Let It Roll

A brief snapshot- the woman on the right is an elderly lady in the Kirinyaga Aloe Vera Farmers Group that we met with for the first time on Wednesday. After a lengthy meeting, Rebecca and I were just chatting with some of the farmers, and I tried to practice some Kiswahili with her as she knew almost no English whatsoever. As far as I could tell, her "baptized name" is Julianne. Julianne walks with a cane, back bent from age, and feet mangled from years of walking barefoot. After a few minutes of jumbled greetings she handed me a picture of her standing out in front of a burnt down building, and then another obviously old white sheet of paper that had clear tape running down the middle to keep it from falling apart. Looking at it, I realized that it was a police report. Waving down a group member better versed in English, I soon found out that during the ethnic violence of 2008- the result of latent tribal tensions and the absolute corruption of leaders who turn their constituencies against each other and use lies and threats to try to win- her shop was randomly burnt to the ground.

Julianne reminds me of a number of other people I've met, both in working at an inner-city ministry in Memphis and on my previous trip to Kenya. Individuals who are almost homeless in their poverty but who cary with them carefully protected documents, maybe their check stubs from a job for which they felt they weren't completely paid, maybe pages and pages of court records from a case that they believe they should have won, maybe Julianne's police records, but all the records of sin's effects especially against the poor.. The poor carry the hope for justice deep in their hearts, because they suffer most from injustice, from a world where money protects the "haves" from biased trials, civil wars and ethnic violence, but leaves the "have nots" often with no recourse. The world's police, lawyers, and judges are too often as blind as lady justice herself when it comes to the poor, as the current delay in prosecution of those known to be responsible for January's conflict reminds us, either locally or by the Hague.

But Jesus Christ is coming again to bring justice to Julianne and to all who call upon His name, and God calls all of us to pursue real, Biblical restorative justice for the poor and defenseless of our world. It's only recently that I've realized how often the Bible talks about justice, as much at least as it talks about almost anything else. Julianne reminds me why, because our God doesn't listen to dollars or Kenyan shillings in His judgments, and He doesn't let evil go unmet. Our God takes sides on behalf of the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks of the world. So let's pray that justice will roll down for Julianne and for all of injustice's victims that the world might have the peace that only comes from Jesus Christ.

His kingdom come,

Michael