We Don't Have to be Involved

We don't have to be involved.

We really don't. In fact, it would be easier if we weren't. Besides, we have our own problems to worry about, let alone someone else's messes.

In my trip to Kenya, I visited a man named Obedi. Obedi is a former student of mine at the seminary in Ahero, and now is a pastor at a large church in Kisumu. He was always a diligent student with a contagious smile. His congregation loves him and his family, which includes a couple of small children. But Obedi has a heart condition and will not survive the year unless he raises $25,000 to have a surgery done in India. There are no specialists for this in Kenya. They are trying to raise the funds, but fundraising on this scale rarely succeeds. It was hard to look in his eyes, shake his hand, and try to offer support and encouragement, although my discomfort is minuscule compared to what he's facing.

I didn't have to be involved in Obedi's life. I didn't have to go over there and teach, and even going over there, I could have taught without getting involved. I didn't have to stay in touch with him over the years through social media. I could have lived my life quite nicely without getting caught up in his life-and-death daily existence.

I've told many of you about Giorgia, a young woman in Italy, who just had a lung transplant. We've been friends with her family for 25 years, even before she was born. We've visited them at different stages in her life, and each stage was punctuated with breathing treatments and struggles. This last trip, I couldn't visit her because she was in the ICU. We didn't have to get involved. We didn't have to find ways to play with her when she was little in ways that would not take the wind out of her. We didn't have to write her emails when she had to stay in the hospital. We're not heroes and we're not the solution to any of these problems.

Giorgia died last week - the day after I left. And we didn't have to get tangled up with her and her grieving family.

Of course, there are those in deep poverty in Kenya without clean water. There's nothing about our lives that forces us to arrange for dozens of households to get clean water. If this never happened, we never would have heard about it, and our lives would have continued on without a wrinkle.

We choose to get involved in things we don't have to. Not just Lynne and me, but all of us. We choose this. And it would be easier if we didn't. But it wouldn't be better.