Friends and Family,
In about three weeks, my dad and I are going to Jos, Nigeria, to volunteer at Faith Alive, an amazing organization that strives to provide holistic care for its destitute and devastated community and includes a clinic, school, orphanage, support groups and microfinance loans, among many things.
Just over a year ago, I returned from Namibia with mixed feelings: I was frustrated that it hadn't been an easy or especially fun experience, I was glad I had gone, I knew I had learned a lot, and I felt like I was just starting to really get a feel for it just as I was leaving; mostly, though, I was overwhelmed by it all and had no idea what kind of larger impact my time there would have on the rest of my life.
The following is from an email I sent about a month before I left Windhoek:
Africa is hard. Everything here, from the ten other languages around me that I don't speak, to the male- dominated social structure, to the unfamiliar and at times confusing culture, is hard. I still don't feel like I have been able to really sink my teeth in as I wish I could. The most difficult thing to face of all is the overwhelming and truly discouraging magnitude of Africa's problems. Debt, HIV/AIDS, women's rights, unemployment, alcoholism, education, poverty, health care, domestic violence... any one of these issues is enough to make a person feel like nothing in the face of their looming, disastrous power. This discouragement can (and does) render you helpless, regardless of your idealism- indeed, idealism can feel very foolish here. Beliefs in justice and goodness, possibility of change, and the power of hope are severely challenged. The assault on your senses makes everything bleed and blend together, activating defense mechanisms you didn't even know you had, and leaves you feeling numb. It makes me see more clearly why guilt and apathy are common [regrettable but understandable] reactions, especially on the part of the white, wealthy, Western world- and why complacency and denial are prevalent reactions in society here.
Nowhere else on earth are the challenges so great as they are in Africa. This is the major reason I wanted to come to Africa- because nowhere is the need so huge. I'm sure that part of the disillusionment I am now feeling is the seemingly insurmountable problems I have witnessed here.
I remember a few years ago when one of the pastors in my church back home went to Jos to teach for a few weeks in a seminary there- I remember thinking, when he was talking afterwards about his time there: No, thank you. I saw absolutely no appeal whatsoever in going to Nigeria or anywhere else in Africa, for that matter.
What I didn't know then or even a year ago is that Africa would become lodged in a small, deep and unassailable part of my heart without my even realizing it. That having once been there, it would become impossible for me to stop dreaming of a return. That the very horror of Africa's problems, their sheer size and impossibility, would also be that which refuses to let me be and compels me to seek some way to help. I have to; how could I not?
