Since I've Landed...by Iva Robinett

I am mentally and spiritually many more miles (kilometers) ahead of a “tourist.”  The Tree of Lives graciously provides the opportunity to link lives that are geographically and culturally diverse.  It is a vision trip about being and learning.  It is not a trip about, “fixing,” what could be considered an uncomfortable existence by most American standards.

There are many more lives here touched by the stigma and ravages of HIV/AIDS (more recently cancer) and material poverty.  The statistics are staggering—over 15 x’s that of North and South America.  I had to ask myself, “What is the glue that holds this vibrant culture together?  What gives an African a, seemingly, greater capacity to deal with this plague of death and dying of their young, yet have the capacity to be joyful, gentle and patiently accepting?”

When Lillian, the pastoral counselor, was asked this question, she answered, “the sense of community and faith.”  The young mother Ann she counseled this morning, who tragically lost both her newborn twins over the last four days, was immediately grieving over the community’s loss, not her loss.  The death of the young man Lawrence was the Nazareth and Holy Family Center’s loss. 

Death is the one indisputable fact of life that binds all of humanity.  Africans embrace the belief not only in community to ease this burden but in their faith in the resurrection and the assurance of God’s love.  A bible verse hanging in Lillian’s office is Matthew 5:3-11, with Be Happy Always, next to it.  It may not be a Westerner’s interpretation.  Another verse was, “ God gives people what they need—poverty that I might be wise.” 

Africans embrace the agony and ecstasy of life.  Or, as Pastor Jim is helping us Americans to see,  despite the agony, they are really LIVING life. 

The Africans are praying for you.

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