you.me.and a thousand different ways.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

juz watch Oprah Primetime. and tears are just rolling down my eyes as i browse through the magazine on the web, and what i read just shocks me so horrifyingly.

since the tsunami incident, we are constantly reminded of the amount of lives that were lost by this natural catastrophe. first you hear 5,000, den it was 8,000, then it was 12,000 and so on.. now it has rose up to almost millions and there are still millions others who are homeless, who are orphaned, who lost their children, lost their livelihood, the list goes on. you hear of people young and all trying to rebuild their homes, and people from all over the world reaching out to help.. soldiers, social workers, doctors, dentists, students.. concerts like the Asia Aid helped to raise funds to provide education for the children, equipment to rebuilt homes.

it warms your heart to hear of such goodness. and you can sense the love that envelopes the world.

then you hear of the heart-wreaking stories of how people want to try to sell the orphans by trying to tell the public that you can 'adopt' these children.. and it just makes me want to have a gun and just shoots them straight at their face for their inhumane acts.

and now i hear about the women in Congo and i just feel so, helpless once more.

have you watched hotel rwanda? if you hadn't i'd strongly advise you to catch this show. there's nothing like true facts that's in your face straight that reminds you of how fortunate we are to be able to survive in this beautiful country, to be able to seek God so freely.

pastor phua mentioned something before in a service that i'd always remember.. when you go through tough times, always remember, there's someone who's worse than you.

it's so true.. the women in congo are just so much more worst of than i am. do you know that Women in the Congo are considered "war booty," essentially. They are the ones who are suffering the most. The villages are attacked in the middle of the night by young soldiers. They violently rape the women. They've killed so many people already in six years. Four million people - and no one is paying attention.

This is happening right now.

Yet we just have no idea. It's a crime for it to happen everywhere else in the world. in Singapore, in America, everywhere.. yet because of the fact that this is happening right in Africa, the continent that's been shut out by the rest of the world, we don't know of the political conflicts and the damage that is being done to the children, the women and their lives.

they might not know how to love a person, they don't know how it feels like to be appreciated. all they can sense is pain. hurt. damage to their body & their souls. their children's agony. i read about a women who was hurt brutally by a soldier. He hurt her right eye so badly she has to live with the pain for the rest of her life. and she even conceieved this soldier's child. when she was giving birth, she couldn't find the strength to push the baby out because she was feeling so much pain. she couldn't distinguish the pain too.. whether or not it was labour pains or the pain from her eye.

ironically, the baby was born with a wreaked left eye. and the doctors said it is because of the position that this woman was in.

I read about it, and i just weep. and I thank the Lord for my wonderful blessings on this side of the planet. sometimes we really just take lots of things for granted.. don't we? as humans, as pampered citizens.. we don't know anything about hardship. we think that whatever lousy disaster we go through is hardship by itself. but i guess we hadn't seen the real world yet.

you want to know what's most amazing about everything? at the end of all these postcards that i read, where 13 women shared their experiences.. at the end of each article, they'd always say..

"i still believe in the lord."
"i still believe that he'd take care of me."
" i still believe He will bless me and my children, and find me a husband."
"i am not as active in church as i was in the past, but i will find the strength to do it once more."

through all this, they're all still singing a song in their hearts..

i'm grateful Lord. thank you for your wonderful blessings.

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