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July 03, 2005
A Flower Blooming In The Ashes
As Independence Day weekend is celebrated here in the United States I can’t help but think of those who would give anything to celebrate the freedom that is enjoyed (and often taken for granted) here in the United States.
I was reminded of those less fortunate while I was watching the G8 concert yesterday where I learned that a child dies every THREE seconds in Africa. Every day more people die in Africa than were killed at the World Trade Center. Every day!
I was specially touched during the G8 concert when organizer Bob Geldorf showed a picture taken many years ago of a young African girl who was completely malnourished and close to death. Her eyes were rolling in her head and she was a bag of bones with flies buzzing around her mouth and sitting on her eyelids. Geldorf then brought out the same person. She is now a vivacious young woman who is in the process of completing university. She is alive and thriving thanks to Live Aid.
Instead of celebrating freedom this weekend I have decided to celebrate those who have not taken their freedom for granted but used it to make a difference in other people’s lives. One of those people is my friend Bill Kelsey. I received this e-mail from Bill yesterday:
“…I agreed to go on contract with Airserv to standby for hurricane disaster relief in the Carribean but wound up in Goma, Congo, to help out flying a Cessna Caravan for a month in this war torn land. I was here three years ago soon after the volcano had erupted, sending a stream of lava across the runway and down the main streets of town. The flying was some of the most beautiful I have done and so I was happy to return to see what had become of the place.
Eastern Congo is a part of the world where the earthly forces of creation and destruction are in a powerful dance. It is horrible and it is beautiful. A nightmare and a dream. The earth shakes, the mountains drool lava and the lakes randomly spew up poison gas. The spectacular landscape is fertile.
The forces of man are also creating and destroying. One flight for Medicins san Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) took us to several landings south of Goma and on to Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga province. We spent the night there, not far from the mines of Shinkolobwe. From these mines people took the uranium used to roast Hiroshima and Nagasaki sixty summers ago.
Battles happen, but people grow flowers around the bombed out terminals where we pick up and drop off passengers. The struggle for decency and dignity amid the violence is real and gives hope. The human forces of destruction are foreign and local. The creative forces are also foreign and local.
One of the best days of my life happened last week. I was assigned to fly a mission to several towns on behalf of Save the Children. My passengers were de-mobilized child soldiers. This worthy organization had persuaded the army and various militias to release them and had given them some counseling and re-education. But these child veterans still thought they should come to attention when this foreigner in a pilot's uniform called out their names from the passenger manifest. I took about two-dozen to their hometowns. Two were girls, one of whom had her own infant on her back. It was a good day, worth all the sweat and heartache that go into training to become a pilot. I think I did good, a small feather placed at the right place on the balance between good and evil, a flower blooming in the ashes.
Guns and soldiers and militias are everywhere. Local ones and foreign ones - United Nations soldiers bristling with guns prepared to shoot people with guns to persuade people with guns that they should not shoot other people. Someday we'll learn a better way perhaps.
There is much work to do. We cannot complete it but neither can we avoid the task. There are many soldiers in this world who need to be brought home, young ones and old ones.
Love from the land of volcanoes, gas-bubbling lakes and fruit trees growing from the lava.”
Bill (Kelsey)
My prayers and love to the incredible people across the world, like Bill, who have left their homes, their comfort zones, their safety and their families to make the world easier and more comfortable for those in dire need. I salute you all!
Posted by trevor at July 3, 2005 12:17 PM
Comments
beautiful Trevor! Last nite i watched the movie Hotel Rwanda and was devastated. I wish that i could board a plane and go to Africa to help in some small way but don't know how. I was speaking to my gf today about that....we both have done a fair bit in our small corner of the world to help the disenfranchised (women and children) etc. however sometimes it doesn't seem to be enough. My thinking cap is on though :)
Violette
Posted by: violette at July 4, 2005 02:54 PM