Uganda Blues

I've been helping out at the church holiday club this week, and we've been looking at who the world was made, is now broken and will one day be fixed again when Jesus returns.

I believe that God created the world, something that I don't think I'll ever grasp. God created everything from nothing. He created all the beautiful views I saw in Uganda, he created the animals of the Savannah and the ones (mainly birds) that live in my back garden. He created the Universe, from the stars I can see at night to the galaxies hundreds of light years away. And created it as a backdrop for his greatest creation. Human beings. Me and you.

And when God created it, the world was 'very good,' but the world isn't anymore. We suffer from natural disasters like floods and famines, and as human beings instead of caring for the world God created, we're destroying it. Global warming, deforestation, poverty. All words we're familiar with, all words which we are the cause of.

Despite seeing amazing sights in Uganda, I also saw such brokenness. Kaara was a lovely place, and crime was low but the reason behind this fact, the people of Kaara would stone a criminal to death if their crime was severe enough. And likewise, when I look beneath the initial loveliness of a memory, I also can see brokenness. I have many happy memories of walking up the steep slopes of the valley with the children, but it was a daily walk for them to collect water. I have memories of Francis, who lost his Father to Aids. Liz spoke of the greed of some men, in their desire to gain more money selling too many of their crops so their families wouldn't have enough to eat. I remember seeing beggars on the street, children going without an education and hearing about arranged marriages and polygamy. All things I oppose, and yet are powerless to prevent. Despite living in a beautiful world, we live in a broken one. Whether you believe in God or not, you can not deny that something is wrong with this world.

And despite seeing such pain, I have a hope. Not a wishywashy hope that one day something will change, but a knowledge. I believe that Jesus will one day return, and when he does he will create a new heaven and a new earth in which the world's brokenness will be fixed. And this knowledge keeps me going, that one day Jesus will wipe every tear from our eyes, one day death will be no more, one day poverty will be a word of the past because one day, Jesus the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will return.