Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Cecil the Lion vs so many other issues...

 I'm hoping you read the blog link I posted in FB before this post, but if you haven't, here it is-and please read it. It was shared with me by an old friend I have a lot of respect for, and has seen a whole lot more of this big spinning ball we live on than I have:

Everyone needs a little Grace In their lives 
Gilandamy.blogspot.com

I was just talking to my husband about how I want to contact a nurse friend of mine from CMH who has done some mission nursing work. Bobbi-I'm talking about you in case you can't tell ;)
And find out how I can go about joining her on one of those.  And then I read this blog.  

I had this same discussion with some co-workers this last weekend: a dead lion has gone viral but kids with no water doesn't affect social media the same way. 

People die of malaria-which we simply do not have in the U.S.-and a $10 net could save their lives. Just ask my Uncle Clifford Rawley who supports malaria nets for Africa with a basketball shooting fundraiser: Nets for Nets. 

We complain about our government but we get to vote our leaders in. Some of these countries have terrible dictators who live a lavish lifestyle while their country lives in poverty.  And not one of my friends on FB reading this lives in true poverty like in many African countries. 

And as I send my oldest off to college next week, encouraging her to 'make her mark on the world', I wonder what mark I will leave. And if it's one my kids will be proud of me for. 

And though I love animals dearly, and it's terrible that Cecil had to die that way, my heart aches more for hungry, starving children and HIV rampant countries and women being raped and people working for $1.25 a day and parents who walk miles every day for water for their families. 

As I turn on my tap to get a bedtime glass of clean ice water and lie down in my Tempurpedic bed in my air conditioned house with full electricity  and prepare to go to my job that pays me far more than $1.25 a day, Cecil seems far less media worthy. 

But then again, those other things mentioned probably make most people squirm a little uncomfortably, and we don't like uncomfortable now do we?