As I woke up on Sunday morning, I could feel the cold breath in my room as my face tingled with the small sensation that winter was upon us here in South Africa. As I lay underneath the comforter and leaned over to the window by my bed, I felt the cool air throughout the room cause me to want to roll back over and sleep until summer. I opened up the curtain to my bedroom window and the rain was pouring down, the mud was rising on the side of the building embankment and the trees looked like they were dripping in frost. It was cold, very cold, and one of those miserable days that beds became your best friend again and soup is your last meal.
Because Ange had been quite sick the day before and was battling what sounded like the flu, we decided to give church a skip and everything else that day. I braved the cold and the rain to get some food, some Energade, some soup, some medicines and some DVD’s. As I ran into the grocery store, the DVD store, the petrol station and the rain poured down my sweatpants and my sneakers, I thought of how miserable it was outside – it was just plain cold. I got home, made some lunch and Ange took her medicine. We set up for a day in – watching some good DVD’s and some bad DVD’s, but, hey, we were in inside. As the day continued on, the rain pounded on the roof and the windows steamed over from the temperature difference and we read books, laughed, took medicine, ate, relaxed and enjoyed being able to have a place to “seek shelter”.
It was about 4:30pm and I had just woken up from a nap on the couch, my book on my chest and my leg thrown over the side and looked outside. As I stared out over the grass through the raindrops freezing on the glass, I thought about the millions of people outside, sitting in their shacks, with their leaking roofs and their concrete floors, shivering, some, to death. In South Africa alone, there are millions of people living in squatter camps and informal settlements that, unlike us, have no warm place to lay their head and have nothing to help them escape the harsh realities of being one thing - and that is poor.
Every day I drive past the squatter camp situated outside the JAM complex and I see the thousands of people living in the cold, walking through the mud with their umbrellas to a place where there wont be a huge TV to distract them from every day, a nice warm bed to welcome them or a nice hot shower to help relax every muscle in their body. As I drive past, I truly wonder – why and how? How can I help? How can I go home to my house, sheltered from the cold and realize that so many 3 year old’s are shivering through the winter months? Why am I the one that gets into my car to leave the store while watching a family of 4 black children with their Dad, waiting, hoping, wanting a public bus home? Why? How? These are hard questions to answer, but, I do know, that potential lies in our attitudes of thankfulness and our lifestyles of action. We can’t change the fact that we are those whom have been given so much, but, we can, with gratitude, thank GOD and with action, help so many others. As America and Europe plunge into spring and summer, remember those last cold moments and how blessed life is, and what you can do, to make someone else’s….
Because Ange had been quite sick the day before and was battling what sounded like the flu, we decided to give church a skip and everything else that day. I braved the cold and the rain to get some food, some Energade, some soup, some medicines and some DVD’s. As I ran into the grocery store, the DVD store, the petrol station and the rain poured down my sweatpants and my sneakers, I thought of how miserable it was outside – it was just plain cold. I got home, made some lunch and Ange took her medicine. We set up for a day in – watching some good DVD’s and some bad DVD’s, but, hey, we were in inside. As the day continued on, the rain pounded on the roof and the windows steamed over from the temperature difference and we read books, laughed, took medicine, ate, relaxed and enjoyed being able to have a place to “seek shelter”.
It was about 4:30pm and I had just woken up from a nap on the couch, my book on my chest and my leg thrown over the side and looked outside. As I stared out over the grass through the raindrops freezing on the glass, I thought about the millions of people outside, sitting in their shacks, with their leaking roofs and their concrete floors, shivering, some, to death. In South Africa alone, there are millions of people living in squatter camps and informal settlements that, unlike us, have no warm place to lay their head and have nothing to help them escape the harsh realities of being one thing - and that is poor.
Every day I drive past the squatter camp situated outside the JAM complex and I see the thousands of people living in the cold, walking through the mud with their umbrellas to a place where there wont be a huge TV to distract them from every day, a nice warm bed to welcome them or a nice hot shower to help relax every muscle in their body. As I drive past, I truly wonder – why and how? How can I help? How can I go home to my house, sheltered from the cold and realize that so many 3 year old’s are shivering through the winter months? Why am I the one that gets into my car to leave the store while watching a family of 4 black children with their Dad, waiting, hoping, wanting a public bus home? Why? How? These are hard questions to answer, but, I do know, that potential lies in our attitudes of thankfulness and our lifestyles of action. We can’t change the fact that we are those whom have been given so much, but, we can, with gratitude, thank GOD and with action, help so many others. As America and Europe plunge into spring and summer, remember those last cold moments and how blessed life is, and what you can do, to make someone else’s….
1 comment:
Babe - your heart for those without is a beautiful thing that I enjoying watching displayed in either in written form, verbally, or in action.
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