Life is Raw

Most days life in Kinshasa is challenging, at best. The hyper-urban setting creates such a tension in just about every single interaction and moment. My reactions to the challenge vary; some days I drive about and think "life here is such an adventure"......not that it's easy - but I can enjoy the adrenaline rush of the place. Other days the "adventure" is not quite so.......stimulating. Instead I can feel a bit "beat up" by life....tired, annoyed, just longing for one, little thing to be relatively "easy" to accomplish.

Today I was struck by how "raw" life can be here. I realize how much we have been able to sanitize basic life in the U.S. (or in about any "developed" country). We sanitize certain actions or interactions by having laws in effect that help us, for the most part, to have some self-control.....when these laws are followed (whether because of a sense of common decency or a sense of just not wanting to get into trouble) certain behavior can be somewhat expected. We sanitize our environment by having zoning laws, littering laws, even noise laws. We even sanitize sanitation......with our consistent running water and indoor toilets, drainage ditches that actually....DRAIN (imagine that!!).

And we sanitize death - for the most part, death happens in hospitals, hospices, of if in the home, usually under the direction of home healthcare professionals. When death happens spontaneously we have immediate responders who arrive. They cover up a body, they clean up the scene of a crime or accident......barriers are put up until the area is cleaned so that people don't have to, or can't, see the signs of death. And believe me - I am for all these types of sanitation - they make life more pleasant, they even make the unpleasant parts of life more bearable, not so "in your face."

Today I was struck by how unsanitized or "raw" life is. While driving through the crowded city to our bible school, we suddenly found ourselves in a traffic jam where normally there wasn't one - at that time of day. We crept along and eventually arrived at an intersection where there had been an accident. The major "signs" of the accident were gone - there was no vehicle, no bodies......but on the ground, right in the crosswalk at the side of the road, there was a lot of broken glass........blood.......and what appeared to be part of a brain. Please excuse the grossness of that last sentence, but that's the truth. There were several of us in the car and honestly - I think there was brain matter in the crosswalk. And then, very poignantly, next to it, was a baseball hat......and around this scene were pedestrians, trying to cross the boulevard. Stepping around the "organic matter", just trying to get to where they needed to go.

Life is raw, death is raw, this blog post is raw......Welcome to Kinshasa. I think of biblical times.....When Jesus was on the earth it seems like life was pretty unsanitized as well. He was confronted with lepers who were cast out of society, he went to funerals that were held in homes, he saw hunger, death, and suffering up close and personal. And He continued His journey of spreading hope, loving despite the difficulties, and making a difference. He is my inspiration!