Mercy

-An imaginary letter to a real girl.South Sudan, 2011

To a uniquely beautiful girl, who taught me so many things in a very short time,

Our lives are so different, more different than I think you will ever be able to realise. For the majority of my 21 years of living, my life has been comfortable, for your 11 years I think the opposite is the case. I know my own name, and you are unsure of yours. I know what it is to feel safe, but I think your view of being safe is from the inside of a cardboard box, or eating rotten vegetables on the side of a dirty road.I am well fed and healthy, and up until a few weeks ago you were malnourished and slowly dying.

I am from a country that claims to care and provide for its people but you are from the newest country on earth, but its a country still gripped in oppression and corruption, stained by years of war and genocide. Your country, Southern Sudan, is like a seed struggling to grow in its own soil, but there are things in the soil that are poisoning its roots. Everyone rejoiced at the planting of the seed, it promised so much, it looked like the fruit from its branches would feed its people. But it is being suffocated by outsiders thinking they know best and insiders betraying each other. Everyone is trying to hard to preserve that precious seed, and to see a bright green shoot emerge from the dust. I can see it in people’s eyes in the streets-a desperation that longs to see the shoot burst forth soon, soon, soon. Your brothers think ethnic war will cause the soil to dry up, your sisters remain hopeful of growth. In my country the seed has deep roots that haven’t always grown in clean soil, it has often been suffocated by insiders thinking they know best and outsiders being ignored. My country is mostly healthy, in comparison to yours, but I still refuse to eat some of its fruit. You will learn throughout your life, sweet Mercy, that to be different is a very good thing.

Our bodies are different from each other. You are short I am tall. You are dark, darker than most of your friends, I am fair, fairer than most of my friends. My arms are both the same length but your left arm is shorter than your right arm. They say your arm was broken and not fixed so the bone just fused together. Your small beautiful body is covered in scars, and there is a scar that I don’t like to look at that covers the part of your chest where your heart is. Your leg is covered in wounds where people have beaten you, and in fact one of the 4 words you know, and say again and again is “Tso!”-Stick, in Juba-Arabic. My legs run fast for fun, your legs run fast because they have had to.

They found you on the streets and the market ladies said you were crazy. The market vendors probably told the Aunties not to bother with you. But the Aunties did, and with their own Rescuer guiding them, they saved you from those streets. They think you are “autistic”, which is a label in our country for people who are different, or people who have minds that are gifted to think in a certain way. You hold your neck when you speak, and my Mum who used to be a speech-therapist, later explained to me, that its probably because it comforts you to feel your own voice vibrating against your fingers. You love to touch things. We loved drawing together, but you preferred to watch me draw, while you touched the crayons. You lined them up depending on how smooth or pointy their tips were. The only colours you wanted to draw with were white and purple, but the white didn’t show up on the paper, and it made us both laugh, but you still drew and drew with white.

Somehow our minds work the same way. I only like to speak when I want to, and I am thoughtful like you. Our thoughts don’t always make sense to the world around us, and we are often misunderstood. We both love colour and shapes and could be quite content with sitting on a mat arranging nuts into patterns for hours, or sifting dusty sand through our fingers. We find it difficult to communicate what we are truly thinking alot of the time, but now, we have people around us who want to understand us.

You as an 11-year old girl know that your imagination is powerful, you are reminded all the time by your new family, that you are an anomaly because of the way your mind works. I have only just learnt, at 21, that having a mind that works differently is a good thing. It is Mercy, I promise. You will learn this. Your imagination has probably been useful growing up on the streets, you have probably created own worlds inside your head, worlds of unselfish love and kindness, worlds where you can truly be yourself, and you aren’t treated with injustice, and where pain doesn’t exist. I used to create those worlds as a child, but God has taught me as an adult that there is a place where those dreams are a reality, and He is the only one who can get us there, we can’t get there on our own.

You call everyone around you “Mama, Mama”-its your second out of four words. I think its because your own Mama left you as soon as she saw you were different to other children. You love eating in your new safe place, because food was witheld from you for so much of your life. Let me explain something to you, my darling friend. I have never had nothing to eat,I have never been cursed by a witch-doctor, I have never been hit out of anger, I have never been raped, and watching you makes me somehow hate. It makes me hate those who have hurt you, and hate myself for having everything that you have never had, or having things you once had but had taken from you. Why you and not me? Or why me and not you?

