two and two makes five

Last Zimbabwe Post of the Year

The brother and family arrive in a few hours. I haven't been grocery shopping, haven't cleaned the house, and generally haven't prepared anything at all. So instead of posting, I'm passing on four "must-read" links. Take a minute between glasses of champagne to read and remember Zimbabwe - there is no celebration there tonight.

• "How Mugabe Gets His Bullets" - The UN reports that despite all sorts of bans and sanctions, the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe is getting Chinese made ammunition and weapons through third-party shipping across the DRC and other neighboring countries.
• "New $10 Billion Bill" - Whoops - forgot to post this article from 19 December. Too bad it is already so out of date. In the 12 days since then, Zimbabwe has released a new $50 Billion note. Of course, it is not the same $50 Billion note that is sitting on my desk. That is from earlier in the year, before 10 zeroes came off the currency, but from after the first zero slashing that dropped three digits. Going back to the pre-zero-slashing days of a couple of years ago, the newest Zimbabwean note is actually a $500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bill. I have no idea what that number is, but it is the true reflection of the currency's worth - 50 billion with the thirteen artificially removed zeroes added back on.
• "Dollar is Key To Zimbabwe Survival" - A realistic account of how difficult it is to survive in Zimbabwe these days without access to hard currency (ie, the US Dollar). Without USD or South African Rand or Botswanan Pula, one can't buy anything. Now a shortage of USD in Zim is causing massive US Dollar inflation in the economy there.
• "The Death Throes of Harare's Hospitals" - The Harare central hospitals are closed. Closed. There is no specialist care available in the country. Surgery has stopped. Families were called to pick up their patients. One doctor puts it bluntly, "Everyone is being referred to private clinics, and if you don't have money, you die." 

The last two stories I heard repeatedly on my last trip to Zimbabwe a few weeks ago. I interviewed three anonymous Zimbabweans about their lives - a private school teacher, a government doctor, and a poor working woman. I could tell their stories, but you wouldn't believe me. Instead, listen to their stories on the new ServLife Africa Podcast here.

Get the podcast - the quality isn't the greatest, but you need to hear these three stories.

 

The latest on the cute boy (and his son)

More pictures of Vusi are here on facebook...

Merry Christmas To All

So I pretty much caved in already on that Southern Hemisphere Christmas thing. I'll just cheat a little and say this was to please the grandparents. ;) 

Merry Christmas!

A Very Southern Christmas

I'm used to celebrating warm Christmases. After all, for 29 consecutive years, I spent Christmas day in the American South - specifically in Florida, Georgia, or (I think maybe once or twice) in South Carolina. It was possible for Christmas to be cold in Georgia, but not that cold, and in Florida, a cold Christmas was rare at best. I never dreamt of a white Christmas, I never heard sleigh bells in the snow, I never roasted chestnuts on an open fire, and I certainly never understood why any old man would wear such a thick fur-lined velvet suit in a Florida mall. I remember that it dipped below freezing one year on Christmas and we ran the garden hose over the deck the night before to make icicles. That happened once. I remember several years when the neighborhood kids quit playing outside with our new toys because it was too hot and went swimming instead. I suppose that to some that wouldn't seem like Christmas, but it does to me - that was Christmas in the South.

But this will be our third "Very Southern Christmas." You Yanks just had the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year and the beginning of winter. The sun sets well past 8PM here now and it's time to hit the beach. Our roads are packed with the upcountry hordes swarming to the ocean for summer holidays. All my sweaters are packed away and I've only been wearing shorts and sandals for a while now. My Christmas dinner will be spent with friends outside around a braai - the South African grill/cookout. It's summer and it's Christmas.

Even though I've had many more hot Christmases than cold, a summer Christmas is altogether different. Even in Florida, summer and winter have a different rhythm. And there was at least the potential of a cold snap around Christmas. Evergreen trees and warm drinks and crackling fires and songs of snow weren't entirely out of place - we knew they made sense somewhere nearby, somewhere familiar, at that moment.

The "colonial" Christmas, if I can call it that, is out of rhythm, out of place, out of tune, and is making me feel out of sorts. Our Very Southern Christmas is imported from Somewhere North and still involves men in furry suits and scenes of snow and warm drinks and fat Christmas hams. It doesn't feel right.

So this Christmas, I've decided to embrace summer. I won't sing of decking any halls with holly, won't drink any warm drinks, won't wear an atrocious sweater with snowflakes on it, won't decorate an inside tree when the garden outside is full of flowers, and I won't sip eggnog and sing carols around a fire. And I won't be a Scrooge either - I'll just be enjoying my summer, and the kind of Christmas that is called for in the summer. Maybe I'll learn to surf.

Have a very Merry Christmas, whether warm or cold, whether Northern or Southern Hemisphere, regardless of your customs or traditions. I'm starting to get the hang of this new Very Southern Christmas...

Gugu's my new friend...

