The question will be, “how many people would like to see my hair go a bright blue color?” Not the soft gentle blue that people with beautiful white hair sometimes use to enhance the whiteness. No, this would be a day-glow blue, the kind that says, “Has she lost her mind?”
Actually, there is a much larger question: how many people would like to see fewer babies and expectant mothers die and fewer people suffer from the awful scourge of malaria?
Although we’ve got mosquitoes here, we don’t have the kind that give people malaria. Malaria is not a disease like the flu or an infection that can be treated with time and possibly antibiotics. It is caused by a parasite, a tiny living creature carried by an infected mosquito. The mosquito gives this critter to the person from whom it takes blood upon its bite. Then that little critter burrows into the liver and stays there about a week until it grows up. At that point, it, it bursts out of the liver and starts going after red blood cells. About 48 hours later, the cells rupture, spewing the parasite out to infect more blood cells. And once enough red blood cells have been destroyed . . . well, it not hard to guess the outcome.
The ones most likely to die from this parasite are babies and pregnant mothers. Babies and pregnant mothers–the hope of the future . . . it’s just heartbreaking.
No one knows how many actually die each year from this parasite–the weakness caused by it also leaves them almost helpless against multiple other disease-causing agents, but the best guess is 2-3 million. Maybe another 200 million to 300 million are infected each year. It’s a world-wide horror.
The United Methodist Church, in connection with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other charitable organizations. have joined forces to eliminate malaria. Not just control it, but eliminate it. This will be done by massive distributions of treated bed nets, consistent and effective educational programs, and implementing structural changes that will disrupt the breeding cycle for the parasite.
So, what does blue hair have to do with this? Let’s just say that the youth leaders and Vacation Bible School folks came up with a great idea this past week: since Imagine No Malaria is the mission project for our VBS this coming week, and since the pastor is really, really passionate about this . . . how about if she dyes her hair blue if we reach our fund-raising goal for this effort?
Yes, I’m old. Yes, the massive number of grey hairs on my head are generally nicely concealed with very frequent use of certain agents that mimic whatever color my hair may have been once (I honestly don’t remember!). And yes, I am on occasion, a pretty good sport.
We’ve set a reasonable goal that the children may be able to reach if they work hard at it. If we reach this by Friday, July 29, the last day of VBS, this intrepid pastor, conservative in dress and manner, will show up at church and work for as long as I can stand it with bright blue hair.
It’s worth a life.
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