Praying for Mundri

We live in East Africa. 

There’s poverty… and suffering…and injustice…and hopelessness all around us. every day. It's at the door, it's under the tree, it's along the path... it's in the air. There is no escaping the reality of hardship when you live smack in the middle of it.  Just this week we heard the tragic news that one of our friends in Bundibugyo lost another one of their children to Sickle Cell Disease.  We have seen so many children (“the walking dead” is what they are often referred to) succumb to this terrible illness. And yet, when you know the face, when you've heard the voice, when you've sat with them and walked with them, laughed with them and prayed with them, another life lost is never any easier.   

And then we received more devastating news this week that Mundri, South Sudan (the village where Serge missionaries have been investing for the last 5 yrs) was bombed and burned in recent days. Our Serge team has been displaced from this area for many months now due to rising tensions, but the chaos has escalated and all the villagers have run into the bush, fleeing for their lives, without shelter, food, or water. We lived with a friend this summer who spent the last 5 yrs in Mundri and who shared with my kids about his life and friends there. They were intrigued and we prayed for this place, for these people, for a town that sounded so much like the one where we live in Uganda. And they have often asked about South Sudan in the weeks since then.

“How do I explain this to my children?” I thought when we heard the news. The easy solution would be to not tell them. We are in America after all, and the tragedy will more than likely never make it to our TV screen (which we hardly watch anyway) or across the radio waves. It’s much easier to shelter them from injustice and tragedy when we are here than when we are there… but is that what God has called us to? Has he called me to shelter my children in the name of "preserving their innocence", when there is much benefit they can receive from engaging with people who are suffering? I know it's a personal calling, but I am called to the latter and to trust that God will meet us, our family, in the hard places. And I know that we need to continue to pray. I want my children to know what intercessory prayer looks like, and the power of the Gospel to bring beauty out of ashes. How can they learn to see the beauty in the Resurrection if I shelter them from the cruelty of the Cross?

And so, after reading in the Jesus Storybook Bible the story of Jesus pleading with His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane for the cup to pass before Him, I (delicately) told them that some bad things had happened in Mundri. I explained that just like it wasn’t fair when Jesus was arrested even though He was innocent, there were innocent people who also had bad things happen to them and were now without their homes, their families, their cattle, and their food. Their eyes got big, and they asked lots of questions (which I again delicately tried to answer because I don’t think they need all the details), and then we agreed to pray for them together.

This was the prayer of my 5yr old.

When we finished, tears were streaming down her face (and mine) and I knew- she got it. This world isn’t fair, but God stepped into this world to take away the sting of suffering and death and all that is unfair. He IS our answer to a hurting world, and it is only through Him that we can face injustice and not be overcome with despair. 

Will you join us in praying for Mundri, South Sudan this week?

Life is fragile. 

Each day is a gift, each person a soul, and 

each encounter with suffering is an opportunity to share Hope.