Africa Thursday

We all have our own stories, our hopes, dreams, and aspirations; the common thread in all of these is our desire for an improved way of life. We are blessed and fortunate enough to live in the greatest country in the world, with hard work, perseverance, and a little time we can realize most if not all of our wants and dreams. Sadly the world does not work like that for everyone.

Work is hard to find, 60% of Kenyans are unemployed, every day they attempt to get casual labor jobs, some days they do, some they don’t. If they are fortunate enough to find work, they can maybe earn 100- 200 Kenyan Schilling, which is$1.50-$3.00 American. Most of the people in the world who live on less than $1.00 a day live in Africa. In Africa, that dollar does not go far enough. Rampant corruption runs the government; food designated to the poor is often redirected and ends up padding the wallets of officials rather than feeding the stomachs of the nation. Give us this day our daily bread, a very real and urgent daily prayer, sounds so different in Africa than it does back home.

The church in Africa is alive and well. The church is working with least of my brothers, whatever they do for the least, they do for God. They do more work with fewer resources than is imaginable. They are pressing onward, time is short, people are dying and the workers are few. They keep working.

Joy, hope, and love are found here. We have been first hand witnesses to the living gospel, through our host, at the sites we visited we saw Christ at work in and through them. In these moments that we spent with them the living God, the same God we worship has made the needs of his children known, we have been witnesses to the will of God. The only question left is what we’ll we do now that we know?