Ebola In Central Africa: What It Has To Do With Us
Posted by preparedcitizens on January 10, 2009
It has everything to do with us here in the US. It has everything to do with me sitting here at my computer in Monson MA. It has everything to do with you, the reader of this blog.
When we can close our eyes to the suffering of millions we have lost something. When we can hear the reports of heartache, death from disease, hardship, and not translate that into faces and individuals and their plight and wonder what God would have us do with the awareness, we have shut off a vital part of our humanity – empathy.
Most of us will never experience the suffering of Hemorrhagic Ebola, malaria, dengue, Chikungunya, Leishmaniasis, and so many of the more “tropical” diseases but billions of people on this earth do, and suffer….oh how they suffer.
We sit and wring our hands over a pandemic which will affect us (and everyone across this globe as well) but we turn a blind eye to that which is unlikely to come to our shores or find its way into our homes. AIDS sufferers the world over know this. They are the modern lepers. And what did Jesus Christ do? He walked among them, healing them, comforting them.
Is it the overwhelming need the world over that causes us to do nothing? Is it that fact that we will never eliminate these scourges? Or that we will never be able to personally save a life? Is that the point of what Jesus did? What Jesus Christ did was show us through His example that we must never withdraw from the battle. He demonstrated to us that we must not withdraw from the world, we must not define people by what they are, what they have, who they represent, and what defines them. We are reaching hearts not personalities, not who people think they are, want to be, or even what they do – that is God’s to sort through, and He will.
Ebola is ravaging central Africa. Without human intervention we do not have to worry about these tropical diseases. But we must not shut off our caring about those who do.
H5N1 is becoming endemic all over the world and it is slowly adapting to the human respiratory tract —- which means it will be OUR next great struggle. No one will be spared, death will visit each and every one of us in one way or another. If not our own, some family member near or distant will be struck down.
Is it time to tell you the truth about how very serious pandemic influenza is? Certainly something must shake the cobwebs off. Certainly something must help you to realize that we (those who plan and prepare and sound the alert for others) are not talking about the “flu”. We are talking about something on a par with hemorrhagic Ebola, on a par with Hurricane Katrina striking every city and town in this country, in the world, AT THE SAME TIME. We are talking about an illness that turns faces blue black from lack of oxygen and there are not enough ventilators to go around, not enough hospital personnel to assist, not enough of anything to see us through this other than our own presence of mind, our own preparedness, our own moral courage to not devolve into panic stricken idiots who prey upon others — and there will be those too. And the maddening thing about this — we don’t know when that final adaptation will take place. All these co-infections, people with bird to human H5N1 and a regular seasonal influenza are more fuel for that fire.
So, if you can turn off Ebola in central Africa, and AIDS pandemic that has been ongoing for decades, ask yourself this question…..am I also not seeing a pandemic of influenza coming? Because if you are not actively preparing, if you are laughing it off, if you are thinking that it’s the next y2k, then you are sadly mistaken.
And West Nile is nothing to sneeze at either. Our world is changing and man’s intervention has had an impact. Overuse of antibiotics has fueled disease resistance, not utilizing the vaccines that we do have has allowed childhood illnesses that we once under control to reemerge even stronger. Now these *new* vaccines, well, there are ethical issues that MUST be considered. Who is paying attention?
And as for coping with all of this…..We do have tools, we do have options, no one is without hope.
If it were not for my relationship with Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, I would not be coping with this myself. He is my strength, my sound mind, my focus and my reason for living. HE is my HOPE and it is to Him that I cling.
I pray that this post reaches in and touches each and every reader in a mighty way. Our Savior lives.
