Some Final Thoughts

I am sure that this really won't be my final final thoughts on Africa, but I am killing time until I can go to my friends' place in Dar. I have some American missionary friends here that my hometown church has been supporting for a while now. I met them when I first came to town and will be spending the night with them tonight before I fly out tomorrow evening.
Wow, so many emotions and feelings as I sit here. The biggest question is how are we going to effectively move forward and which step are we, as an organization, going to take? There is so much need here and I am struggling with what is fair and equal. How do we balance charity with sustainability? Handouts versus an honest days work?  The last week that I was in Berega, the Anglican church was having a crusade. People came from all around to sing songs and listen to a message from a visiting pastor. My last day there I sat and watched all the dancing and singing. Slowly I noticed the children from the preschool coming to sit next to me or say hi and then the next thing I know, I am absolutely surrounded by a sea of little black faces. Some of them just stared at me, others touched my hair or my arm. I don't think the ones that weren't the preschool kids had ever been that close to a white person before. I watched the women dance in their bright colored dresses and fabrics, even the men really got into it. It appeared that there was a special men's singing group there as well. I didn't understand a word of it, but when it comes to God, you just kinda know what is being said. I said good bye to those I had become friends with and even had a phone call from one of the doctors wishing me well. I realized that whatever happens, these children have to be given a better future then the one their parents got. Whether that is from better schools or giving good paying jobs to their parents, I don't think it matters. Either way things will be better. Through my 3 week journey, I witnessed the operation of a 13 year old who had a typhoid intestinal perforation. The smell that came out of her belly during that operation was one I will not soon forget. Things aren't done in a hurry here in Berega, there is no true emergency. I checked on her nearly every day after her surgery so worried that she would succumb to sepsis. Thursday I went to look for her and to my great surprise she had been discharged home. That was the best news ever!!!! I couldn't help think that if she was in America, her biggest concerns would be what to wear to school to what boy liked her this week (she was beautiful) to how much homework her math teacher had assigned, not fighting for her life from a disease that can be stopped with proper hand washing and better water. That is what I want to do. Start preventing things from happening in Africa that we don't even think about in the states, give people a fighting chance through better education for everyone and better equipment for the hospital. Simple things, like painting the walls with education material in the hospital, providing books to the nursing school and helping to recruit better qualified students for the school and giving easier access to clean water for all are just some things to start with.
Its amazing how roads intersect in your life and God puts people and places together that make us question why, but in reality it was all a part of a grander plan that is still unfolding before me. I have not shed a tear about what I have experienced here and I may not or I might bawl like a baby once I get on the plane, who knows? But the one thing I do know is that I will be back and the people of Berega can count on that!