My thoughts can only avoid Africa for so long before they are foisted once more toward the dark and mysterious continent. I am now 400+ pages into Rick Atkinson's tome on the African portion of WWII, An Army at Dawn, which is a spellbinding account of American combat naivete being shaped into the hardened resolve that would win that great war. I also just received my first package from home, sent from my sister. She sent me a book entitled The Lower River, which is a fictional account a man returning to a country he loved from his Peace Corps years (Malawi), now that his marriage has fallen apart.
I look forward to reading this book and once more visualize the barren hilltops (similar to Afghanistan), hear the earthy song-singing, and smell the village fires, as my wife recently wrote about on her blog for an international ministry: http://www.haventoday.org/all-about-jesus-blog/where-is-your-home-46.html.
I have enjoyed some classic works on Africa: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. And as David Livingstone is one of my heroes, I have read several biographies of his travels through Africa. I also have read a number of accounts of African genocide: God sleeps in Rwanda by Joseph Sebarenzi, Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, and A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah.
Looking to scratch my Malawi itch several months ago, I found the obscure book, The Warm Heart of Africa, by Kevin Denny. This book was one of my best reading finds in years. It is the actual account of an early Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi, witnessing the mingled joy and suffering of the people and experiencing the difficulties posed by the great culture gap. She was there when Malawi achieved her independence and met an elderly Malawian man, who over time shared with her his life story, beginning with his father almost killing David Livingstone. This man's story is one of the most incredible accounts I have ever read or heard.
There is something to be said for life beyond the reaches of comfort and security. Of course, that life can be found at the neighbor's doorstep as often as it can on the other side of the globe.
Suffering is not the great bain of human existence, but in all its forms--poverty, persecution, existential angst, etc--is simply a manifestation of the great bain of human existence: mankind's rebellion against the Creator. But that suffering can be imbued with joy when the sin that midwived it into this world is found nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ. This lesson is heard in the gentle footsteps and rolling melodies of the Malawian child, hair discolored and stomach bloated from malnutrition, who knows that one dawning day, his night-borne sorrows will be made eternal joy.
This is why the blood pumping through Malawi, "The Warm Heart of Africa," beats through me.
