Things wanted and needed…
The other night I caught the tail end of an interview with non other than “the material girl” herself- Madonna. It seems that age and motherhood has changed the once self-proclaimed superficial pop star. She is doing interviews to promote her new documentary “I Am Because We Are” a film which looks at the plight of children orphaned by Aids in one of the world’s poorest countries, Malawi Africa. What caught my attention was something she said about her reasons for going, and what she ended up realizing about her initial motivation. She said that she set out to go help them. To use her money and fame to save them. She was going to use her money to build orphanages, use her fame to bring attention to their plight. She believed she had something they wanted and needed. All of her thoughts were good and compassionate, but she learned upon being there that in fact these people had something she wanted and needed. These people new how to have simple joy in the moment. This is a country that has over 1 million orphans. A country where 8 and 9 year old children are responsible for caring for infants because their parents have died of aids. Yet, you can see in the film entire communities coming together to dance, and laugh, and sing. Madonna said she didn’t know how they did it. She thought perhaps in came from the fact that as a people they viewed time as limited, that because the “bad” was so big, that they appreciated even the smallest joys so much more. It is something which in America is hard to understand. We look at countries like Malawi and we pity them, but pity does them no good. We need to realize that we may have things to offer to them, but they too have things to offer to us as well.
It is so true that we have much to learn and to give.
When I was in Africa, I saw a love that I had not truly seen before within the Christian community in the States. What I saw within the Christian community in Uganda was people united with the bond of a family who took care of strangers, and the many orphans in their midst like they were also family. They amazed me with their generosity, sacrifice and depth of love that they had for people. When I came back to the States, I was telling a native African this and he told me that in Africa they have to depend on each other for physical survial so this lends to a strong bond among people, but in America we are much more individualistic as a culture which does not lend to a strong bond among people.
I learned much from that community in Uganda, and as I was part of a team serving there, we also gave in our service to them.
In other words, I completely agree that we learn as well as give.