Below is a message from my friend Swami in Kenya. I asked if I could share
it, as I feel it gives it gives a glimpse into very real experience that is
different from what most of us go through, and it shows people making a
difference despite adverse conditions. It is not exactly a positive
message, though. The Medissage home page is at
http://www.visions.net/medisag1.htm
- Flemming
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 16:15:27 +0300
From: Swami Gyankirti <medisage@visions.net>
Organization: Medissage Centers
Subject: LOVE NEVER FAILS
Dearest Friend
May Peace Be With You
I have only yesterday returned from a rather sobering and disheartening
trip to various parts of Zaire, one of the highlights however was being
there when the soldiers of Laurent Kabila took Kinshasa sending Mobutu
(long term megalomaniac, tyrant, dictator, multibillionaire, and
sleazeball) into a shameful exile.
Surely such an end is a "punishment" designed by Divine Wisdom and much
more painful than a quick death by bullet.
I was basically on a trouble-shooting, needs-assessment and quality
control mission of our projects. Since the trouble started there and my
numerous visits to the region over the last few years, I had come to
believe that I was now used to seeing dead bodies and suffering; but I was
in no way prepared for the suffering my eyes beheld.
Imagine human bodies lying in the mud and their own excreta, covered
with flies, barely breathing, eyes staring blankly ahead, totally
emaciated by disease and starvation, waiting for death. Imagine others
lying near by approaching this same state, and only a few feet away are
bodies already dead simply waiting to be collected whereupon they will
be wrapped in plastic sheets and taken by wheelbarrow to be dumped in
nearby mass graves with no formality whatsoever.
How can life be reduced to such ignominy? Where is the integrity, the
quality, the purpose?
A few feet away our staff work from 6am to midnight dressing wounds,
examining a never ending flow of men, women, and children in varying
states of disease and starvation, dispensing medicines, and watching
others go to their death. A few feet away hordes of children wait for
our staff to give them a hastily prepared meal; many of these children
have lost their parents on the way; all these children are under 7 years
old, and together with the dying and the sick have travelled over 800
miles through the forest by foot to be where they are now.
Dear Heart, I could go on and on.
In other parts of the country our staff are reconstructing schools,
building markets, replanting forests, growing seedlings for
farmers, building refuse dumps and toilets etc., engaged in
rehabilitation projects in strife and war torn areas, as well as in
areas that have suffered immensely on account of prolonged refugee
presences.
We are doing much to assist in this tribulation, and may God be
pleased with our efforts. Yet there are times when it feels that even
though we are doing our best, our best is such an insignificant fraction
of what is required; one feels so helpless.
It is good to be back in Nairobi, and to rest a short while.
LOVE ALWAYS
Swami Gyankirti
LOVE<>SERVICE<>SURRENDER
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