MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN
- 28/ 6/ 2005 <--Prev : Next-->
MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN
I know I should be happy with life ... I have two of my three children home for the summer holidays but ......... recent events in our beloved country have left us all desolate and unhappy in spite of our many blessings.
Thank goodness for the Churches in Zimbabwe, without them we would have an humanitarian crisis of major proportions. Indeed we do still have a serious crisis ... but the Churches have at least managed to stop the possible deaths by exposure of many already malnourished and needy people, who have been mercilessly evicted from their homes.
If you need to be humbled, and we all need to feel humbled at some time in our lives, take a trip to one of the many churches that is offering shelter to the folk reduced to destitution by the latest inhumane series of actions by our law makers.
Every church of every denomination has opened its hearts and its doors to countless hundreds of mainly old folk, babies and children.
It is hard to see why these sad, poverty stricken destitute people are such a threat to us all. Old men and women, babies and toddlers, a far cry from the robbers, cut throats and thieves as they have been described by the authorities.
Sadly there seems to be large and ominous gap in the demographics of the vagrant population from the ages of fifteen to fifty.
Visit the Presbyterian Churches, The Methodist Churches, The Anglican, the Catholic, The Brethren in Christ, The Agape Church, The UCCSA Churches and see exactly what the Government has been doing to its citizens.
They may be the poor huddled masses but they are poor and huddled due to the state of the country which is the direct fault of our Government.
Just have a look at their possessions, your heart will break, sheets of corrugated iron, a broken old sofa here, a few rusty poles, a couple of motley chickens. These folk are so poor it is criminal.
The children are sick and ragged, terrified and horribly disturbed. The adults are desperate and confused.
But hey ..... life sleeping on the floor of a warm church with food in their tummies for a change, is possibly a lot better than living in a freezing cold plastic shanty and foraging for roots in the Killarney mine dumps !!
What I had not noticed before however, was exactly how many churches there are in Bulawayo. In my travels I encountered literally hundreds of churches within a few kilometres of Bulawayo.
We have in fact, turned into a City Of Churches. Our old cinemas are now churches, The Palace Theatre, The Princess Theatre, The Seven Arts Theatre, The Bulawayo Theatre, The Robert Sibson Hall at the Academy of Music have all been turned into fully operational churches or they hold services for Churches on various days during the week.
There are churches under suburban trees, there are churches in the park, there are churches at the Trade Fair.
The town was quiet this weekend, quiet because almost every car in Bulawayo is sitting somewhere in a fuel queue. The shops were quiet, money is desperately scarce for many, however the churches were doing a roaring trade.
It would appear that the people of Zimbabwe have lost all hope. Their only salvation now is God and thank God for our Churches and their compassion in this time of crisis.
