大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Francis Davis, Academic and social entrepreneur

Strength of the Elders

Good morning.

What have an elderly lady with burn scars, a missing gallon of water, a rural shack and the Bible got to do with each other?

Well, it went like this: I had been invited to interview hundreds of rural Rwandan elders on how they were doing 25 years after that country鈥檚 genocide. This lady, let鈥檚 call her Mary, had invited me into her house with a smile that could melt glaciers. But she was embarrassed she could not offer me a drink.

The problem was that she鈥檇 given some local lads a few cents from her $3 dollar a month income and asked them to walk with her bucket to fetch water from the river a while away. Teenagers being teenagers, she said, they hadn鈥檛 returned.

Without taps or pipes the upshot was she was out of water and, because of high blood pressure, had had a funny turn the day before trying to dig her little plot of land because the teenagers had failed in that regard too.

Mary had been set on fire during the genocide. She鈥檇 lost four of her five children as well.

Yet while there was no water Mary bubbled like a brook with warmth, and agency. She scooped up the bible next to her and rifled its pages seeking laments and wisdom. Clearly intimately acquainted with this precious book she sang to us, embarrassed no more. No wonder the local choir popped in once a week after their practice to cook her a meal. Water, a shack, some burns and a transformational bible. It鈥檚 a thing to think about.

For those who find new words and humbling joy in forgotten places I give thanks.

Amen

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