Jamaica thoughts...

Internet is down in my office for now, so I thought I would use a few moments to update this blog…


Working in the Communications department at YWAM is…interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. Right now I’m making a new website for our base – you’ve gotta check it out when I’m done…and I enjoy messing around with my computer. Problem is, when I get home, my creative energy does not flow in the direction of blogging. Sad. I know.

A quick update on things in Jamaica: Not good. The death toll is rising as these crazy gangsters fortify areas of West Kingston against the police. The police and soldiers are shooting like crazy trying to weed out their enemies but there’s an obvious problem with this. In all the stray bullets, it’s the civilians being killed. But weren’t the good guys evacuated before the shooting began? Yes. On the news, they were. Maybe even on the internet. But in real life, they were stuck in their homes watching grenades blow holes all around them, because which sensible gun man is going to let his leverage get away? What’s to stop police from blowing the whole thing down if only bad guys were there? So the innocent must suffer along with the guilty and the whole thing makes me sick.

Watching the news is ridiculous when a poll scrolls across your screen asking “Do you think people in Tivoli should be allowed to bury their dead?” Seriously? Wait. No, seriously?

Of course I’m a little preoccupied with what’s happening here, though it could be easy to ignore it. So many people do. It’s happening 4 hours away, and if you’re not there, you will only hear it on the news. So don’t watch the news, and it will all go away. Right? Wrong. I think that may be the kind of thinking Christians have been guilty of for centuries, and look where it’s gotten us. I realize I only thought I loved Jamaica before. All the craziness has made me realize I didn’t love her enough. Already the Christians have been flooding the media with commentary and rebuke towards the politicians, but there’s a part of me that realizes that this whole thing began when the church stayed on one side of the fence, while the unsaved stood on the other. This divide resulted in the creation of two separate Jamaicas. One you see in the tourist magazines, and the other you see on your five o’clock news, somewhere behind the smoking police houses on fire and the gunshots.

So before we start pointing fingers, I’d say it’s time we do some serious self-evaluation. What has the church done practically speaking, to change people from a heart level? What have we, who call ourselves Christians, done to impact and disciple those around us? My final slap to the face would be this- what have we who live uptown done to improve/bless/challenge/further the lives of anyone outside of our area code? Narrowing it down even more, what have you done? (I ask this of my own mirror also.)Can I congratulate myself or should I kick myself in the shins and step it up a notch?

In the meanwhile, we covet your prayers because we are here, doing what we can.