I love watching you eat because you enjoy each mouthful, you have known what it is to be starving. You challenge me to enjoy each mouthful of food before me, infact you challenge me in so many ways. I love watching you dance because your shorter-arm bounces around and your legs cant walk in a straight line but you don’t care what other people think. I love that though you have been hurt so much, you can still dance. I love having hugs from you, you saw me each morning, cried “Mama!” and shuffle-reversed into me and wrapped your arms around my waist, it was the clumsiest hug in the world but it was best start to each day. I could hear you speak your four word vocabulary over and over again and still smile as if I was suprised with you when you point and say “What?” in your language, at something every ten minutes. I try and explain what it is to you that you point and you listen well but you don’t understand, this makes us laugh too. You have the most incredible mischievous smile and your laugh makes me laugh, and my laugh makes you laugh.

I was born into a family that loves me and a society that protects me. I was taught that we are weak but God is strong, and Jesus longs for us to know Him because he doesn’t want us to die all alone. But I think you, Mercy, were conceived in sin, deceit and shame. You have been taught to be strong because others are weak, and God doesn’t care. You probably don’t fully know who Jesus is yet, but somehow, He was next to you, when you felt alone, He never wants to you be alone again, He was even there when the aunties rescued you a few weeks ago. Because of how people have treated you in your short-life you may think that you are valueless, but you are the most valuable thing in the world.

I knew you for one week. Seven days. I know it was God’s plan that we met, I just know it. You taught me more than many people have taught me in my whole life. One day, I hope to see you in that place where your most hopeful imaginings are a truthful reality, ruled over by a perfect God. Yes it does exist-trust me.

Thank you for everything you gave me.

Fingerprints in The Wind

A poem I wrote inspired by nature, trying to comprehend an unseen God, observing his identification in amazing actions throughout the world and awesome transformations of people's lives.

Links with wind/air/nature and identifying this force by its visual effects. I hope the concept of that comes out in the poem.
I am unsure and I am quite new to this kind of poetry/creative writing so please can I have feedback and advice.Cheers!

Poem:
Wondering in this maze of roads and buildings towering over me
the city, once a God given concept, now twisted and torn
Feel separated from my father in a busy crowd unable to see
the fear of being lost, running scared I am tired and worn

Steered upon a new path leading me to fields of green
I see ripples in the water, the long grass swaying, rustling of leaves
like fingerprints in the wind, forces unknown and unseen
a force felt all around us, what a beautiful and delicate life he weaves

I no longer feel lost, here in this sanctuary of peace and love
I sit and marvel at his creation, comforted in his hands
my worries are blown away with the spirit of God above
yearning to walk with him far across the lands

Whatever trials lay ahead, whatever hardship is in store
I will walk back to this place of green, where my thoughts are free
in company of ducks and chirping birds, watching them fly and soar
just like fingerprints in the wind, once unseen, now so clearly I see.

Graphic Novel Bible- page 2

see page 1 for details

I’d love your opinions, critique, correction and prayer

I believe

Garageband demo of a new song-got a bit carried away with adding acoustic guitars!

I had been reading a famous book about the “historical figure of Jesus”-a historian’s point of view about what we can and can’t be certain about regarding the person of Jesus. I just wanted to lay my cards on the table about who Jesus was and is, and sing out nice and loud that he was real man who walked and talked, could be touched, seen, and heard, who could bleed, and who died for real, and rose again for real.

Before the earth’s foundation were laid,
You were the Son of God
Through you all creation has been made
You are the Living Word.
In You all things now hold together,
Sustainer of all life.
You are the heir of all things Jesus,
The first-born from the dead

I believe in One Lord Jesus Christ
I believe He walked the earth and died
To rise again, the promise of new life
Now He is high and lifted up

Eternal Word of God made flesh,
The Father’s love revealed.
You made Your dwelling here with us,
Our God Immanuel.
Emptied Yourself of ev’ry form of kingly majesty,
Humility and love perfected,
Our God the Servant King.

Then as a lamb led to the slaughter,
You bore our punishment.
Without a cry of protestation,
This cruel injustice stood.
Oppressed, afflicted, bore our sorrows,
Our sickness and our grief,
All sin and judgment there exhausted,
Humanity redeemed.

Bridge:
All glory, all honour,
Majesty and praise,
Be unto the Lamb who was slain.
Let all earth, and heaven,
Magnify His name,
For our Lord Jesus lives again.

Make Me Thy Fuel

Amy Carmichael wrote this. What a legend.

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when i should climb higher.
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the crucified.
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire.
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.