A while back I listened to a child’s heart stop beating. I’ve listened to kids who were already dead to make sure in fact that there was no heart beat. I’ve never, however, listened to the process of the heart stopping. But I did yesterday. It made me all hot and uncomfortable. Brett had to run home and get his computer and I ran out to the car because I didn’t want to be left there. I didn’t know the family. They had just been brought in from the government center with a typhoid perforation. He had had typhoid which often can cause a hole in the intestines, which is what had happened. Dan, Brett, Jess and Jake were there until 10 pm the night he came in for his surgery. However, the child had other problems in his lungs as well when he arrived. Brett had spent the morning bagging him thinking that he would die but he waited until the afternoon when I “got” to listen. It’s just weird being with someone as they die, especially when you don’t know them at all.
Later that night we sat down and started watching tv. There was a show on about these Great White sharks that love to attack seals by jumping out of the water in this one certain area of the shore of South Africa. As I watched it, I kept thinking, these people have way too much money. As interesting as this is shouldn't we be using our money to save human lives instead of figuring out why sharks like the jump in the air to attack here? Now, I fully recognize that I was watching the show which means a couple of things- one, it was in fact interesting. Two, I was watching it on our satellite tv. So I completely and fully admit that there is an extreme difference between us and the people we live around.
I've never been one to feel guilty for being an American or being born into a wealthy country. I believe in Acts 17 where God determined the times set for us and the exact places where we should live. He did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out and find Him. So I am in no way advocating asceticism but I think it is a shame that we (and by we I mean first world countries that have wealth) spend more time and money on studying sharks or random other things rather than on PEOPLE who are dying. I think there is enough money in the world to live comfortably while doing research on the animals of the world AND building up a continent that is so far behind the others. We still have 1 out of 4 (or 5) kids not living until they are 5 years old! The mother of the child who died didn’t even cry. She just took it. That shouldn’t be acceptable!
We need more money in research for getting a malaria vaccine. Money for educating women. How do you expect a woman who has never even gone to school and has every decision made for her to raise a child into adulthood? No wonder kids die when the mother is not educated enough to know when a child is sick or not. Or has never really learned the importance of watching her kids well enough that they don’t run out in the middle of the street or get to close to a fire. A child can’t raise a child. Women need education. In order for women to be educated, there must be a change in society. They can’t just live day to day but they need to have enough resources that they can provide for themselves without having to pound their grain everyday and spend hours cooking over a fire. That’s why girls can’t go to school. They are needed at home to work.
So though I recognize this as a HUGE problem and don’t really have answers to the problems, I just felt the need to say it. I was overwhelmed this past time in the States by the abundance of wealth. We've got way too much when I sit around a table and listen to people talk about giving their dogs anxiety medicines or having this or that surgery or whatever and people are dying over here because they can’t get that kind of treatment. Again, not saying we should live without, for heaven’s sake we just brought a dog back, but I just think there needs to be a shift in our thinking to realize that there is a world outside of the US, with people who are hurting and dying from lack of simple health care.
