I recently listened to a man who had been in a hostage situation in Africa. He was describing his turmoil in wanting to help one of his fellow hostages, a woman and a friend, who looked like she was about to collapse during a forced march. He was afraid if he tried to help her, their captors would see the woman as too weak and shoot her. But if he didn’t help, she was going to die of exhaustion. “I felt damned if I do and damned if I don’t, and, gawd, that’s a horrible place to be!” he said.
I hope you don’t know what this feels like.
But you probably do.
I’m sure you’ve had those bone-chilling moments when you look at all your options, and every last one of them looks like Hell.
I’m also fairly certain that you don’t live like that on a daily basis.
What if you did?
What if you did live like that on a daily basis?
Like a village girl in the eastern mountains of the DRC. She’s poor, so she can’t afford much of an education. Most of the women she knows spend their daylight hours in the fields, trying to convince the crops to grow. She doesn’t know anyone in the city, and she can’t move there by herself anyway. Her parents are already looking for a possible husband for her. Every night when she goes to sleep, she knows her sleep might be interrupted. The Interahamwes stalk these mountains, and they often invade villages and kidnap the children. The boys are forced to fight in their battles; the girls become sex slaves.
Tell me, if this was your life, what are your options?
Do they all look like Hell?
Or perhaps you’re a child in Haiti whose parents are very poor. So poor, in fact, that they can’t really feed you properly, and you never get clothes without holes in them, and you sleep on the concrete floor, and you don’t have any shoes. One day your parents decide to sell you. It’s not that they want to, you understand; they just don’t have a choice. You will now be a restavek, a child slave in someone else’s home. Perhaps you will carry water for this new family. Perhaps you will find firewood. Perhaps you will wash clothes. But you will not be a member of the family. You will not get to go to school. You will not be loved.
Tell me, does your life look like Hell?
Or what if you are a boy in northern Uganda? And you go to sleep one night, and the rebel army (It’s the LRA this time, not the Interahamwes, but there’s not much difference.) does invade your village, and you are kidnaped along with your little brother. The two of you are dragged into the forest and beaten with sticks. Then a man with a cigarette hands you a machete and tells you to kill your little brother. “Kill him, and you will live,” the man says, holding a gun to your head. “Refuse and we will kill you both.”
Tell me, do your options look like Hell?
I’m not trying to be crass here, and I didn’t write this with the intent of adding the word “Hell” as often as I could. What I am trying to say is this: These are not theoretical situations. These are not fictitious stories made up inside a sick, twisted mind. These things are happening today. That girl in the village, that restavek in Haiti, that boy in Uganda - they really exist.
Not a thousand years ago.
Not a hundred years ago.
Today.
They are alive today. They have a name, just like you. They have a favorite color, just like you. They have moms who sang them to sleep when they were babies, just like you. They have hopes and dreams and things they want to be when they grow up, just like you.
But unlike you, they oftentimes do not have the power to effect change.
Do you want to know what I think injustice is? Injustice is the raped girl in the Congo, the restavek in Haiti, the child soldier in Uganda. It is the poor, the helpless, the un-empowered who are taken advantage of because they cannot help themselves.
Injustice is us not doing anything about it.
Sorry if this is making you feel guilty.
There really isn’t any way around it.
Perhaps we wouldn’t feel guilt if we didn’t have anything to be guilty about.
So, what can we do? We’re Americans. We’re big fans of action and progress and forward motion. We want more than just the problem here. What’s the solution? How can we fix this?
Well, we can’t. Not really. A perfectly ideal situation would be the entire world coming together to stop world hunger and end all wars and clothe the naked and fight off injustice and bring every last abandoned orphan into beautiful, loving homes.
Unfortunately, that is perfectly ideal. Which means it won’t happen. Even Jesus said it: “You will always have the poor among you.” We can never do enough. We can’t solve the problem. We can’t fix it.
So, what can we do?
Do we invite a friend or stranger out for coffee and a donut? Do we give half our paycheck to feed a family in China? Do we take a trip out of the country? Do we volunteer at the local homeless shelter? Do we stand in the middle of the sidewalk and preach? Do we start a soccer team for boys in the trailer park? Do we intentionally befriend the nerdy kid at school? Do we teach a Sunday school class? Do we give away our extra clothes and shoes and cars and TV’s?
I’m not going to answer these questions yet.
I just want you to start thinking about asking them.
