OUR GOD’S HAND FOR AFRICA…

[JEROME]

I was watching the news in CNN and I saw these events happening in real life, the life of the women, children and elderly in war-torn Sudan, Mozambique and Angola. Some of the news is reporting on the effective involvement of traditional healers and customs in coping with the trauma of child soldiers and other children subjected to violence.

I was very sad for them and all the people around the world in the same situations. At that moment, I started to feel rage against all the people wasting their lives irresponsibly just for power and money.

I saw them coming through the shimmering dried fields, a trio showing starkly figures against the morning blue of the war-torn sky. Two young tribal warriors, one on either side, supported an aging tribal elder.

The old man’s face was a mask, like sun-dried leather permanently creased with the stoicism of long endured pain. His ears were misshapen and elongated from decades of wearing decorations of women beads in two-inch holes. That day, a discarded film canister filled with tobacco hung from one earlobe.

And I saw more men, women, and children draped in red cloth – some striped, some plaid, all smelling of wood smoke (according to the CNN correspondent) and faded from exposure to dust and sun. Red, yellow, white, and blue-beaded ornaments worn around their throats and arms complemented their traditional clothing. Their pace was light yet definitely firm disguise of weariness for how much men did in narrowing their sole treasure world.

And I saw the dry rot eating away the beams of their homes, and amphibians corroding their nation’s whole structure. Whims of war destroyed their foundation and all that is familiar to them. For since Adam and Eve ate the fruit, man has not refrained from any folly of which he is capable… it is no longer hypothetical but is with us today. A dilemma for children demanding a solution.

I think that civilization somehow will last as long as I care to look ahead. I think it is not improbable that man – like the grub that prepares a chamber for the winged thing it has never seen but is to be – may have cosmic destinies that he does not understand.

And so beyond the vision of battling races and an impoverished earth, we just hope and pray that we can catch a dreaming glimpse of peace.

The night has thousand eyes and the day but one, yet the vision dies with the setting sun – a new beginning in GOD’s hand is all we really need this time.

I pray for PEACE to linger and guide all of AFRICA... my heart is with you! OUR GOD will see you through every step of the way to FREEDOM & RICHNESS!