Why are we off to Africa today?

Karen and I are on a plane to South Africa today (via Paris – where we’ll sleepily drag ourselves out of the terminal and over to Monte Marte to drink cappuccinos in a café and look at the street art before getting back on the plane). We’ll be there a month and we hope to dive into the pain, malnutrition and AIDS that is Swaziland’s reality while we’re there.

Jesus hung out with the poor and he told the rest of us, “go hang out with the poor.”

After you’ve hung out with the poor in Swaziland or Mozambique, it wakes you up to how good you’ve got it.

You feel guilty for any complaining you’ve done lately.

It makes it hard to feel sorry for folks in America wallowing in their victimization.

Of course poverty is relative, when Jesus said, “the poor you’ll always have with you,” he was speaking comparatively.

There always seem to be those people who hang out on the margins of society who had no safety net underneath them when they suffered calamity, becoming the widows and orphans that Jesus targets for care.

The good news is that American young people are waking up to the reality of their privilege relative to the world. Adventures In Missions will have three World Race teams and several other teams in addition to our regular staff over there this summer (an embarrassing abundance of white people until you realize how many villages we won’t visit). Our job is to help those volunteers make sense of what they’re experiencing and to hold up the arms of those caring for them.

But perhaps in a larger sense, our job is to have our hearts broken. That’s what keeps them supple and beating as Jesus’ heart beats. That’s what gives us credibility as leaders. About a year ago Karen felt God calling her to “go hold orphans in Africa for a month.” And last August God showed me the way his heart pounds for the orphans. He challenged me to open up my life and make room for them to swarm my porch and living room and kitchen. The thought terrifies and overwhelms me.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s the real reason we’re going.