Change the World

New book, new inspiration. :)
I bought a new edition of Philip Yancey's bk "Finding God in Unexpected Places" today. And it was much needed to refuel my soul, to stir up my love for the written word, and to remind me of the power of writing. He's one of my favourite writers....and it's interesting how I'm reading his writings with a new lens now that I am learning to be a writer myself. :)

May the story below, extracted from Philip Yancey's Introduction, move you to be part of a God-movement that is already in motion.
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By Philip Yancey, "Finding God in Unexpected Places"

On a trip to South Africa, I met a remarkable woman named Joanna. She is of mixed race, part black and part white, a category known there as "Coloured." As a student she agitated for change in apartheid and then saw the miracle that no one had predicted, the peaceful dismantling of that evil system. Afterward, for many hours she sat with her husband and watched live broadcasts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.

Instead of simply exulting in her newfound freedoms, Joanna next decided to tackle the most violent person in South africa, a prison where Nelson Mandela had spent several years. Tattoo-covered gang members controlled the prison, strictly enforcing a rule that required new members to earn their admittance to the gang by assualting undesirable prisoners. Prison authorities looked the other way, letting these "animals" beat and even kill each other.

Alone, this attractive young woman started going each day into the bowels of that prison. She brought a simple message of forgiveness and reconciliation, trying to put into practice on a smaller scale what Mandela and Bishop Tutu were trying to effect in the nation as a whole. She organized small groups, taught trust games, got the prisoners to open up about the details of their horrific childhoods. The year before she began her visits, the prison had recorded 279 acts of violence; the next year there were two. Joanna's results were so impressive that the BBC sent a camera crew from London to produce two one-hour documentaries on her.

Ever the journalist, I pressed her for specifics on what had happened to transform that prison. She looked up and said, almost without thinking, "Well of course, Philip, God was already present in the prison. I just had to make him visible."