I was 26 years old before injustice had any real lasting impact on my heart. We were at an orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda, and it was our last day of a week-long VBS camp. The kids had split into teams and come up with their own dance moves to Kirk Franklin’s “Revolution.” Now, instead of a revolution, we were holding a dance off.
We had candy for the winners.
We had candy for everyone else too.
There were about 120 kids in this particular orphanage. Many of them were over the age of 18. Half of them had survived Rwanda’s brutal 1994 genocide. Talk about injustice! Some of these teens had seen their parents hacked to death by machetes. They’d lost sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, friends. And all because some were from a different tribe than others. The orphans lived now in dormitory-style rooms. They ate rice in a large, pink-walled cafeteria. They didn’t have their own Bibles.
But they could dance.
And they loved candy.
Our translators told us these kids probably saw candy two or three times a year. Mission teams brought it, but other than that, it wasn’t exactly on the menu.
Candy is a treasured possession when it’s that rare.
It’s arguably a treasured possession when it’s not that rare.
And then Karim, one of the orphan boys, approached me after the dance off.
I had just finished singing a simple song that I’d written and then had translated into kinyarwanda, the local language. I’d sung it for the kids so they could hear that Jesus speaks their language even though I only know English. To remind them that Jesus always loves them even though I had to get on a plane and fly back home.
And now Karim was standing in front of me with his hand stretched towards me and his newly-won white and red polka-dot sucker lying on his open palm.
He was trying to give it to me.
“For you, auntie,” he kept insisting. “For you.”
It was the only way he could find to say thank you.
By giving up this one piece of candy that we’d just given him. A piece of candy I could eat ten of every day in the States and not even begin to cut into the supply. Possibly the only piece of candy Karim would see all year.
And he wanted to give it to me.
It broke my heart.
Here was this boy, I thought. His parents are either dead, or they abandoned him. I’m not sure which is worse. He sleeps in a room with maybe fifteen other boys. He doesn’t own a single toy. He probably never has. Sometimes there’s not much to eat. The orphanage doesn’t have the money to send him to school. He can’t read the Bible every day cause he doesn’t have one. His father’s not there to teach him honor, and his mother’s not there to teach him kindness.
And here he is, this orphan, offering me his white and red polka-dot sucker.
Just because he wants to say thank you.
Who taught him this?
If I close my eyes even today, I can still see Karim standing in front of me, his hand outstretched, laughing so he won’t cry, repeating, “For you, auntie. For you.”
After that, it was impossible for me to stay the same. Injustice - its horror stories, its casualties, its consequences - had become a personal issue for me. I couldn’t just casually say the word “orphan” anymore. “Fatherless” was no longer a vague term. Because of Karim, it now had a face. It had a name. It had the memory of one simple, selfless act of love.
That’s what it took for me to actually stop and look injustice in the face. That’s when I couldn’t live with myself anymore if I didn’t do something - however small - about it.
Nearly four years later, I haven’t done much. It’s depressing, really, to think how little I’ve managed. Maybe I’m denser than most. Maybe God needed to take it slow at the start to keep me humble.
I know more about injustice now. I have more stories to share about families who have lost their houses, boys who have lost their childhood, girls who have lost their freedom. I have faces. I have names.
But I’ve seen something else. Something that has terrified me as much - if not more - than the injustice, the chaos, the stark, raving cruelty that goes on in this world. It is this:
Indifference.
I’ve seen it at my job where I waitress. I’ve seen it in the classrooms of public and private schools. I’ve seen it in the pews of very nice-looking churches. I’ve seen it in the books we read and the movies we watch and the games we play. I’ve seen it in our faces and words and how we spend our money. I’ve seen it in our use of time.
We don’t care.
I mean, we’d like to if it wasn’t so much bother. We’ll write a check if you ask nicely enough. We’ll give up a week or two if that’s what you really want. But day to day? No thanks. We’re a little busy here. Preoccupied. Distracted. Indifferent.
But if you had met the girl in the village who had been raped - if you had talked with the boy who had once been a child soldier - if you had blown bubbles with the kid whose parents sold her into slavery - if you knew her name, and if you had a picture of you and her with your arms around each other hanging on your bedroom wall . . . could you still be indifferent?
