Today was a very full day. The kids didn't have school today because it is Sports Day tomorrow and they spent the day decorating and preparing for their parents to come to campus. They sent the volunteers off on an adventure today - to go to a few different places for shopping, some sites, and the beach. It was great, but more about that tomorrow.
Now for the task at hand. I couldn't stop thinking about the kids in Africa today. I'm not sure why, but I had so many thoughts running through my head. I ache for them - I yearn for them - I cry for them. It was such a contrast spending my time with Mothers Without Borders than it is here. I know that they are 2 very different places and children in need deserve all the love and attention that they can get, but those kids in Africa seem to have much harder lives. Maybe it was because I was down in the trenches more, seeing dying children, realizing that many of them have an incurable disease and that their lives of poverty are some of the lowest that I have ever witnessed. I remember the babies in the NICU at the Lusaka Hospital who needed incubators and there was only one, so the rest were left to die. I remember seeing starving children in villages who had no one left alive to love them. I remember their faces. I remember their names, and somehow, things have become very vivid to me today.
I know that the kids here come from rough backgrounds and I can't even begin to compare, but they have a palace here compared to what I saw in Africa. I know that they have built this from the ground up and I still find this an incredible, wonderful, worthwhile institution and that some of the most amazing people I have met have poured their lives into this place to make it that way. Their efforts are incredible. They are seen and have changed the lives of thousands of people here in India. The juxtaposition of this amazing campus and Zambia just hit me in the side of the head today. I remember harvesting dirt to make bricks for a schoolhouse in Lusaka, digging and sifting for hours on end in the hot sun. Maybe that's just it. I have seen what could be here at Rising Star and I ache for this greatness in other places. I ache for it for the children of Africa, the for sweet kids I met in Belize, the all the other children of the world who are hurting and suffering. But how?
Sorry for all of the rambling and disconnected thoughts, but I guess that I am just trying to process what I've seen in my life. I know that I am young and have many years ahead, but I have seen many things that many people in their lifetimes never experience. I trust that there is a reason for that, but at times I feel overwhelmed by the thought of how I should process all of this. I know that I have great responsibility now that I know these things first hand, but how do I take it home and make it meaningful? How can I help? How can I change the way that I live to be a witness of the things that I have seen.
I know that there is no easy answer for this, but I can't help but say that I feel overwhelmed by it all. There are so many ways to do good in this world. SO many. There are so many ways to do good right at home in our comfortable surroundings and luxuries. What are you doing? What will you do in the future? How can we change permanently to make the world a better place?
With knowledge comes great and sometimes heavy responsibility.
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