Dream 169

I am on a ship.
Above me, sales are unfurled, bellowing with fullness of wind that drives the ship through the sea swells with alarming power.

It takes me a few moments to adjust to where or when I am and suddenly the smell hits me. Not the salty ocean air, canvas, and scrubbed deck that you would imagine from a ship like this, but the stench of humanity.
I retch at the pungent assault. It smells like death, but worse. Feces mixed with unwashed bodies and the reek of decaying wounds that refuse to heal.
Now the sounds come. Not the creak of wood and snap of canvas, but the groans of the dying and the rattling of chains.
I am on a slaver. This ship is ferrying slaves.
Gatherer stands beside me in silence. I know he wants this all to settle into my soul.

Time passes, I grow accustomed to the smell and the sound of chains and groans.
Gatherer:
“In a decade, such injustice becomes normal to you. Time has a way of creating justification for any sin.
It has been this way for millennia. Even the church has gone deaf to the sound of chains and the groans of those in slavery.
The seed that was sown here broke this continent and it continues to break the world. The seed sown here took root and produced forests and these forests have sowed seeds all over the world to reap their own harvest.
The sins of the fathers come back to bring destruction upon the sons and only the sons of God can halt what is coming.
Africa must be healed. For a festering wound is not isolated, the entire body will die if that one wound is not seen to.
You think that the world is better. You think this because Africa does not yet have a voice. But look to social media, look as technology gives the world a voice. Look and see the seething hatred and festering bitterness. Islam gives the voiceless a target and the indifference of the church empowers the impetus.
We have sent prophets among you. We have sent angels among you. All silenced and ignored. Your children shall pay a price that you cannot imagine.
You think war romantic? You think bloodshed honorable?
Demons do not fight by the rules, they laugh at the sensibilities of the righteous. They scheme and manipulate the sons of Africa and stir up the hatred of the west. And Islam justifies the manifestation of that hatred. Do not be surprised when they attack the smallest of your children. Do not surprised when they act out abominable things upon your people. This is the harvest.
But it can be stopped.
Heal what you have broken.
The children of a people cannot separate themselves from their fathers. You are a people. A nation cannot lay down the sins of yesterday at the feet of their fathers. A nation is one, timeless in reaping fruit, timeless in reaping weeds. To sow as a nation is to reap as a nation. The sons must make right where the fathers go wrong.
If the sons do not make right, their children pay the price.
Repent then, and fix what your fathers have broken.
The west must work to heal what their fathers have broken.”

I sit for a while, digesting all that has been said.
Me:
“How do we heal what our fathers have broken? Places in poverty are so corrupt that sending them money simply creates greedy leadership.”

Gatherer:
“You will not heal hearts and minds with money alone, you must become willing slaves to teach, disciple and love those who are broken. Serve with excellence. Influence with wisdom, guide with patience.
Be willing slaves to the Gospel. Generations of Africa were broken, so generations must be healed.
To build a school and walk away is not enough son of sorrow. You must build, train and love until the very culture of poverty is healed within a community.”
Me:
“How can I encourage this?”
Gatherer:
“You are to unite the uniters. Do events for separate cultures and awaken within them a love for missions work. We will send great leaders to you and they will sit at your feet. Teach them to think as sheep, not goats. Teach them to be rivers, not dams. Raise up generals and expose them to the knighthood of servanthood. Create a culture of honor within this generation.
They are hungry for leadership so raise and train leaders. Unite the uniters!
The kingdom is all!”
Me:
“The kingdom is all!”
I wake up.