Wednesday, April 4, 2012

"Tiny, invisible moral forces..."

Upon reflecting upon my recent seven weeks in South Sudan, I find myself resonating with my favorite quote from William James...

"I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water. Yet, if you give them time, they will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride."
Each time I return from South Sudan, I am reminded how we Americans tend to be inclined toward the "bottom line" and obsessed with results and "outcomes". We often envy the accomplishments of others. For me, I find "acomplishments" are summed up in the words of a village chief who says, "Many of us are alive today because of your clinic." My "bottom line" has become the look of a child who finds he is well enough to get out of his sickbed and go home. These things have become enough for me. They speak to a sense of relationship and trust between people of different cultures. God has used them to render the hard monument of my own pride.
The area we serve in East Africa is remote and hard to find... even on a good map or a GPS.  The climate is harsh, and the World Health Organization has described it as an area that has "a confluence of the worst diseases on the planet." However, I find myself compelled to "creep though the crannies of the world" to Eastern Equatoria. I cannot go empty handed. I need to bring medicine, and Michael Levi, the elder of Borongole, said "Next time you come, bring reading glasses."

Would you be part of those "invisible moral forces that work from individual to individual" by joining this blog and making a contribution of any amount so that I can creep back there soon? If so, just click on the Make a Donation button on the right side of the page, or send  a check to "Nehemiah Medical Missions", 57 McKinley Terrace, Pittsfield, MA  01201.
a boy with measles...measles kill in South Sudan.   
Discharge Day!




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