Of course not!
No one’s that heartless.
Then hear my questions: If we will fight to save our friends, why will we not fight to save helpless strangers?
I am talking to Christians here. I’m talking to those born again into the family of God the Father with Jesus Christ as your Savior and Brother and Friend. And I’m not pointing my finger. I’ve gone years being every bit as indifferent as you. Take this as an exhortation, a warning. Wake up faster than I did. We can’t afford to remain where we are. We can’t afford to leave the stranger on the side of the road while we pass blindly by. We can’t afford to be too busy. We can’t afford to look the other way. It’s costing us our light, and it’s costing them their lives.
The Bible says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Do you know what that means? What is a sinner? Come one, we’ve all been to Sunday school. We know this answer. A sinner is someone who has sinned. Meaning we’re separated from God. Separated like He’s living in Central City, Nebraska, and we’re living in Bideka, Congo. Separated like we’re strangers. Like we wouldn’t know Him if we passed on the street.
And He died for us.
While we were like that. While we were strangers.
How dare we only die for our friends. How dare we only give and suffer and weep and sacrifice for the people we know. Even an unbelieving world will go this far. Even a bully will go this far.
What makes us different?
What makes the Bride of Christ different from the rest of the world?
It is only when we will love those who are foreign to us, those who aren’t a part of our circle, those who are the least of these. The forgotten, the invisible, the poor.
The strangers.
This is what Christ has called us to.
This is what we have not done.
This is why our testimony in America oftentimes seems to fall on deaf ears. We’ve said it and heard it in so many different ways. “Why are non-Christians in the States so hard to evangelize? Why aren’t people more open to the Gospel here? I’m telling the truth! Why won’t they listen to me?”
I’m sure you could find lots of different answers for this. Here is mine: They don’t listen because we are only telling them. We are not showing them. And our actions (or inactions) are speaking louder than our words.
What we are willing to give up for our friends we have not been willing to give up for strangers. We have loved our brother. We have not loved our enemy. We have been generous in our small, healthy, safe circle. We have not stepped out to be generous in a large, filthy, unsafe world.
The African boy we’ve never met. The Brazilian villager we’ve never seen. The Indian girl whose name we don’t know. The homeless family whose house, we fear, is the cardboard box under the bridge. The kid at school who’s so nerdy no one will sit by him at lunch. The child soldier, the prostitute, the drug addict, the slave.
Why? Why is it such a big deal when we ignore them?
Because we are the ones with the power to effect change.
We are the ones who could make a difference.
We are the ones who aren’t doing it.
America is one of the wealthiest countries in all history. A larger percentage of Americans own cars than own houses in most other countries. We can spend more per month on our pets than many parents can spend on food for their kids. We make more in personal income than any other country in the world.
We are wealthy. And because of our wealth, we are powerful.
If we use our wealth to feed ourselves, we are not doing a bad thing. But if we do not use our wealth to feed the helpless, we are.
We’ve heard it before: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Well, it’s true. It’s frighteningly true! Both for those of us in power and the utterly defenseless who are waiting for us to use our power for good.
But what can we do? What can one pitiful little me do? After all, there’s so very much need in this world. So much suffering. So much cruelty. So much death. How can I possibly succeed against that?
Well, I don’t know. Maybe I can’t. Maybe none of us can. But it might be better to have never been born than for us not to try.
Success is not the goal here.
“I don’t care if we lose,” said Dr. Paul Farmer. “I’m gonna try to do the right thing.” (quote from Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains) Would you like to know who Dr. Paul Farmer is? He’s the man who started possibly the single best hospital in the entire country of Haiti. He lobbied for millions of dollars to be given to the pursuit of eradicating tuberculosis in Russia - and he won! He’s doctored in America, Haiti, Cuba, and Siberia, to name a few.
He’s just one man. But he decided two things: First, that he was going to do something. Second, that it was okay if he didn’t succeed.
Did you catch that?
He didn’t set out to build the best hospital in Haiti. At the beginning, he didn’t know he was going to be a doctor to thousands upon thousands of people worldwide.
He just decided to act.
To share.
To give.
To love.
One person at a time.
