the kind of blog I hate writing

I live in a "Rainbow Nation".

A first- and third- world county full of abundance and poverty.

As if that weren't enough contradictions in "normal", daily life... things are REALLY out-of-whack now.

This country needs prayer. I need you to know what's going on here. And I need you to feel it with us.

A few weeks ago the civil service workers union went on strike for higher wages and an increased housing allowance. I've been burdened, overwhelmed and devastated as I've watched the trickle-down effect of those who haven't chosen to strike, but are being affected in unbelievable ways.

Teachers, nurses, hospital staff, home affairs and petrol workers are on strike.

At first we could maintain our daily life stuff without having to look too close at the reality... But now the stories, sights and sadness are pouring into every corner of this country. The reality is unavoidable and we need you to actively join in this and pray with us.

Thre's a million news articles. But here's a glimpse at the strike from the ways I see it in daily life:

The children...

A highlight of my week is attending the three after-school feeding programs. Everything feels different since the strike started, though. Dwaleni's feeding scheme had to be cancelled due to lack of volunteers and children. Numbers are down in Kabokweni. And the kids in Mbonisweni are showing up so, so dirty and so, so hungry. For many children, school was their only meal of the day. Now they are without guaranteed food, structure, attention, stimulation, and protection from the dangers of walking around the streets of South Africa. I hate to think of the dangers lurking as these children walk around unsupervised, uncared for in a place where it's public knowledge to all the "bad guys" that every single public school child is unaccounted for right now.

Photo by Rae

Pray for the children of South Africa who cling a little tighter and look a little hungrier every week. Pray for justice and for a blanket of protection and provision over these children as they anxiously await to return to a safe place for the attention, affection, education and basic needs they were created with the rights to.

The hospital...

Although many of the government hospitals in South Africa have closed, the needs for healthcare haven't slowed down at all. Last week, we went to volunteer at a large hospital in the nearby city of Nelspruit. We passed mobs of strikers walking the streets on the way, but even that shock couldn't have prepared us for the desolate emptiness and maddening business we were walking into. The hospital staff is normall aournd 1000 people with a huge capacity for patients. Now, including the army medics brought in, there were about 100. Even nurses who wanted to stay were violently forced out by strikers.

Staff parking lot

Waiting room

We were sent to the maternity ward - where there were 13 newborn babies, which doesn't include at least 2 HIV+ babies who'd been brought in for treatment and abandoned. The weary staff were so overwhelmed they didn't even know how to tell us to start. We spent most of the morning cleaning, organzing and trying to speak life and encouragement into staff and patients.

Ugh. Ok. Here we go.

Confession: So far, these pictures and these stories have been the "easy" part. I've been putting off writing this blog for weeks and have tried to shut myself off to the reality of what's happening in the country I live in. This isn't a 20/20 special or a movie that you have to pause or crack an uncomfortable joke when it gets too hard to watch. These are my neighbors, my community, and people that I love dearly. This isn't America with built-in fallbacks or resources to get things taken care of when disaster strikes. What you see is what you get here and what you see just isn't enough.  

What's happening here is unfathomable, unacceptable and just plain ugly. Patients are missing meals because no one's around to feed them. They are lying in their own filth because no one's there to wash or change them. Sick and contagious patients are being released because there's no place for them to stay or person to care for them. Babies are dying... DYING... because no one will stay with them. I've heard numbers ranging from 10 - 50 infant deaths directly related to the strike.

Just before I left the hospital, Rich burst through the maternity ward doors holding a young mother in one arm and her newborn in the other. He found her staggering down the hall, and she just wanted him to hold her baby.

I told him I'd take care of her and felt my stomach tie itself in knots as I held her baby and, through another family's translation, I got her story.

Anabel is a 17 year-old single mom. She was released from the hospital that day with no idea how she was going to get home - and I'm not sure she even knew where home was. She looked absolutey exhasuted, shell-shocked and miserable. She had been given pain pills that morning but no food so she was nauseous and dizzy and scared. I gave her my lunch and another family offered to help call someone to pick her up.

This is NOT how it should be. This is not how it should be. This is not how hospitals should be.

She wanted nothing to do with her baby. She wasn't breastfeeding and it didn't seem realistic that she'd be able to buy formula. He didn't even have a name yet.

A perfect little baby boy entered the world, but because there was not the community, care and support we were created for, he's missing out on attachment, nourishment and even being named.

Pray for all of those things churning inside you right now. Pray for the sick, the broken and the abandoned. Pray for justice in South Africa. Pray for the health of this nation - the government, the union workers and the sick and vulnerable. Pray that not one more life gets lost and that violence and pain does not cross the threshhold of one more hospital or clinic. Pray for this little boy by the name that God calls Him by, his mama and all the other babies and their mamas that have been touched - and bruised - by this strike.

It's not getting better yet - and we're praying it doesn't get worse. Our God is the God of justice, compassion and mercy. He wants justice for the underpaid, struggling civil servants and compassion and mercy for the children, the sick and all other groups being affected by the strikers. He's BIG enough to understand how to love us all perfectly even when we think we're fighting for exact opposites of one another. Let's lean into that BIG and trust together... because I don't know what else to do.

Thank you for praying. Thank you for every emotion you might be feeling right now - anger, desperation, sorrow, or even wanting to pull out your super-hero cape and come save the day. Thank you for feeling for these people and for being moved by the things that moves the heart of Jesus. Pray with us. We need you here.