First, let me start by saying, I know full well, how "first worldy" this is going to sound, and the fact that i'm blogging about it makes it trendy...all the cool kids are blogging about all the worlds problems.
Also, I need to say that I have about a billion things in my head, things about God, and Mothers Day and my place in this world that are waiting for their moment to pop on out of my head. Currently, it's a crowed place, so forgive in my thoughts seem fractured and half formed.
They are, but I need to make room and I need my heart for find a little peace.
That being said, here is the back story you need to know: I decided to challenge myself to read all the books found in a basket in my friends house. There are a lot of books and I wanted to get through them by the end of the summer. I no longer think that's feasible. The first book i read was a dime a dozen leadership book...so i was flying pretty high on the confidence train that i could whip through these no problem.
And then the Locust Effect happened. And it has wrecked me. Completely.
Now to be fair i know about sex trafficking, slavery and the like. I like to think i'm worldly in that respect but this book....is making me come undone.
Seriously. The stats. The psychology around what people prey on the poor, why being hungry is more than just food. What it means to vulnerable, what poverty looks like, what violence and corruption does to a country, to it's people, how anyone has any resolve to get up in the morning is beyond me.
And here i sit, safely, a white woman in a America reading about Africa and Asia and South America. How poverty, violence, and lack of education are literally plauging these places. millions of girls are being beaten and killed and devalued on the daily because they were born poor.
I have no words. Not a one.
Then reading about property grabbing in Uganda, the words literally leaped off the page. Because it becomes more real when you know about the place they're writing about because people you love went there to try to bring justice to the voiceless.
Trafficking, and poverty have names and they belong to 9, 10, 18 year old boys and girls who are being rapped, enslaved and beaten in a place where it seems God has forgotten about. And the worst, most gut wrenching part of it, is that in most countries, the things they are doing to their people are illegal....but no one is there to bring justice. What the fuck?
The majority of the world lives on less than 5 dollars a day.
and i complain about not having gas money because i'm stupid with my money.
I have no idea what to even do. Thank God there are people like Gary Haugen and IJM who run heart first into the darkness shining as many lights as possible doing the most amazing things.
but they cant be the only ones.
I'm sitting here thinking about trying to live off of $2 a day for a week, just to kind of understand the struggle. But even that seems stupid, and first world-y and somethings that's been done a billion times over.
We can save girls, we can educate people, we can give money, but how in the world do we change cultures?
I have no answers. only many, many questions and a heart that doesn't understand but faith in a God who is bigger and promises restoration.
So my suggestion is while i'm not totally done with the Locust Effect, because i can honestly only read so much at one time....everyone should read it, and get wrecked by it and then find a way to change the world.
because everyone is depending on it.
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