CAR -- we can make a difference there! By Jeana Harley

I must say that beyond a shadow of a doubt God sent us (our church) on this trip. The very number of people who said they would be praying for us, the amount of people who followed the blog and the incredible welcome home with comments of many praying for us daily and frequently was something the likes of which I had never experienced before.

God has obviously moved in your hearts and a part of you went with us in the form of your prayers. I want to start off by saying thank you for being sensitive and obedient to the Holy Spirit. What we experienced in Africa cannot be overlooked, put on the back burner or excused away as someone else’s job. God wants us involved.


(women never cease to work in the CAR)

It is now our hope that you can somehow in some small way experience through us the severity and urgency of the needs in the CAR through pictures and stories and conclude in your hearts as we have that “…while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people…” (Galatians 6:10). For how can we go on living as usual in our blessed state here in America and not have it affect us? We must “not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased."

Having spent six weeks in the CAR many years ago, I was not shocked by the extreme poverty (extreme really doesn’t describe it either). I was prepared for the images and experiences we had. But this time I was there not as a single young woman but as a wife and mother. I began to look at the women in a different light because I could relate to them on another level. I looked at their workload and wondered if I could do that.

More often than not, it was the women cooking (an all day event), cleaning (not quite like we do though), walking to the river to wash dishes, bathe children and collect water to be carried back on their head while carrying babies on their backs and possibly some firewood or food. We often saw the men sitting idle around the fire in the family’s only chair. That would not excite me as a wife, but there would be no choice.

Then there is the daily experience of your children being ill, malnourished, and 50% of the time, dying. I began to wonder, “What would I do if half of my children died before age 5?” What joy would be robbed from my life? What sorrow I would have to live with? Perhaps living in survival mode 24/7/365 numbs them a little, but I doubt it.

I remember when our oldest was in the hospital needing emergency surgery when he was 22 months old. Had we been born in the CAR, he would have died. Then chances would be that one of our other two would be dead from diseases from drinking contaminated water, or from contracting malaria or the myriad of other unnecessary diseases that plague the country.

I don’t know why God chose for us to live here and not there, but perhaps it is for us to know what we know and to respond. God took me many times to I John 3:16-18, and I invite you to look there with me now. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words and tongue, but with action and in truth.” Let us be able to boast of the love of God being in us!

I want to share one experience in closing that I wasn’t prepared for. In Berberati we visited an orphanage. I had never seen such filthy living conditions. Had this been in the U.S., the place would have been shut down and those in charge sent to prison. There would have been such an uproar from the people for such atrocities. But here, the woman was doing what she could with what she had to care for the children.

I heard a baby crying. Later I found out she was only 11 months old. I found her lying on a mat on a cement floor. The mat was covered with green vomit, diarrhea, and urine. Her face was inches from some of it. A chicken had even vomited nearby as well. I went to pick her up and quickly realized she was wet with her own urine up to her shoulders. She stopped crying after I removed her soiled dress, her only covering, and held her tightly to provide warmth on that cooler rainy day.


(Jeana, holding little Michaela)

Eventually she began smiling at my funny faces and silly sounds. It might have been the first time she received eye contact from an adult. Our team had helped prepare some clothes for the children and after they were passed out, I put an outfit on her. I learned that her mother had died of AIDS and she, Michaela, probably has it too. The hardest thing in my life to do was to set her back down on that mat, say a prayer for her and leave her there to eventually die. At that moment I wanted to cry and scream out to God of the unfairness. Then I scolded myself for the thoughts that followed that she would be better off to die and be in the arms of Jesus than to live the life before her here.


(love language understood here)

I continue to pray for little Michaela. I pray for God’s intervention in her life. I pray that I will be able to accept whatever God allows to happen to her. But how many more have to die? How much longer will we wait to act? I know we can’t save everyone physically. I know that not all will be saved spiritually, but we must not grow weary with the task before us. We must do whatever God prompts us to do. We can make a difference physically and spiritually for some, and to those it will mean all the difference. And then we can praise God and give Him all the glory and honor for what He has done in and through us. What a privilege it is to sacrifice for the Lord.


(Jeana, with her husband Tim, at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris)