Cry, The Beloved Country

Cry, The Beloved Country

This is one of my neighborhood friends who loved to play with the goats. 

This man is from the northern mountain village of Cap'iat. We met while hiking. 

This is one of our beautiful malnutrition clinic babies. She is doing so much better.

Cry, The Beloved Country

Cry, the beloved Country
For you were beautiful once
Until the winds of time and pain
Weathered your sandy shores
Your leaves were green, your trees were tall
Until the sun beat them down.

Cry, the beloved Country
For you were beautiful once
The traces of your past rest in buried grace
And darkness tries to cover you in shadows

Cry for the people left in ruin
For the hungry
For the poor
Cry for those whose tears flood the country

Cry for the beauty of what once was…
For the theft of what was taken
For the pain of what was broken

Cry, my beloved Country
I hold you near my heart
May I bind your open wounds
And satisfy your thirst
I hold you close and watch you bleed

Cry, my beloved Country
For you were beautiful once.
I cry, for you will be beautiful again.
In a slow and aging dance, your beauty will return.
For brokenness will turn to grace
The shadow lands will bathe in light.

Cry, the beloved Country
For a day is coming when tears are needed no more
And more beautiful you will be, than you ever were before.