This is Gugulethu (Goo-goo-lay-too), or Gugu for short. At least that's what he is called at Musha Wevana children's home in Zimbabwe where he now lives. Gugu has got to be one of the cutest little two year olds I've met - he loves attention, climbing up into my lap and perching himself there for the duration of each of my visits to his home.

Gugulethu isn't the name given to him by his mother - no one knows that name anymore. Gugu was with his mother when she went to the local hospital late one night looking for treatment. When his mother snuck out in the early hours of the morning, she left Gugu behind - no doubt wracked by guilt and shame, but so near death and with no means to provide for her son that she felt there was no alternative. The Zimbabwean hospital had no food - "not a single bite," I was told by the doctor - to give to Gugulethu, so he was brought to the Musha Wevana home run by friends of ours at a local church. The home is already overcrowded - 20 children have been permanently added since September - but it is the only place in town where Gugu had a chance at survival. 

The desperation in Zimbabwe has reached a new level that I had not seen before - children are routinely left in hospitals, city parks, and even open fields by mothers and caregivers unable to supply even one more meal or one more drink of milk or clean water. Knowing their child might die abandoned must rank as a better option than facing the certainty of watching the child starve in the parents' care. The fortunate ones are found and brought to places like Musha Wevana. The others are buried in unmarked graves when their bodies are found. 

This is the reality of today's Zimbabwe. ServLife is partnering with the local church charged with the care of the 84 (and increasing) children at Musha Wevana, helping to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and the hope of an education in a loving, Christian environment. It only takes $30 a month to assist the church in their work - please become a sponsor today. There are still around 30 children from the original group in need of sponsors - only when they are supported can we begin to find sponsors for the children like Gugulethu... my newest friend.

Back from Zimbabwe

I returned home today from a quick trip up to Zimbabwe - so many sad stories to tell - but I am in desperate need of a shower and warm bed. 

For now, I can confirm that this is a lie.

Headed to Zimbabwe - Can It Get Worse?

I'll be in Zimbabwe by nightfall Monday for a very short trip. I'm visiting our Zimbabwean friends who are caring for 64+ orphaned and abandoned children to support them, encourage them, and to bring cash and supplies from the ServLife sponsorship program. (There are still at least 30 children waiting to be sponsored for only $30 a month - you are literally saving lives with this donation.)

Here are the headlines from the past week or so (click the links to read the full articles):

• Growing fears of Zim collapse
• "No water" in cholera-hit Harare
• Eerie silence at Zimbabwe mine  
• Zimbabwe troops on streets as cash limits ease  
• Zim collapses  
• Zim is a "basket case"   
• Zimbabwe "set for cholera jump"  

The buzz is that everything is changing "soon." Of course, that buzz has been heard before, and The Old Man has managed to hang on a bit longer. The cholera epidemic is spreading throughout the country and is spilling over into South Africa and Botswana. Hospitals are out of medicine. Schools are closing down. The daily limit on cash withdrawals has been bumped up from the amount needed to buy 1/4 loaf of bread to enough to get two or three loaves. The army rioted and calmed down again. And there is no political resolution despite elections held in March. 

Can it get worse? Of course it can. But it can also get better. Pray for better. And pray for the poor who are suffering and starving while the fat cats sip their champagne. Pray for the Church and their influence.

Why would anyone voluntarily travel to Zimbabwe at a time like this? There is no limit to the number of Americans who ask this question, but now that it is being asked by South Africans and Zimbabweans alike, I'm starting to wonder. But the answer remains clear when I think clearly - God Himself identifies with the poor and the suffering, and during this season of Advent we remember more vividly that He became poor and suffered Himself. I am going to Zimbabwe to meet God. And I will find Him there in the joy and laughter and perseverance of His Church and I will find Him there in the faces of the children discarded by the world but created in His image. 

God is good. All the time. Even in Zimbabwe.

Stop AIDS - Keep the Promise - Lead - Empower - Deliver (World AIDS Day 2008)

Today was World AIDS Day 2008. I'm not sure many people noticed. World AIDS Day happens every year on December 1, but I didn't hear much at all this year. I was happy that ServLife is responding and promoting action and advocacy... but enormously disappointed that World AIDS Day 2008 didn't show up on the top of Google News at all, and only briefly in my US news section, and then only related to politicians. Singer/trainwreck Britney Spears showed up on the top news section. So did football player Derek Anderson. And movie star Reese Witherspoon. But not World AIDS Day. 

I don't know about you, but I'm getting World * Day fatigue. It's always something's Day. So World AIDS Day passes mostly unnoticed. 

Also passing unnoticed today - the 6000 people who died from AIDS today. We also forgot about the 6500 African children made orphans by AIDS today. We didn't notice that 8500 healthy people contracted HIV today. And the 6000 who died yesterday, and the 6500 orphans from tomorrow, and the 8500 new infections last Wednesday - we forgot them too.

So let's stop for just a moment and listen - listen to the voices from around the world who are crying at the top of their lungs, "REMEMBER ME!" Every day is AIDS Day, but today may the world listen. And may we Lead - Empower - Deliver. May it be.