Jason Bortz, whose short documentary on aid to Africa called Scratching the Surface was recently in the spotlight at Christianity Today, has written a piece for The Other Journal about his experience. Check it out here.

People have asked if it was difficult to take a film crew to Kenya to film a documentary dealing with the pandemic of AIDS and the seemingly ineffectual efforts of a handful of people to stem the tide of affliction and disease. Our documentary, Scratching the Surface; A Journey with HEART, deals primarily with the efforts of a handful of volunteers who travel to Kenya to teach the nationals about health education, the curtailing of AIDS, and how to protect them from the further destruction of a nation.

Going was surprisingly far less difficult than I thought it would be. In fact, the most difficult obstacle to deal with was the loss of my journal.

If I had it, I’d be able to simply recount some of the thoughts pouring through me as I journeyed along for the two and a half weeks of my stay. I say pouring because it’s really like that—you’re either a sieve or a sponge when faced with a reality in such stark contrast to your own. The walls go up or they come down. There’s really no middle ground.

I have one email I sent to my wife and friends back home, one email that comes close to recapturing where I was during my stay…

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