i don't accept this

Yesterday when I was driving through the chaos to pick Nede up from school I couldn't believe how normal it seemed. Between the people selling bras and bananas, juice mix and junk, bicycles, reckless drivers, walkers, wandering children and the familiar "crazy people", I can't believe I no longer have heart palpation's and, that once familiar, fear of this place. I remembered when I hated coming to Chimoio and I usually let Laura drive because I preferred not to. Now it's just normal, I peacefully maneuver my way through the confusion several times a day. This has become my normal.

What hasn't become normal is the negligence of human life. Yesterday at the clinic I saw a young mom with her 7 month old baby weighing in at 3.5kg (7.7 lbs). The child's skin hung on her petite bones. Her mouth, covered in white yeast, was one of the causes of her wailing when I tried to give her her milk that she so desperately needed. The mother had done nothing that we had asked her to do the week prior. As a result, this peanut lost 200gms. I felt infuriated. I used to think the natural thing was to fight for life-- to try to care for a human being. This women lacked the will to fight and the desire to try. I spoke and I explained. I asked her to please go immediately to the hospital. I wasn't convinced she was going to go. I gave her money for transport so that couldn't be the excuse to keep her a way. But the whole situation was still unsettling within me. Thankfully, when I went to leave shortly after this, I saw her. I stopped my car and got her in-- I would drive her to the hospital door myself. I want that baby to live!

I don't know if the hospital admitted her. I pray they did.

I've been wrestling with this all too common scenario. I'm sure it all comes back to my world view and how different it is growing up in America. We have NICU's and PICU's and ICU's and ambulances that are actually available and hospitals that have supplies and we can get medications without bribing the nurses and we get treatment relatively easily. From my earliest years, I knew my parents would do everything they could to keep me healthy and well. They straightened my feet and straightened my teeth! They taught me that my life was valuable and I now know that it is.

Suppose they hadn't done these things for me? Suppose their parents had died in a brutal civil war and they were taught nothing? Suppose they were infected with a virus that they didn't understand and were shamed and outcasted because they had the ugly 3-letter taboo? I guess had I grown up in these circumstances EVERYTHING would have been different. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!

So...with that recognized, I can expect that this is the mentality but I will NOT ACCEPT it. But how do I do anything different? How do we influence a culture? How do we, as children of a loving God, help to teach the value of a life?

I'm wrestling with this. I never want this part of my life to feel normal. Sometimes I'm scared though, because sometimes I find myself just wanting to accept that "this is how things are here". I didn't accept this for my daughter and I don't want to accept it for anyone else's.

At the end of the day, all I know is that I don't know, but He does. And He hates injustice.

And...I don't even know how to end this blog...as I remember the screaming baby I held yesterday I don't know what conclusion to come up with. I just don't understand. Really, I'm glad I don't have to, I just pray...

Lord, give us wisdom for each day...