Big Difference

Father God has been speaking to me yesterday and today about the fraility of life...and then I read this blog entry from a dear friend Hannah who is serving in Zambia, working in schools and I HAD to put it up!! This is a word for all of us, to appreciate the life we have, strive for greater and bigger things and seek to bring change to those around us.

For those of you on Pais, use this to trigger conversations with the young people you work with

For those who are young people, compare your lives to the zambia students 

For all of us, think about whether the life we are living is really making a difference...

-------

I’m constantly struck by the differences between Schools Work in the UK and Schools Work in Zambia. The basic methods are the same: assemblies, clubs and discipleship groups, but the atmosphere is entirely different; not just continents apart but worlds apart!

I’m certainly missing the efficiency of the schools in the UK but I’m finding that the actual work, in some ways, is much easier here. This is most noticeable in the discipleship groups. While sometimes in the UK it seemed like a struggle to get people to join, in Zambia the students (aged from12-16) take the responsibility of running the groups much more seriously. They form committees; they meet after school in their own time; they have small praise teams and they expect you to come and speak to them for up to an hour. And they’re more enthusiastic than most churches I’ve seen in the UK! So why is this? Is it because UK teenagers are ashamed? Or do they just not care?

I think the difference is that in Zambia the frailty of life is a reality and therefore Jesus, and the hope that he brings, becomes much more of a reality too. In the UK teenagers can rightly assume that they will have bright futures, where nearly anything is possible, and then die when they are old and their lives are complete. Jesus is for later. Here though, futures aren’t always promised to be bright. Life will be hard, and often short.

I was thinking today, as I drove to work, how many funerals I have attended in my 27 years. The total was four, maybe five. There were my two grandparents, both over 80; a couple of old people from church; a friend’s father. Five. And I have never been to a funeral of anybody under 70 years old. Maybe I’m just lucky but I suspect that is the case for many people my age. Here though, death is everywhere. I drive past two graveyards on the way to work: every other day, sometimes every day, I pass a funeral party or a freshly dug grave. The notice boards at school have weekly obituaries. Parents regularly have to bury their own children.

So maybe that’s the difference. Maybe in the west life is just an assumption and not a gift. Maybe we could learn to treasure each moment and make the most of each opportunity that we are fortunate enough to have.

And let’s not stop praying that someday the futures of young Zambians could look as bright as God intended them to be.