Each of us have stories to write

Mary and I shared three short term mission trips to Africa, mainly Zambia, Kenya and Ghana. After one of them I expressed in poetry from what I felt about trying to get what I had experienced across to others. I’ve adapted parts of that poem and applied it to what I sense is a writer’s difficulty also. I can only hope it ‘gels’ with you.

With Rick Pullen and Ghana missionary from U.K.

 

 Each of Us.

 

Each of us have stories to tell

                                                          
                                                          From our short term mission trips.

But how describe the smells

And the sadness which grips

The heart by way of the eye

 Crowded slums, wasted children,

Defeated lives waiting to die

With Faith struggling in a mist

‘Where is Jesus in all this?’

 

Each will have memories to share

Those restless steamy nights

Trying to explain the despair

And the horror at the sight

Of vacant eyed teenagers

Scavenging for existence

In a society of indifference

With Faith struggling to resist

‘Where is Jesus in all this?’

 

Each of us have stories to write

Fading darkness with glorious light

That reaches into hearts wrecked, stained

With power to shatter what was chained

With ignorance and deep despair

Liberated by hope and prayer

Sensing God’s touch of grace

With faith’s response to its kiss

‘Here is Jesus in all this!’

 

Each of us will have riddles to solve

Unfairness n life, how it evolved

To dominate the characters fate

Is there escape or life’s a closed gate

Each will have nightmares which haunt

Plaguing their minds with searing taunts

Has God the power to intervene

This is Faith’s redeeming twist

‘Saved by Jesus from all this!’

 

Each of us have questions to face

For the dramas Jesus will place

On our shoulders so as to bear

His message in print to share

We, Christ’s representative voice

Must give readers cause to rejoice

Knowing they’re not forgotten

With Faith’s transforming bliss

‘Here is Jesus in all this!

 

Each of us have responses to make

Stories that ring true, not fake

Seek answers to life’s complexities

Holding up Biblical strategies

Not some pious philosophy

For the story unfolds with wonder

That the past can be cut asunder

For its mist gives way to bliss

‘It is Jesus in all this!’

Ray Hawkins August 2014