Guts to help gutted lives
By: Santosh (April 8th, 2008)This article in one of the leading dailies of the country has 
This is about the life of Kenyans after the election trife in December 2007 wherein more than 1000 people where killed and 3,00,000 people where left homeless which basically took an ethnic turn. I would like to highlight some of the real life conditions this people are living in, which we won’t desire to have even in our worst nightmares.
Clinton Masheti, 8 yrs old and all alone, sits on a wooden bunch rolling snakes out of clay. When the men came and started burning down houses in his villages, his parents ran away- without him!
If Clinton’s parents are not found by August, he will be put up for adoption.
Nearly every day the skies crack open and the water gushes down. Tents collapse, latrines overflow, firewood gets soggy, food goes uncooked and diseases like malaria and flu flourish.
Three women in camp recently died from exposure to the cold and 5 month old twins from pneumonia.
Naomi and Joseph Nganga where abandoned by their father after a mob burned down their house and their mother died in a displaced persons camp. They are sister and brother, 9 and 10 yrs old. When Joseph was asked if he wanted to go back to his village in Nairobi, Joseph’s voice dropped to a mumble and said “I just want to go to school”
When I was going thru this article early in the morning, I was still feeling the tiredness in my body from the previous day’s running for setting up a new house in Chennai. The place was new to me and I had to do, starting from finding a good house, to buy all the required household items from soap to washing machine on my own. I’d never done this before. Before setting up the house I sought for all the details so to give my family a comfortable stay. I made it very clear that whatever happens, my family should not suffer due to lack of amenities (read luxurious amenities).
We lead such a comfortable life in our house and we’ve all the things surrounding us. But what about the Clinton’s and Joseph’s of Kenya? What about the 5 month old twins? While I was reading about the twins, I was just wondering about my 3 month old son, we took him to a doctor for the reason of just crying a lot. And here we’ve this 5 month old twins!!
It’s said that the aid given to these people also doesn’t reach them properly. Government officials are sitting and waiting like “hyenas” to devour the aid and if something is left they’ll give it but will make sure that they call the entire press and make a headline internationally.
No..It aint only about us. As an individual and specifically as a follower of Christ we who have got a comfortable life should be able to provide comfort to others also. It’s not just about us or our family or friends or relatives. Its about all those people who need our support and our help.
Their was a Christian missionary who used to work with lepers in some part of Hawain island. In his service to them he himself caught the dreaded disease and passed away. There are missionaries working exclusively with tribes. So on and so forth. To work among lepers, to work under conditions of overflowing laterines and uncooked food we need something called “GUTS”.
And you know where this ‘Guts’ comes from. It will come from moving out of our comfort, doing something that we never did, rather doing something that we never wanted to do and the most importantly seeking the help from our Father, who’s not happy when a parent abandons their children.
A famous quote that always inspires me “to get what we never had, we’ve to do what we never did.”
Lets pray and give thanks to whatever God has given us and also keep in prayers the Clinton’s and the Naomi’s of Kenya. Lets pray that God gives us a direction and way to reach out to his abandoned childrens.
God bless!!
Tags: Clinton Masheti, disease, hunger, Joseph Nganga, Kenya, Naomi