One Egg

The board members and volunteers of Remember the Poor convened in Munds Park, Arizona this past weekend. John Mugabi, the leader of the ministry in Uganda, is here in the U.S. and shared with us throughout the meeting.

One thing in particular I will not forget.

He shared the story of a young teenage boy who had come to the school/orphanage looking for help–food, education, etc.

In helping this boy, they gave him an egg–one egg–and he said it was the first egg he had eaten in 5 years.

Can you imagine?

“What, therefore, is our task today? Should I answer “Faith, hope and love?” That sounds beautiful. But I would say – courage. No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature… we lack a holy rage… The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth… a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth and and the destruction of God’s people. To rage when little children must die of hunger, while the tables of the rich are sagging with food. …To rage against COMPLACENCY. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the kingdom of God.”

Father Kaj Munk~a martyr of the Danish resistance for his denunciation of the Nazis

This is why we do what we do–to conform our lives, this place called earth, to the norms of the kingdom of God. This is exactly how Jesus taught us to pray (and to live). “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is why we are raising money for chicken coops and chickens and goats and cows and more farmland…to feed the least of these, to bring the love of Jesus to those who do not know Him. To END the tragic deaths of 26,000 children a day–unnecessary deaths resulting from insufficient food, unclean water sources, malaria, etc. Stupid deaths. Would we really put up with this if it were our own children dying? Who of us would not sell our stuff and change our lifestyle? Where is our holy rage?!

1200 children attend or live at the Nkumba school/orphanage. About 600 are orphaned. Many more are abjectly poor and lacking food.

We want to help the orphanage support itself.

The orphanage can become self-sustaining by growing their own food, by raising their own animals, by having the proper vehicles to transport children, by having enough classrooms and dormitories…

The leadership on the ground in Uganda simply needs the resources to get the correct infrastructure in place–resources which have been heaped upon this nation–resources not meant for our own pursuits and pleasures, but meant to be used to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22

Let’s ask God to give us holy rage and the action that accompanies it. Check out the catalog page and waiting children page to see how you can help.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit (and holy rage!) to those who ask him!” Luke 11:11-13