Stephen Lewis.
We have just had the amazing chance
to hear Stephen Lewis speak,
twice in a row!
He was speaking locally and we got tickets for one event and then heard that he was speaking the next night only 30 mins away! So, we bought tickets for that too. (tickets were not that expensive either!)
I have to applaud this great man as being one of the most incredible speakers I have ever heard in my life. (I also love hearing Tony Campolo who actually says similar things)
I am sure that you know who Stephen Lewis is, but I will just say (in case anybody is not sure) that he was the UN Special Envoy to Africa for HIV/AIDS for five years, among many, many other positions politically/globally and important posts in Unicef etc. He has worked in Africa for almost 50 years and he says that he loves that beautiful continent so much, it has his heart. Check out his foundation at http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/ He has initiated great programs like Granny to Granny which I don't have time to write about, but is so great..check it out!!!
As well as being knowledgeable and super, super smart (I couldn't even hazard a guess at this guy's IQ!), he is very funny, very current, and very compassionate. There were several times that he seemed to choke up as he was relaying stats or stories of his work and believe me, I was crying through a lot of it.
He gave stats like:
Half a million women die in childbirth complications every year. There is absolutely not one reason why this should be. In a world that knows so very much about obstetrics, about getting women into urban areas from rural areas if there is a problem, about the drugs needed when necessary intervention is immediate etc, this should not happen.

Over 75 % of recent infections of HIV in Africa, which if not treated will develop into full blown AIDS, are women and young girls. Gender inequality, says Mr. Lewis, is at the heart of the pandemic. New research out of South Africa suggests that the % may even be in the 90's.
Again, you may have heard this before, but one of the most unsafe places to be in Africa if you are a woman, is in a marriage. They have very little, if any, sexual autonomy and these young girls are infected by their husbands, and then often abandoned to cope, along with caring for their children.
Of course, we are battling against cultural values here, where for many African cultures, as a woman, their esteem and reputation/self worth is tied up in being married and having children.What can they do? Nothing.

There are almost 15 MILLION orphans in Africa with a CONSERVATIVE estimate being that the figure will rise to almost 20 million by 2010.
In Liberia, when he last visited, they had over two million orphans (I think that's accurate from my memory) and they just couldn't cope.
Something that really struck Dave and I was that he said that would be like Canada suddenly having to cope with over 2 million orphans this year. We couldn't possibly cope either and that is with a highly developed infra structure and being one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
There were many more stats and some horrific, mind boggling ones like the U.S spending on the Iraq war was now over 9 BILLION....A MONTH! When I think of figures like that, it just makes me so mad.
Anyway, as you can see, I could go on and on. He had some heart wrenching stories. He had some encouraging stories (not many of these actually) He praised Canada's citizens for their compassion and their concern and condemned Canada's Government for their foreign aid practices and not meeting promises.
Many, many more things to say, but I don't have space or time (and I'm sure most of you have things to do too!) However, Dave and I talked into the night (both nights!). What can we do? What should we do?
We know that this is our heart, our passion, our calling to be involved with African orphans in some way.
For now, we will continue to take sponsorship of children in Africa very seriously. We will continue to support the organisations like HOPE International and Compassion that work tirelessly to make a difference. We will teach our children about the world and their spiritual, moral, HUMAN obligation to do whatever they can wherever they are. We will try to make ourselves aware of what in the world is going on in our world. We may at some point end up working in Africa, we know and talk about it endlessly, that is our big dream.