This summer I’m pretty darn far away from BBQs, swimming pools, the beach and popsicles. But that’s not all I’m far away from. I pretty far away from America this summer, and when you step back from something, sometimes it offers you a clearer picture.
I mean take this picture for instance what is it that you see?
But if you step back and look at the larger picture it really says something so much more.
So here I am smack dab in the middle of a country that is listed in the top three countries in the world from which refugees are fleeing. This is a country that has been at war, literally at war, since I was a child. Most of the people my age here, don’t know of a time when guns, bombs, fear and death wasn’t part of everyday life.
I’m also surrounded by military service members and contractors (most of whom are retired military service members), who had been serving for years and years during “war time.”
The other day someone tweeted a link to the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Twitter account with a song that they were excited to present to service members oversees. The song was called “Proud to Stand.” It was a good, typical country song, well sung and moving, but towards the end (and in bits and pieces throughout the song) it played off of the fact that soldiers stand up for freedoms and liberties and the betterment of all and wouldn’t dare take a knee during the National Anthem. I stopped the song and shook my head. The guy had it all wrong.
You see what he did in the song was stand on top of someone else to “stand up” and make a point. From afar, I see so much of that and it is painful. When you have to bring others down to bring yourself up something is wrong.
The deeper I get into this deployment the more my desires for bigger and better things grow…. It shocks me when I think about it. I’m not typically one that cares much for flashy or big things, but it seems the longer you are away from the things that mean so much to you, the more your mind tries to fill the holes with larger and larger desires that your heart understands to be trivial.
Where, oh where, does this entitlement come from?
Last week I had to sit in a class to certify as a contracting officer representative. One of our presenters was a man who is responsible for ensuring that human trafficking isn’t associated with any of the U.S. government contracts.
He told us the story of a case that someone reported regarding prostitution that was occurring on a particular part of the base. He isn’t law enforcement, so he passed the case on to the appropriate people. The rumor was that it was women who worked in the on base spa.
It bothered him though, and he kept asking himself why women in Afghanistan who are being paid a decent wage would take up prostitution in their evening hours. Eventually he tracked one of the women down and learned that she hadn’t been paid in six months. The contracting officer wasn’t located in Afghanistan and only came to inspect every six months, the owner said he thought it would be better to hold on to his employees’ pay for them, and this woman was the single provider to her family, including her four young children.
He went on to tell us of the many people from impoverished countries that have to go out and pay a recruiter thousands of dollars to find them a “good job” somewhere in the middle east. Many arrive to Dubai and other cities only to find that the job wasn’t really in a luxurious hotel in the UAE, but rather cooking food in a galley in Afghanistan and they now have no way out as the “employers” hold their passports and claim they need to work off the debt owed for this employment.
It is so easy to look past people. It is so easy to feel entitled to so much.
I love scrolling through Facebook, especially now during summer. If you are living in it you may not see it as clearly as me right now, but your lives are filled with glorious sunsets, family vacations to lovely and historic spots, ice cream – lots of ice cream, and swimming, sports and camp.
With such blessing how can we help but want to bring the same circumstances to others. It will be a beautiful day when the people of Afghanistan are sharing peaceful sunsets.
So, I struggle asking myself how we can fill our hearts without standing on others to do so. I believe the answer always lies in loving others.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13
