(April 18) I
am interpreting this week for a multicultural conference. This morning the
delegate from Mozambique was telling me about the catastrophic floods in his
country. These floods have persisted for nearly one whole year. Mozambique is
located in southeast Africa. It borders the Indian Ocean and its lowlands are
one huge delta for all the rivers draining from the mountains in neighboring
countries toward the ocean. In years of heavy rain or snowfall in the
mountains, added to cyclones and rains in the delta, the whole area
floods. He showed me pictures of towns completely flooded. Over 170,000 people
are suffering from the waters that don’t recede. Homes are destroyed,
workplaces are destroyed, fields cannot be used to grow food, animals die… It
is also inevitable that this leads to illnesses and diseases carried by water
and mosquitoes. The scale of human suffering is hard to comprehend. The
delegate is a pastor and said that they have many churches and church members
in the flooded areas that they are trying to help. They send food, clothes,
money, and people to help. But, in a country that is already poor and
under-developed, it is a never-ending drain on everyone. There is no end in
sight.
Then this
afternoon I learned of an exceptional storm that hit the Chicago area last
night. With the violent thunderstorms and wind, came unimaginable amounts of
rain. Whole towns were flooded, expressways shut down as well as local roads. Schools
and businesses were closed. In general, normal life activities were interrupted
and there was some on-going structural damage. Families and businesses lost
flooded items; road were undermined and need repairs.
What struck
me in the comparison of these similar events that I learned about today is that
in Mozambique the situation has lasted for one year, with no end in sight and
the human suffering is incalculable. In the Chicago area, the inconvenience is
temporary. Within two or three days at the most, the majority of people will be
back to work, schools will reopen, and normality will return rapidly. Some
structural damage, both public and private, will take longer to repair, but
there are insurance policies, local governments and other means in place that
can intervene when such unexpected events happen. There may be complaints about
the costs of this – both in repairs and in lost business – but the fabric of
society has not been altered by this punctual event. People are generally safe
and still have homes and food.
If I were a
Christian in Mozambique instead of in the USA, what would it mean to trust the
Lord? What would it mean to serve others? What would it mean to show solidarity
with my brothers and sisters whose means and places of living have been
destroyed? “If one member of the Body suffers, all suffer…”
So many
things that are going on in the Kingdom of God are not reported on a large
scale. So many needs, so many events, so many joys and sorrows seem to be unknown
within the wider Body. It is only because of personal contact and
church-to-church partnerships that ongoing challenges are learned about and
shared. Due to a decades-old partnership, Swiss churches involved in missions
in Mozambique are following the humanitarian needs of the churches due to the
flooding there.
On a wider
level, more can surely be done to improve “Kingdom communications” so that more
of us are aware of the needs that are present within the Body. It is important
to “know”, even if on the practical level there is little that we can “do”. We
all need make an effort to live more intentionally and alertly as members of a
real, living, functioning Body.
