Africa’s plight needs America’s attention

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303

By JOHN HATCHER
Contributing Writer

My wife and I just returned from a ministry/mission trip to Uganda which is located in East Africa. For more than five years, I have been trying to convey to Mary Ann what it was like over there. However, there’s nothing like being there. So, let me share with you some sights and thoughts of our trip to Uganda.

Kampala, capital of Uganda, bustles with activity from early in the morning until late at night. Everyone seems to be trying to make a shilling (a buck in our currency). The streets are filled with bicycles for hire, boda-boda (motor scooters for hire), packed passenger vans called taxis, and private automobiles. All these, along with pedestrians, are competing for the right to move toward their destination. Roundabouts (part of the British heritage) are one sight to see as everyone tries to make their way in and out.

Yet, amid all the hustle and bustle of busy Kampala, it’s not hard to see eight- and nine-year-old children sleeping on the sidewalks in the middle of the day. People were walking around them almost noticing them. The taxi driver said the children often are those of parents who come in from the countryside to work in the city. No playground. No daycare. Just a city sidewalk to sleep on.

We went into the “bush” to conduct a marriage conference. And yes, East Africans basically have the same problems in marriage as North Americans. Men want more sex and are not getting it. Women want more affection and are not getting it. They hide their money from one another. Men think parenting is a woman’s thing and women are upset because men don’t provide more economic security. During the seminar on marriage, based on Biblical precepts, you could see the lights coming on. We actually saw before our very eyes marriages transformed and healed. That’s what listening and learning can do for a marriage.

The marriage seminar was conducted in a rural church where there was no electricity and no running water. The floor was packed dirt. The pews were rugged benches. The nursery was located at the front right of the auditorium. Mothers spread out their mats and sat down with their babies and you had an instant nursery. The participants, with paper and pen, were ready to take down any kind of knowledge that would enable them to live a better life. Makes you think about what we require to do church. Not just clean running-water restroom, but we also have to have changing tables or we are not up to date in River City.

Before we left for Uganda, Fayetteville dentist Dr. Tom Williams gave us more than 100 toothbrushes to pass out to whomever. We thought this little village would be a great place to bless. When we started giving out toothbrushes, kids started coming out of the bushes from everywhere. We could have given out 1,000 toothbrushes. Just the day before Mary Ann and I gave out balloons we had inflated with our own air. There again, you would have thought we were giving out gold. Just little things mean so much to people who have so little.

But the big need in Uganda, as in many other places in Africa, is food. I saw children with big bellies not because they had eaten too much, but because they had not eaten enough. Many Ugandans feel if they can get one meal a day, they have done well. That one good meal could consist of rice and pinto beans. The problem is that many Ugandans don’t get even one good meal a day. You don’t see children who look like they need exercise but children who need nutrition.

So, I ask, what’s wrong with this world? We can spend billions of dollars in Iraq. We can build schools and hospitals and clinics there. But does a country have to pose a national security threat to the United States before we help them in significant ways? Why can’t the United States adopt three or four countries a year and pour in farming equipment, economic infrastructure, school construction projects? Uganda alone could feed the whole of Africa with the right kind of mechanized farming and a good distribution system.

What’s wrong with our prosperous American families? I talked to one African pastor who has a goal to challenge every American family to adopt an African child and provide the necessary financial support. He also wants to challenge churches in the U.S. to partner with a church in Africa to help strengthen that church so it can take care of the host of AIDS cases at their front doors.

I am thrilled to see prominent American evangelical figures become burdened about the African situation. Bruce Wilkinson, who began “Walk through the Bible” and authored The Prayer of Jabez, has moved to South Africa to give his last days to the cause of Africa. Rick Warren, California pastor and author of the best-selling Purpose Driven Life, is convening a conference in November to seek to mobilize American resources for the deeply needy around the globe.

What can you do? The power of one has been shown to be capable to accomplish a lot. Remember it was a team of ping-pong players that opened the door in the last part of the 20th Century to China. What can your church do? Some American churches are sending teams of 10 or 12 to build homes where eight African orphans can live with clean, running water, inside toilet and a school within walking distance.

What could your business do to help Africa? Ask the question and God will give you an answer.

Just remember, little is much when God is in it.