If your newsfeed is anything like mine, it’s filled with people posting about refugees. Should they or shouldn’t they be allowed across borders, who is and who isn’t a terrorist, and who is or isn’t a terrible Christian.
I have many thoughts, and if you know me, you can probably guess some of them. But this is not about Syrian refugees.
While scrolling through the posts and impassioned thinkpieces of yay and nay, the photos of precious children lying on the ground, the bible verses being flung back and forth like grenades in some unholy war, I received an email from my partner relations coordinator at HopeChest. He had new pictures from our CarePoint in northern Uganda.
I eagerly opened it up and saw chickens and my heart remembered how to hope.
Just a few short years ago, the people living in the village were driven off their land and into government camps for their protection. They didn’t cross any borders and no one washed ashore in the sea. But they left their land and became dependent on handouts. Most of the grownups were wiped out. They had no options or hope.
And now they have chickens and fresh water and they’re moving back onto their land and developing job skills and learning to live freely once again. We got to be a tiny part of that. We got to step up and be helpers.
I don’t know about you, but I feel helpless. Governments and leaders are involved in big things, and I’m reading my newsfeed with a heavy heart and hands that want to do something. These pictures came into my inbox at a time when I needed to remember that we can do small things that turn into big things. Small acts, one by one by one, that lead to chickens.
And the raised water tank stand and building for the water purification system, which is being delivered soon.
Through the window of the new building, you can just make out the beautiful new playground where 300 kids come to play.
And there’s Joseph, our brilliant leader, in the blue shirt, instructing everyone what to do. He leads us so well.
I needed to see them today. I needed these chickens and structures to remind me that all is not lost. That God makes all things new. That good people, Christians and non Christians alike, can partner together to make beauty. That God does not forget the people he made in his image and loves as sons and daughters.
And if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your newsfeed, I thought maybe you needed to see these chickens too.
