retreat to Lake Tahoe and read it over and over again. It's mostly a picture book but I like to read photographs and found myself staring at the photos until the pixels seemed to take on an art form all their own. I close this newsletter with these words. Again, thank you for your prayers and please know that they are a great blessing. The last page reads:
"It would be wrong for us to close our eyes and our hearts to everything that we have learned. Our experience won't let us do that. Our passion and anger and hope don't give us permission to abandon these experiences, because the time we have spent in Africa is beautiful and tragic, rich and life-giving, horrible and yet redemptive."
-Jena Lee and Jeremy Cowart. Exert from Hope in the Dark
October 2007
Liz Cantu
September 9, 2007
Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
http://www.crwrc.org/
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.
God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives.
God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war.
God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives,nand God is with us if we are with them.
-BONO, lead singer for the musical band U2
Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for all of your wonderful emails and phone calls. My heart rejoices when I get a message from you. The preparation for the journey hasn't been a smooth one and you're prayers are deeply relished. I'm so glad that you've chosen to take this educational journey with me and I look forward to sharing even more of what I've learned along the way.
Part of my preparation has been physical homework. CRWRC have sent me several projects to complete locally before I go to Africa. So it is safe to say that I'm well on my way to my educational tour of HIV/AIDS. One of my homework assignments is to meet with leaders of HIV/AIDS support groups in my area. In this, I've made appointments to visit and find out what exactly they are doing for our local community. Other pieces of my homework have been to study and mediate on words such as poverty, lack, illness, and hope. All of this training has lead me to want to even learn more. To know more about the effects/affects of HIV/AIDS in our global community, to find out what is really needed, and to hear what Africa needs/wants.
As I ask myself these questions, I'm sent more information on where I will be and who I will meet. And as I read the information they give to me, prayers start to go out. Please permit me to share a bit about one of the places I will be visiting? When I am in Kenya I will be visiting groups that are in the Kware slum just outside of Nairobi. The reality of AIDS is something that this community is living with. Just one reality of this slum, are children caring for their dying parents and taking on adult responsibilities before they're prepared. Usually this translates into the denial of education, health care, and a violation of rights for the vulnerable. And after all of this they are still left with the distress of HIV/AIDS and how it's taken the lives of their loved ones.
As I sit here and read more statistics and still ask questions like why? How? Who? What? So many questions, that there are constellations full. But I find, that if I just pick one of those questioning stars out of that pile, I might be able to get my head/heart around it.
The answers come. Africa answers. And we find that in these slums children go without an education because they're too busy taking care of their ill loved ones, and their usually isn't enough money for food, medicine much less an education. (There are very few "free" schools in Africa). Soon it starts to make so much sense. Actually, it starts to make non-sense when so many of the solutions can be made available and just aren't.
Perhaps for some of us we already have heard all the issues going on in Africa and it's a situation we find so large that we grow paralyzed in response. But it doesn't' hurt to ask questions. It doesn't hurt to pray. It doesn't hurt to listen and just to know more. And when you begin to scratch at the surface, you soon find yourself even in deeper in the life of Africa. Or at least I do. I start to ask even more questions.
When I scratch more, I find even more information about this one particular slum. There are over 6,000 children in this neighborhood and almost half (maybe) have walked into a class room. The other half may have become street children.
Stop. I have to even read what I just wrote. If half of 6,000 children in one slum outside of Nairobi are street children, that means that 3,000 (approx.) children will sleep in the street alone, hungry, and thirsty. They will sleep in the streets tonight when I lay down on my temperpedic, and will again tomorrow night. And will again on Christmas and on their birthday. Wow! Not in all of Kenya. Just a small slum outside of Nairobi. How many more children could there be?
What are these statistics saying to us?
What is Africa trying to say?
Honestly, I don't know. I am beginning to find clues to answers. But I want to find out more. I want us to find out. My hope is to go and see. My hope is to go and hear. My hope is to go and touch. My hope is to go and taste. My hope is to go and smell. My hope is that upon my return I will have an audience with you, my friends, and share what my senses have acquired. And we can continue the dialog with Africa, saying we have seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled, and we will intelligently spiritually/physically respond.
A long time ago one of my pastors presented to me a great book about a photographer and journalist traveling through Africa. I recently took it on a retreat to Lake Tahoe and read it over and over again. It's mostly a picture book but I like to read photographs and found myself staring at the photos until the pixels seemed to take on an art form all their own. I close this newsletter with these words. Again, thank you for your prayers and please know that they are a great blessing. The last page reads:
"It would be wrong for us to close our eyes and our hearts to everything that we have learned. Our experience won't let us do that. Our passion and anger and hope don't give us permission to abandon these experiences, because the time we have spent in Africa is beautiful and tragic, rich and life-giving, horrible and yet redemptive."
-Jena Lee and Jeremy Cowart. Exert from Hope in the Dark
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