MAKE BEN FAIR

We made it home Tuesday at 6am. What an amazing trip. This past week has been weird, not really culture shock, but more of trying to catch up on sleep. Jamie's folks came into town last night for dinner and to hear about our trip. Jamie's mom Sharen asked me after dinner, "why Africa?". I thought that it was a great question. I must admit that since we have gotten back i get really tired around 9pm so I sat on the couch and was unable to give her any kind of response that made a lick of sense. But the more that I thought about that question, the more I wanted to give her a real answer. So here is the my attempt at an answer.

Why Africa? This journey started 4 years ago for me with a group we had at ubc called Coffee and Culture. This group would meet at JD's art cafe and talk about faith, politics, economics, the environment and just about everything else people who enjoy this type of conversation would talk about. This group started post-Sept. 11th but pre- war in iraq. The great thing about this group was the initial group of people that came. We actually had a very diverse group of thinkers. People who were "right" , "left" and even those who were more "outer-space". It made for a very healthy conversation. I just remember leaving those nights and thinking about what we had talked about for the entire week and looked forward to nothing more than going back the next week. Being around a group of people that let each other share very different opinions was a very healthy thing for me. It was the first time I had been challenage to think about things like poverty, economics, politics outside of the normal right-wing conservative mindset. You mean that a person can be a democrate and still love jesus? that is crazy!!! well, doing what any good person who is exposed to a new way of thinking does, i slowly started to deconstruct my beliefs on some of these issues. The timing was great for this deconstuction because at the same time in culture along came this little band called Coldplay. I am sure that some of you have heard about them. They burst onto the scene and along came this message of "Make Trade Fair". I didn't understand why trade wasn't fair to begin with, but I believe in things being fair. So i started to read about this stuff. And I started to read about how my money, the things I puchase actually have an impact globally. What a responsibility! In the process of reading about fair trade, I also started reading about Bono's attempts to have third world debt forgiven. He would talk about the year of the Jubilee. This is from scripture, where people's debts are forgiven. Bono would tell about how African countries had paided their debt back over and over but they owed so much interest they will never be free from their debt. I started reading about HIV/AIDS and how it has wiped out an entire generation in Africa. I started reading about how malaria, something that is preventable, kills millions of Africans each year because they don't have medications to help. So all of this was happening at the same time. I remember talking to the Crowders and saying that I felt like UBC needed to help somehow. They told me about this thing that Youth Specialities was doing called, "one life revolution" This was basically a fundraising deal. If you could raise some money they could put in a well in africa. or you could buy some bed nets etc. I remember thinking at the time, "i wonder if us just sending money was the best and most effective way to help" Then about 2 yrs ago the ONE campaign was started here in the US. I remember signing up to be apart of the one campaign the very first time they sent out an email about it. I was really starting to become more active with lobbying? or writing/calling senators and congress people. I thought that by me sending emails and letters and making phone calls, that our government would be able to end poverty. So back to Coffee and Culture, the group changed names to politics, pizza and prayer for the election year. We met at pappa rollos and would talk about Bush and Kerry. That got old very fast. The group had lost its diversity and so it became a pro Bush rally. I tend to always try and take the opposite voice in those situations and that put me in the Kerry camp. Often times I would be the only person in the meeting trying to question Bush and his agenda etc. It wasn't that i was even a believer in Kerry or a demorcrate, but the more I saw how people would sell out to something without even debate about it...made me very angry and really did push me more left at that time that I wish I had gone. At the end of that semester I remember wondering, "where do we go from here?" we have talked about this stuff to death and the election is over so there is nothing left to hope for regarding policy change...and then it hit me. What if instead of talking about making a difference, we actually tried to "do something?" This was the birth of our "do something" community group. At the same time all this was going on, our church had been introduced to this little movie called, "invisible children" I remember the first time we had a screening of the film at UBC. I stood in the balcony with laren and talked to him about Africa. I remember asking him, "I have been on this journey over the last few years and all roads point to Africa, but should I just stay here and help raise money or should we try and go?" Laren told me, "GO!" "every person that goes to Africa leaves a piece of their heart in Africa, and they need us and we need them" It was at that moment that I told laren, "ok, we are going to go!" One year later, we finally went to kenya! I must say that laren was right about the heart thing. I am very glad that we went and I look forward to going back. The thing that I want to make sure is clear is that Africa needs so much help...but they also have so much to offer. We have to allow them the opportunity to give back to us! They have had their chance to give taken from them and this has caused so many to become a charity case. This is why when we went to Simba village I was so excited. They understand the value of giving. They don't just take for themselves, they share and give to their neighbors. It was a very humbling experience and I am happy to say that it was time and money well spent. I hope that over the next how ever many years I am at UBC, that I will be able to help expose student after student to Africa.