Ice Cream Falling From the Sky, and other things...

One thing I really enjoy when I'm travelling is when I get the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of others. When, for example, I go to Africa with someone who has never been there before I love watching them experience those things for the first time. Or when friends and family from America come to visit me in Scotland, it is always fun to watch their reactions to things in the culture that I have grown accustomed to.

Well, this week I've been seeing snow through the eyes of an East African and it's been fascinating. Erick Oguta, from Tanzania, has been visiting here in Montana where I'm preaching this week, and we are doing some meetings together. It's been snowing quite a bit the past few days, and Erick had never seen snow before.

As we were driving in it two nights ago, he said, "If this were to happen back home people would think the world was ending." Yesterday morning, I had to coax him out of the house. He didn't want to go out because he said, "It's scary outside!" I did finally get him out though and he had a good day, though he's really glad the snow seems to be slowing down now.

We discussed how he might explain what he saw back in Africa. The closest thing anyone thought of was the concept of ice-cream falling from the sky, but I think that probably still falls a bit short of an accurate description.






It's amazing really to think about how many things each of us take for granted as part of life wherever we live but which are completely foreign concepts to people in other parts of the world. Just as Erick will struggle to explain snow, today we spoke to a Kiwani's group and tried to explain the concept of poverty to them.















We did the best we could to explain the situation in Africa, but I have a feeling that our best attempts were not much more precise than the idea of ice cream falling from the sky. People who have never seen it can never truly grasp the concept. Most Americans and Western Europeans would also think the world was coming to an end if they saw muddy streets with a stream running through them that doubled both as a toilet and drinking water; if they saw broken down huts filled with starving families, and fresh graves being constantly dug for AIDs victims in a land where the average lifespan is 35 years.

All the same, we are glad to be able to share something of the work in Africa and our attempts to help the poor, hurting and dying there. And we are grateful that people are able to get just enough of a glimpse that their hearts break for the people and they reach out to them. Without the help of people who care we wouldn't be able to go there and keep on making a difference.

This Friday we'll be speaking to a big group of Americans to share the vision for the work we do in Africa and to give them a chance to support us through their prayers and, if they feel so inclined, their gifts or even their personal presence in Africa to help educate, treat or help the people in various ways.

Though it will simply be fun for Erick to try to explain snow to Africans, this week our goal is to explain Africans to America. The great difference is that this is about much more than ice cream falling from the sky; this is about life and death. And it is my hope and prayer that, as ineffective as mere words may be, we can give them enough of a glimpse that they will want to help us to reach out to them.