Ukaine Challenge

I was gone for 18 days (10 of which were spent in Angola- one of Africa's poorest countries and 5 in South Africa- one of Africa's richest countries), took 11 plane rides, slept in 6 beds, and met many new friends.

Before going to Angola I knew that they had been at war for almost 30 years. However, I had no idea what that would look like in a country and among its people. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience.

The city of Luanda was built for 400,000 people, but because of the war people have moved from the bush to the city to get away from the fighting and to find jobs. Now, over 5 million people inhabit the city. There is no trash collection, the roads a destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people live in make-shift houses on the hill sides. I was naive enough the actually think that we live in the 21st century and surely people still do not live in homes with dirt floors and no access to clean water. Yet, we met people faced with this reality everyday, who cried as they told us their stories of struggling to survive.

This is what war does to people.....drives them from their rural homes with just what they can carry in the hopes of being able to make a new life for themselves in the city only to realize that the city is overcrowded, unemployment is extremely high and they have to build their new home out of metal sheets and mud bricks with no where to put their trash except the streets where their children play.

However, despite all of this...the Church is strong!!! We attended several evening services and the church buildings were packed with people singing and shouting their praises to God. Many nights there was standing room only with people looking in from the doors and windows. And boy, could the Angolans sing! It just about took my breath away!

Thank you for all of the prayers and support as I took the risk to go to Angola to listen and learn about their history, culture, and life. Now the challenge for me lies in speaking up for the rights of the poor and unfortunate as written in Proverbs 31:8-9.