Life and Its Value

This weekend is the March for Life in DC. Hundreds of thousands of people will gather in DC to stand for the most fundamental right that the world has to offer, the right to life. Every single person on this Earth deserves that right, from conception to natural death.  This is not a political post. I am not writing about what I think the laws in America should or should not be.  I am not even writing about America specifically. I am writing about what I think are the consequences of misunderstanding the value of life. I am writing about brokenness. I am writing about things that I have witnessed in this world that have completely and utterly broken my heart.

This is an honest post and a vulnerable one. There are things that have weighed on me since my return to the states and I’m not even sure how I should put them into words. This is not something that is easy for me to write about. To begin, I have to describe some things that I saw while I was in South Sudan.

As some of you know, South Sudan has been in civil war since it became a country 5 and a half years ago. I won’t dive into all the details of the politics of the country, but all of the fighting is based on tribalism.  There are many different tribes in South Sudan and each one wants to have power over the other. The crimes that are committed each and every day are atrocious. I heard about them happening all over the country the whole year that I was there, but everything really hit home during the last month of my mission.

The war came full-fledged to Wau on Friday evening June 24, 2016. A storm was brewing in the sky that night and the sound of thunder battled that of gunshots. As I sat behind my locked door in my locked compound, I wondered what was happening to the people outside. The people I had grown to love, whose only protection was a hut made of mud and grass.  They all had to flee from their homes, anyone who was not from the Dinka tribe. They became displaced, they lost the right to have a home in their own country and many of them lost their lives. We had 1,000 refugees staying at our school. I spent the next 3 weeks with them and it changed my life forever.

I saw suffering on a level that I had never imagined seeing. I saw people experiencing the loss of what little they had, living in complete uncertainty of what would become of them, their family and their country. This uncertainty continues today. Over half a year later and most of these people are still unable to live in their own homes. The country is broken and the people live in agony.

So, what does this have to do with being pro life? People have asked me what I think needs to be done in order to bring stability to South Sudan. What policies can be put into place? What can the UN be doing? What is our responsibility as the international community? I think there is a lot that can and needs to be done to aid these people, but I won’t go into all of that now because I realized that the true problem is so much deeper than a corrupt government. There is no understanding of the value of human life. For many of them, if a person is of a different tribe they are not a true person. They have no worth. A young boy can be used as a soldier to gain military power, a girl for sex, a man killed for a bicycle and a woman killed for collecting firewood.   

Until they understand the importance of life in all forms, no matter the tribe, they will not live peacefully. Until they understand that the power to take away life should not be in the hands of humans, there will be war.  This is a deep-rooted moral issue and it is creating tragedy after tragedy.  It’s tearing people apart all over the world.

I am pro-life. Being pro-life means respecting ALL life; being pro-life means understanding that a life of an American doesn’t hold more value than a life of a foreigner; being pro-life means accepting people of all cultures; being pro-life means speaking up for those who have no voice. I want more than a change of laws, I want a change of hearts.   My prayer, more than anything else, is that people may come to know the importance of life and the one who gives it.