Acta Non Verba - Zimbabwe

As I said in the first report from Zimbabwe, we are inundated with media here in America on the plight of Africa.  The situation is reduced to numbers, statistics and a steady stream of infomercials displaying starving children sitting tearfully in a cloud of flies.  The images and the figures become overwhelming.  And, we turn away.

But, the truth is, there are people behind those numbers, those images.  There are individuals created — just as you and I are – in the image of GOD.  They are mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters.  They are SOMEBODIES.

One individual I would like you to meet is Dorothy Mutonga.  Dorothy is a mother of six children.  Dorothy is sick.  She is HIV positive and the day we met her she was running a fever and having diarrhea.  Dorothy lives in the Borrowdale Squatter Camp – one of two squatter camps hidden in cornfields off the road of the wealthiest are in Harare.  The President’s official residence is nearby.  And, the largest, most prosperous church overlooks Dorothy’s home.  To call it a home is by definition only – it is where she lives.  But, as we were shown around the little camp where garbage lay in piles, fires burned on the dirt floor dangerously close to the straw walls that make up her home’s structure, soiled baby clothes are keeping her crying two-year old warm from the cold, my heart was screaming – NO HUMAN SHOULD HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!!!

Water is another issue – there isn’t any.  So, she and her elderly neighbor are forced to beg from the local school and church, or collect it from a local source, which is contaminated with industrial runoff and waste.  This is most likely what initiated her recent illness.

In the midst of this most unlikely of homes, hidden away from the public eye (this is on purpose as the police will burn down squatter camps), there was still an air of hospitality.  Weak and frail, Dorothy greeted us and then showed us around her camp – her small garden, her home made of straw and plastic and the small chicken coop where a hen was resting on a couple of eggs.  As we took photos and spoke with her, her words to us were “God Bless You for coming.”

I have tried to imagine what it would be like to live as Dorothy does with my 14-year old son and 12-year old daughter in a remote squatter camp with no light, water, bed, only 4 blankets, food that I had scrounged around for and no way to get out – no way to somehow make money and improve our situation.  (By the way, Dorothy chose this more remote location after a neighbor tried to rape her daughter in the larger camp across the road.)  Would I have the strength to survive?  To get up and push forward each day?  Would my children?  What thoughts would ravel through my mind?

I praise God that Dorothy is a daughter of the KING, and that this is not her final dwelling – that He has a place for her in His eternal Kingdom, and that I have the privilege of knowing her and being able to talk with her there one day.  But, my heart and mind beg the question – Until then?  What about how Dorothy lives now?  Who will help her?

My fear is that, as I fall back into my routine – carpool, grocery store, daily life – I will forget Dorothy.  That she will become far away.  And, the urgency I feel will diminish.

So, I have put her photo by my desk to remind me –This little world I live in is not reality.  The truth is – reality is a thousand miles away.

“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to her, “Go, I wish you wll; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about her physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”  James 2:15-17

This entry was posted on Monday, August 30th, 2010 at 7:35 pm and is filed under ANVZ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.