Earlier this month I had the privilege of co-leading a team of high school students to Malawi, Africa. We served at a CURE International Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. It was a life-changing experience for many of us. My next few blog posts will be devoted to sharing a few things I learned in Africa. I hope you enjoy.
LESSON ONE: THE WORLD IS BROKEN
I live in an isolated, suburban corner of the world dominated by chain restaurants and malls. My life is built around working toward the next best thing–video game, car, vacation, appliance or experience. My typical hardships include such astounding tragedies such as losing a clan war on Clash of Clans, finishing 2nd in a beach volleyball tournament, feeling bloated after eating a burrito or waiting an extra hour for delinquent parents to pick up their students after a retreat (OK, that actually is a tragedy).
What I realized while serving at a CURE International hospital in Malawi, Africa, is that my tragedies aren’t tragedies at all. I’m rather embarrassed by what brings out my crabby side. Most of the time, the hardships of my life would be welcomed as blessings by many people in the world.
I think that we American Christians are often lulled into a sense in which we believe that everything is basically decent in the world and that things just keep getting better and better. I know I’ve been guilty of this at different phases of my life. When all I focus on is the world immediately around me, I develop a myopic understanding of the world. Sadly, I’ve done enough reading and traveling to learn that things are, in fact, not decent in the world.
While I can’t figure out how to stay within my budget making thousands of dollars a year, many of the people I served in Malawi earn around $1 a day. The disparity is insane. I regularly spend a Malawian’s weekly wage on a single cup of coffee. I can’t get my mind around this.
Speaking of disparity, while in Malawi, I learned about the desperate shortage of doctors in the country. According to World Health Organization, there are .019 doctors per 1000 people in Malawi. That amounts to 2 doctors for every 100,000 people. My hometown is Grand Rapids, MI. The entire metropolitan area includes 1 million. If the doctor per capita rate of Malawi played out in Grand Rapids, that would mean we would only have 20 doctors for the entire Grand Rapids area. 20 doctors of any kind! Can you imagine?
My point is that the world is not as it should be. Malawi is but one small example of desperate need and disparity. A lack of clean water, preventable diseases, unchecked HIV/AIDS, war, and brutal poverty characterize so much of our world. This experience in Africa shook me and my students.
We asked ourselves, “What exactly are we doing with our comfortable lives in the USA? How could we better use our time, resources and talents to help bring the Kingdom of God to the neediest of places in the world?
If nothing else, a few days wandering through Blantyre, Malawi reminded me that I am EXTREMELY privileged and I have so much to be thankful for. I am among the tiniest fraction of humanity who lives with clean water, adequate healthcare, sufficient food, housing and transportation.
Today I choose to be grateful. I choose to live with gratitude because I am immensely privileged. May God teach me to be more and more content and more and more generous.