Finding God in the Midst of Human Suffering

There's a lot to write about right now, but I'll do my best to catch you up on the highlights of this past week. Saturday was definitely one of my favorite village visits. It was one of the most wealthy villages we have been to yet, but everyone in the village is related and there were about 50 people or so living in the area. They were some of the most friendly people, especially men, we have met. There were about 5 men who just sat and talked with Josh and I for over an hour about everything and it was good practice of our Swahili. It was welcoming because we knew they were laughing with us and not at our broken Swahili. The rest of the young men sat to the side and listened to the conversation, while the older men gathered around close and really engaged in conversation. I think everyone was a lot better at shirades by the time we left. As always, the men are always want me to take them back to America when I go, so I tell them I'm taken, but there are twelve single girls coming from Wartburg in May who would be interested, and that distracts them.
The women prepared us chai and biscuits, then the men served us a large plate of goat 'meat' and soda. I learned a good lesson that day. If you aren't aggressive about getting the pieces you want, you'll get the 'tender stuff' (a.k.a the liver). They thought they were being thoughtful so they kept offering it to me as I would politely say 'inatosha, inatosha' (it's enough, it's enough). But they were persistent so I had to accept it and pretend to be grateful, meanwhile I was trying to swallow the last two pieces without chewing so I couldn't taste it.
Then came the next course of bananas cooked in a lot of animal fat with lots of other interesting parts of the goat or cow or something: spinal bones, stomach, tongue, You name it, they cooked it. And after the service, there was rice with beans and more meat and soda. Luckily Josh and I shared a plate since they are enormous and I prefer to eat with my hands anyway. We kept trying to quietly pass the other person all the pieces of unidentifiable meat until someone eventually gave in and ate it.
Sunday, I woke up not feeling so well. Here the polite way to say it is that I've been driving all night (you figure it out), perhaps I ate a little too much animal fat the day before. But as always, I just tell myself I will be fine, and hop in the car for the next adventure. I'm glad I did because this was probably one of the unforgettable experiences I had here. It's unusual for us to be allowed to sit in the back of the church, but since we had the teachers with us, they let us. Somewhere near the middle of the service, a young boy wrapped in a white cloth (which indicates that he wasn't even old enough to have been circumcised yet), walked in and sat down in front of us. The first thing I saw on the exposed part of his back were the markings of what I could tell were recent whippings, most likely with a long thin branch that was more like a whip. He had dozens of raised lines going in all directions and at least four or five of them had two or three inch open wounds in the skin from being hit so hard.
After the service I said something to PH, as I knew how I felt about this, but I didn't know how to react to it. You hear so many stories about these sorts of things that it I'm sure this kind of abuse runs the risk of just being common place here, but it certainly isn't for me. PH signaled the boy to come over so he could see his back, and then he questioned the boy and the villagers about who had done this to him. They said that there is a man in the village who wants to sleep with his mom who is a widow, but she refuses, so this man often comes to their house drunk and does these kind of things. Why there isn't someone in the village who steps up to stop it, or an uncle of the mother who will protect them, I don't understand. I don't understand the mentality of people who can see these kinds of things and just let them continue, especially to the children. No one seemed to alarmed about the situation except me and PH. I had so many different responses to the situation that I didn't even know what to think. My heart broke for him because I knew there was nothing I could do for him. All we could do was give him some candy and see him smile for a few minutes and know that we hadn't done anything to permanently change his life or the suffering that he is most likely going to endure again soon. If I had the option, I would have taken him home with me, but even that wouldn't have stopped this man from hurting someone else. I was pained because the reality of the situation is that his very existence is for the purpose of caring for his mother when she is old because she is a widow. So many children here are only conceived eithera a boy can take care of his mother, or a girl will bring her mother or father cattle when she is married off. And when this is the mentatily, the women get married off at very, very young ages. You can't deny the logic behind it, but I can't help but question the heart behind it. It's hard to see children who were born not to be cared for, but only to care for his parents or to get them more money.
My teacher even told me a story about a tribe in Arusha where the women believe that if their husband doesn't beat them and punish them that he doesn't love her. Where does that kind of mentality come from? I feel like you'd have to be brainwashed to believe that, but I was also raised in a culture of feminists, so how do I know what it's like. I just don't get it. If it makes the inevitable beatings they will face a little less painful, then okay, I understand that. But if they really believe that love looks like that, I'm at a complete loss.
The more and more stories I here, like the stories about the old testament ways they use here to punish thieves, the more I realize that in some ways, these people are left with little choice sometimes, and it seems that they almost have to become numb to suffering. When there is no government to protect your rights or your property, or the government that exists will take your very livelihood from you, you have no choice but to defend yourself and your property. The people are forced to take action and punish people as they see fit. Unfortunately, the reality is that if the people don't give a harsh enough punishment, then everyone would take advantage of everyone else. How do you bring peace into a country where there is no one or no system set in place to deal immoral acts. The people are left with few ways to enforce punishment without brutal force. If someone steals from you and they are caught, what authority do you have to fine, them or lock them up in your house, but if you let them go they'll do it again. At the same time, the methods they do use to deal with theft or other crimes are crazy and I'm not even going to talk about them here. All I know is that if I ever see a group of people chasing someone down the street, I don't want to see what's going to happen next.
There's so much I don't understand right now. Sometimes I ask God why He doesn't come back and save His people. I don't understand how He can allow people to just go on destroying other people. When I see even just the terrible things that can happen even in one country whether it be Tanzania, Mexico, Guyana, or America, I almost wonder why God doesn't just flood the earth again and start over. But the reality is, it would still be a world full of humans, and where there are human beings, there will always be pain and suffering. When I see these things I find myself angry with God. But when I ask God how He can let this happen, I am reminded that He may let it happen, but we humans have made it happen. He gave us free will, and we have chosen to do this to our own kind. He didn't make it happen and He won't make us fix it, but He let us make this mess and He will let us fix it if we choose. I don't think I've ever had so many questions about God and yet been so convinced of His existence all at the same time.
I will leave on a positive note, which is this. In the midst of my inability to comprehend all that I have seen in this country, I have also never felt more in communion with people as I do when we go to a village and are welcomed by the people so openly, or when I go to the church services here at LJS with all of the secondary students. There is something about worshipping God with them that gives me this sense of oneness that I have never felt before. When I listen to them sing hymns and praise songs, I often get this amazing feeling inside, almost like goosebumps on the inside. And I've never been much into the liturgy because I wasn't raised with it so it is hard for me to get into that mindset, but there's something about it here that carries so much meaning. There's something incredible about the only white person in a room of a couple hundred Tanzanians, and being able to share in worshiping the same God.