where is the Justice?

Today I decided it was about time I stepped out of my comfort zone. In general, the ship is my comfort zone, and to an extent, the familiarity and friendship at the orphanage has become my comfort zone. It was time for "breaking out." So this morning I joined the team headed for Sisters of Charity...and AIDS Hospice in central Monrovia. We made our way into a room crammed with 20 odd beds, the "sick room," where the most ill patients stay. Those whose beds are nearest the door are so weak and covered in sores that they are mere days away from death. The "healthier" ladies joines us there, and as we were all perched on the edge of the thin mattresses, one of the patients started playing a djimbe drum and we began worshipping the Lord together. One image from this time will forever stick in my mind. A lady on the bed just in front of the one I was sitting on was so thin and sick she could barely move. As soon as the singing started, what tiny glimer of energy she could muster went into moving her stick like arms in time to the beat. (I guess Africans really do always have rhythm!) One of the other ladies pulled her upright for she was too weak to sit up herself, and from there she raised her hands in worship, telling God how great He was. It astounds me that this lady whose body had fallen victim to full blown AIDS could have a spirit so strong as to tell her God how great He was. Her bed was nearing the door....a sure sign that it may be just weeks, or even days, until she goes to meet her heavenly father...the one to whom she will offer the last sliver of energy that she has for He is the one who has sustained her throughout the battle.

How often do I brush over telling God how great He is? This lady truly offered her everything in worship...it quite literally consumed all that she had. How often do I fail to do that?

Thinking back through the war and all the atrocities that it held, many of these women would have contracted the HIV virus through rape. Where is the justice? And yet they still worship God and tell Him how great He is.