"Why didn't they just leave? Hadn't they done enough to satisfy their longing to do good? ... I needed to know, because at times I felt no connection at all to the country--nothing but the inexorable clutch of a nightmare--and I recoiled from their caring. It seemed, then, that there was no solution to the existence of a place like Sierra Leone, except to return home and ignore its existence altogether."
Daniel Bergner writes the above statement in his book,
In the Land of Magic Soldiers, about a missionary family who sticks it out in Sierra Leone during the war. His last sentence, where he expresses how his solution to the many problems in Sierra Leone was to go home, return to his life in the US and forget it even existed, really hit home with me.
The problems in Sierra Leone are overwhelming. Last year, Sierra Leone ranked at the very bottom of the UN Human Development Index--178th out of 178 countries. SL has the highest infant mortality rate in the world, and one of the lowest life expectancies as well.
After living there for the better part of a year and a half, I can honestly say that it would be easier to walk away from the place and just forget it exists. Forget that thousands of amputees and war-wounded individuals are living in UN relief tents, with no way to support themselves or feed their families....forget the hundreds of little children in Kroo Bay that crowd into a small church each week for "Alay-Alay," a Good News Club, where they hear the Good News of Jesus and receive some loving medical care and a hard-boiled egg...forget my friends who sell on the street, barely making enough money in a day's time to afford to eat...
There is so much mind-numbing pain and suffering in Sierra Leone that it is more comfortable, easier to just forget.
But I can't forget. I don't want to allow myself to forget. I must make a conscious effort to remind myself not to forget. Life can become so comfortable here in the US, that it's easy to forget to remember others who are suffering in poverty around the world.
That's why we're starting Change One. So that we can remember. And so we can do something to help better the lives of people in Sierra Leone and maybe eventually other parts of the world--even if it's just one life at a time.
The task is overwhelming. The needs are overwhelming. But by the grace of God, working together we can make a difference
And I hope and pray that we will never forget.
