post script

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a blog, the content of which I'm sure was profound and life changing to all who read it. But my interest in bringing up this blog again is the post script I wrote at the end of it. It remarked on the fact that both Egypt and DR Congo had had Presidential Elections that week and I was saying that I would look with interest to the news from both countries.

The reason I bring this up is that, as I was watching the news the other day, amongst the Palestinian/Israeli and various other conflicts, there were pieces on both Egypt and DRC.

The situations in both countries are complicated and while both are generally political, it is the people who are suffering. In 2008 I visited a couple of refugee camps in Goma, DRC with a team from Australia HOPE International and tragically enough, the images on the news this week could have been stock footage from four years ago.

Once again rebels have taken over Goma, with the UN watching on and the Congolese Army just walking out. And a population that has already lost it's sense of home, moves on again, trying to make some semblance of a life while constantly dogged by fear.

I can't imagine living without a home. Even when I am here in Uganda, I think even if I lived here for the rest of my life I would still call Australia home. Specifically Victor Harbor, with its changeable weather, its horse drawn tram, its beaches that are pretty to look at but too cold for me to swim at most of the time, its holiday atmosphere all summer long and the greatest concentration in the world of my family and friends. I can't imagine a reality where we were all chased away from Victor only to end up in temporary shelters in different locations around South Australia. And that we would be gone so long that our children would be born there, and grow there, and perhaps have their own children there. All the while in temporary shelters without access to running water, dependant on outside agencies for food, knowing that at any time we might be chased again. Like those in Goma whose little stability has started to shake.

I feel utterly helpless seeing images of refugees once again fleeing and I know that there is little I can do but pray. And hold on to the hope I have in Jesus, that He sees and knows those that no one else wants to see. Those who are broken and desperate.

And I pray that I might be broken, moved to remember, that I would not just change the channel and wipe these images from my mind.

Many blessings

bron

My prayer for this week, stolen from Brooke Fraser. Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen, show me how to love like You have loved me. Break my heart for what breaks Yours, everything I am for Your kingdoms' cause, as I walk from earth into eternity.