Looks Can Be Deceiving: The beauty and darkness of Africa

As you drive throughout Africa,
the beauty of the landscape and the people are breathtaking at times.

The mountains and deep green color of Swaziland – the clear
turquoise water of Mozambique – the literal loss of breath as you drive through
the wine country of Cape Town, through the mountains and into the city itself.

I, honestly, have never seen any land as beautiful as the Cape Town area (see the photo to the right from National Geographic).

Then, you experience the people: the colors of their
traditional clothes – the soft skin of the native South Africans, the dark skin
of the Mozambicans, the eyes of the Swazis – they all have unique features
that demand a second look.

The sweetness of their spirit, the love they have
for family and their home, the willingness to serve and thankfulness in their
hearts that you are here, but… looks can be deceiving.

Most Africans believe that the sea is the devil. The
belief is that when you cast devils out, you send them to the sea.

Therefore,
they never go into the ocean, except for New Year’s day, when thousands go in all
at the same time. Every year, you read about hundreds of small African children
dying, as so many of them go into the ocean.

Many little ones get swept
away, and no one notices. It’s an amazing and tragic way of life. We have
watched the witch doctors stand on the beach and send their curses out over the
water.

The shanty towns are full of disease, death, sewage, no running
water, no electricity. Christian and Government organizations have moved whole
communities out of their shanty towns and given them better living conditions;
within months, they have all moved back into their shanty homes and will not
leave.

You can never walk alone, never go out after dark. Don’t
drive your Swazi-plated car in South
Africa, or you probably will be high-jacked. Some friends of ours were high-jacked in their brand new Pajero a few weeks
ago. They were forced to stay in the car and were dropped off in the middle of nowhere.

Demonic curses fly across the roads, chants being thrown at
you as you drive by. Every day, we read in the newspaper stories of babies being raped,
aborted babies being found by the river, another one being eaten by a crocodile
just miles from your house. I stopped reading the paper in the morning; it is
almost too much to believe.

And then, you look at your own heart: the dichotomy of how
righteous one can be and how dark.

Then, it all makes since, somehow.