Saturday, December 4, 2010

Africa 3

The people. The people that i met in Africa were wonderful. Kind, humble, caring. I have visited some other cultures where the predominant message that you get from the people was "give us more stuff." This was not my experience in Mozambique.

The people at our sister church and the other Methodists that i met, were interested in friendship, caring, prayer, relationship, and mutuality. They gladly shared everything they had with you.

There was no sense of entitlement that I saw, anywhere in the country. Teens and youths seemed to work willingly and acted like constructive members of the community. When I asked about this, "why do the young people work so hard?" The answer I received was, "they know if they don't, they will die."

A culture that is survival based and subsistence oriented, seems to keep people focused on the really basic things of life. Staying alive and caring for others.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It has to be difficult to come back home to our society and feel deserving of what we have . . . last night I was outside in our neighborhood and looked up to the sky and imagined that we are ALL under the same sky . . . together . . . but so far apart in our worlds . . . not sure God intended for us in the US to have so much and others (under that same sky) to have so little. Something is missing in that equation.