Sixth of the Last 7
I met with a very dear friend before I came into work today, and he had just gotten back from Uganda. He explained how he was vividly living through the nightmare of openly seeing a young teenager being stoned to death for stealing food this past week, more than likely because the young adolescent was starving. My friend continually expressed remorse in the visualization of how that could have been his son, killed for the act of trying to survive the epidemic of starvation. The business entrepreneurs in this particular Ugandan city make a public spectacle of a thief to prevent others from stealing, making a visual memory of what to remember of those who do wrong, making an example of what the consequence is: a stoned death. There are not enough police to enforce/keep citizens from committing crimes. So naturally citizens take matters into their own hands with extreme measures in an attempt to prevent the country from tearing itself apart through unrest and wrongdoing like stealing. I doubt that most Americans can even fathom what this would be like. Whether we like what we do or not, many of us have a job, and for those who are seeking employment, the government pays you well for not having a job. Either way you probably have it pretty good considering you are not being stoned for the food you are trying to eat. An interesting question comes to mind: How many Ugandans could live off my daily intake of calories alone? We concern ourselves with losing weight with New Year’s resolutions we never keep; of course a Ugandan strives to gain a few pounds to avoid severe levels of malnutrition.
Teenagers in this country get a slap on the wrist for stealing a candy bar from a convenience store and in some ways may be encouraged to go do it again because there are no real consequences for doing it again. Our culture covers sin up with a dirty table cloth pretending that nothing is wrong.
I love to write and take photos…while the image at the beginning of this entry is not a pleasant one, I could see myself documenting such social injustices so that the Western civilization would wake up through the voice of someone who refuses to be quiet about such subject matter. Perhaps that is where my path should cross with my friend that I mentioned in the beginning of this blog entry. One of my favorites in ministry always says that “we are truly better together.” I would passionately serve in fighting for the documentation of such narratives with whoever might join hands with me. Maybe then people would come to God because they love Him in the gratefulness of their own hearts, rather than because they need something from Him….asking for a new car or retirement plan.
Westerners talk about their gratitude, saying all the right things about how we are blessed beyond belief, but I really think that many have no idea what the world is truly like. We work in our cubicles and think to pretend what really happens in other countries when many have never traveled outside of Alabama. This country hides sin where forgiveness becomes a ticket to indulge because we know that sins are still forgiven in salvation or at least they supposedly are. You were not the one throwing the stone in Uganda, but perhaps you are still the one holding it in the ignorance of living with a mask over your eyes. We do after all only see what we want to see.
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