GO... AND KISS THE AFRICAN SUN

Today I am leaving poem. I love it! 

I wrote this in the summer of 2016, after I came home from Uganda. It was a reflection on our visit but was written with the impetus of my friend Alain Emerson about to leave on his trip. Alain and I have shared our vision for, and love of, Africa for over fifteen years. Having led him on a team to South Africa, it was Alain, and his late wife Lindsay, who led me to Uganda.

Alain asked me, as he regularly does, about what music to download for his trip. My daughter Jasmine had introduced me to Needtobreathe and I suggested them. Their song Difference Maker started running around my head as I thought about Alain’s trip. He told me he would kiss the African sun for me!

I then started thinking about Alain’s journey and mingled my prayers for his trip with my hopes for the trip we had just had. I have to credit the ‘mutual poverty’ line to Brad Miller on a long car journey across Indiana.

So off we go again. What I am most looking forward to is allowing that African sun, through all our friends at Fields Of Life and Onialeku Primary School, to kiss us!

In the end it is a declaration of mission, of giving and receiving God's love in Africa, at home or wherever.

 

GO… AND KISS THE AFRICAN SUN

 

Her last seed fell so hard

The cruelest smite of all

Then bursting through the pain

A harvest of light for all

Go help make an eternal difference

Turn around every fallen inference

Give the children back their innocence

And kiss the African sun.

 

Throw and scatter and sow

Find more seeds in the cup

Watch harvest yield a harvest

Curse all the weeds ripped up

Love until we all know grace has won

Burn until hopelessness is over and done

Leave nothing out there after the run

And kiss the African sun

Oh kiss that African sun

 

They say that we are rich

But we are only rich in shillings

Oh the wealth of their resilience

Innovation and being willing

They say that they are poor

But they are only poor in shillings.

 

Go and share our mutual poverty

Learn what mutual wealth can do

Bring back home the blessings of God

And let the Africa sun kiss you

Let that African sun kiss you!